Gary’s cubicle reeked of burnt coffee and despair. Every morning, he performed the ritual: 12 ounces of black espresso, brewed in a chipped mug shaped like a disgruntled raccoon. But today, the mug was empty. Not just empty—*stolen*. He scanned the office, eyes narrowing over rows of identical beige desks. Then he saw it: Linda’s fingers twitching around his mug, sipping with the reverence of a priest at communion.
“That’s my existential anchor,” Gary blurted, lunging for the mug. Linda blinked, coffee sloshing onto her keyboard.
“It’s 8 a.m., Gary. You’re already unhinged,” she said, backing into a printer jam.
He didn’t care. Without his coffee, his brain was a deflated balloon. So he did the unthinkable: He asked for a *cup of water*. Linda stared, horrified, as he slurped the lukewarm H2O, eyes watering from the betrayal. By noon, he’d traded his soul for a 50-cent vending machine latte, which tasted like regret and expired milk. But when he finally reclaimed his raccoon mug—filled with cold, bitter truth—he raised it in a shaky toast. To survival. To caffeine. To the fragile madness of being alive.
(Word count: 200)
