Daria nodded, removed the filter and banged it upside-down over the dump bin until the old grounds fell out as a nearly solid disc, miniature hockey puck of spent espresso. She rinsed the filter clean beneath the scalding jet on the far right side of the machine and scooped a cup’s worth of the fine black powder from the can on the countertop. The espresso flowed from the scooper like liquid midnight, dry fluid so perfectly dark, so smooth, it seemed to steal the dim coffeehouse light, to breathe it alive and exhale velvet caffeine fumes.

Daria added a second scoop and packed it down with the plastic tamper, slid the filter back into the machine and punched the “double” button above the brewer. She glanced at the register, and the scarecrow was counting out the dollar-fifty for his drink in quarters and dimes and nickels, a handful of change spilled on the bar and his long fingers pushing coin after coin across the wood to Bunky. He didn’t really look anything like Keith, too healthy despite his thinness, much too alive. Sometimes she thought the only part of Keith that had survived the junk was his eyes, his strange granite eyes trapped in there alone, and that everything else was just clumsy puppet tricks with string and shadow.

The espresso drained from the brewer’s jets, twin golden streams, smooth as blood from an open vein; Daria caught the steaming coffee in a demitasse, waiting for the machine to finish. In the glass, the liquid was as black as the powder had been, black as pitch, and the layer of nut-brown créma thick and firm enough to support sugar crystals. She took a strip of lemon peel from a plastic container and rubbed it around the rim, then passed the glass to Bunky and the scarecrow carried it away.

Daria looked up at the huge Royal Crown Cola clock, vintage plastic glowing like a full moon above the fridge, and the shelves crowded with their heavy glass jars of freshly roasted beans.