After careful selection of items, the woman paid for her thrift store purchases. The clerk judiciously wrapped the working coffee pot with an un-cracked carafe, the beat up coffee grinder, and a white embossed coffee mug with a slight crack. The woman cautiously pulled the scarf over her head and sunglasses over her eyes as she exited. She stopped at the corner store mart for some filters and made her way to her sparsely furnished apartment.
After entering her place, the woman carefully turned each door lock, leaving a random one unturned to thwart a lock picker. She sat her purchases on the counter. As she pulled the scarf off her head, her long blonde hair tumbled down her shoulders. She tossed the shades next to the bag. Placing both hands on either side of the sink, she breathed out as she tried to relax from her trip out.
The slim, long-legged woman diligently washed out the carafe and set up the coffee pot. She carefully ground the beans from her special collection that was left over from another time, another life. She filled the tank with bottled water and flipped the switch. And waited.
The rich, deep aroma of brewing coffee wafted from the newly assembled machine. Placing her elbows on the counter, the long-legged blonde pushed her nose as close to the top of the carafe as possible. It had been a long time since she had smelled the brew of freshly ground Costa Rican coffee.
Coffee. They say the smells can trigger so much in the human soul– memories, good feelings, feelings of wakefulness. The aroma alone of coffee can trigger a caffeine addict's brain into stimulation by the simple thought that the brewed drink is close at hand. Most coffee drinkers would never give up the dark drink not just for the jolt it provides but because the smell and taste are so deeply tied to the brain's pleasure center. But that's what they say, whoever they are.
Breathing in deeply, she began to feel a strange feeling in her stomach. She felt as if someone had tied a rope to something within her stomach. Without warning, the woman was yanked into the coffee pot and deposited somewhere in what seemed to be a parallel universe.
The blonde woman finally began to stir. The black haired woman was immediately by her side, offering her a fresh cup of coffee in the white embossed mug the woman had previously purchased at the thrift store. The younger woman took it from her warily, unable to resist the smell, and sipped daintily.
"Who are you? Where am I?" The blonde looked around at her surroundings. She was seemingly in her apartment. But this stranger, as kind as she seemed, did not belong.
"I'm Alex. What's your name?"
"Piper. You didn't tell me - where am I?"
"Look around. Where do you think you are?"
Piper gave a hummppft. "From the looks of it, the same crappy apartment I've been hiding in for the last week. But if that's where I'm at, that doesn't explain how you got in here." Piper raised a finger pointedly at the stranger in the apartment.
Alex took a long sip of her coffee. "Doka Plantation, Costa Rica, right?" Piper's eyes grew wide at Alex's correct identification of where the coffee had come from. "This is sort of that apartment but not really." Alex stood. "Check this out." She walked over to the wall which separated the kitchen and bedroom. She punched the wall with all her might. Piper winced, waiting for the sound of cracking knuckles. "No look."
Piper looked as she saw the wall begin to sway and waver. It was shimmering. Looking extremely closely, Piper saw herself sitting at a similar table, drinking coffee from an identical embossed white mug. "What the fuck?" Startled, Piper stood up nearly knocking both her and Alex's coffee mugs over. She backed away from the dark haired woman. "Start talking. Fast."
"Yeah, it kind of freaked me out, too. It's some kind of alternative reality. I think it's tied to that damned coffee pot. Did you get it at the thrift store on the corner?" Piper nodded. "I'm not exactly sure, but I think I've been over here almost two months now. I can't figure how the fuck to get back. Nothing I try in this apartment yields, it just shimmers. I could only see myself in the other universe until a few days ago. Then you showed up. Now all I can see is you. I don't know where I went."
Piper struggled to awaken from the dream she had. She laid still for quite some time trying to put the dream into her long term memory so that she could tell Alex about the crazy story her brain had just told. As Piper became fully awake, she realized that what had awakened her from her slumber was the smells of freshly brewing coffee.
Piper loved that Alex had bought her a new coffee pot with a timer so that they could have coffee as soon as they rolled out of bed. Plus, the smell of coffee beat the hell out of any coffee pot. Piper turned over to face a still sleeping Alex and stared at her girlfriend with a silly grin on her face. How could she not be in love with this woman? She couldn't even bear being separated from her when they had to go to work.
Feeling in a rather frisky mood, she decided to rouse Alex in Alex's favorite way. Piper reached out to caress Alex's face. Yet Piper's hand met resistance. She moved her hand more feverishly, panicking each time her skin did not make contact with Alex's. Then Piper saw it. The air between herself and Alex began to shimmer.
A/N: I have no idea where this came from. I guess it's entertainment on an evening of downtime during the busiest part of my year.
The shimmering part did, however, come from the most awesome movie, Interstellar