The Importance of Diligence: Part 4

Most of the Heavenly Embassy rose and slept with the light of day. At night, all was quiet – all except the Paradise Café. When every other building was dark, windows shuttered for sleep, the café hummed with life and electronic light. The neon “OPEN” sign on the glass door buzzed with its welcoming purple glow all hours of the day, and the warm light from its windows poured out as a golden river onto the cobblestone street.

It was a short walk from the Embassy’s greenhouse to Paradise Café, but still too long as far as Narcissus was concerned. As he was leaving for the day, hoping for a date with his couch and some late-night television noise, Primrose had cornered him with another job to do. Delivery to the Café, he said. The little smile on the cherubun’s face seared a furtive crescent in Narcissus’ memory, but despite his coy smile he had an authoritativeness in his voice. Like the delivery was not a request, but an order – and the smile told Narcissus it was one he was enjoying giving. Narcissus wanted more than anything to tell the smug bastard to fuck off and boss around somebody else, but he’d already done so much – he couldn’t blow everything up now.

Narcissus had turned down the offer of a dolly for the bags of coffee, saying he could carry them over himself, no problem. He wanted to look tough, but now he just felt stupid. What had been decently weighty bags of coffee beans some blocks ago were now unwieldly tonnages pulling down on his weakening arms and back. Thank the devil he’d made it to the shop without dumping them all in the street – if he’d done that, Primrose would have really shown him what Hell was like. The door to the café was push to open and unlocked. Eager for respite from his heavy load, Narcissus let himself in. He ducked under the doorway to avoid knocking his antlers on the top of the doorframe. Evidently, the buildings around the Embassy weren’t constructed with people who have an extra foot of horn on their heads in mind.

Despite the warm welcome the coffee shop offered, on this night it was empty, save a woman in a lacy dress and purple apron working away at some contraption of silver pipes and glass. She trotted back and forth, shoes clicking a fast tune against the hardwood floors, pouring a cup ground beans in one end and turning knobs at the other. Steam billowed from the device and the smell of fresh coffee filled the room. All the cherubun’s fur was white and pastel lavender, except for a patch of brown at the tip of her curly whipped-cream dollop of a tail, like she’d dipped it in the coffee she brewed. Narcissus couldn’t fathom how she managed to keep up her pep at such a late hour. Maybe she was sampling the merchandise.

A little bell hung at the top of the door announced Narcissus’ arrival, but the woman in the shop apparently hadn’t heard it ring. Narcissus cleared his throat, but the woman didn’t turn around. He tried again, more loudly.

“Just put it in the back!” Her voice was clear and bright, like the machine at which she worked.

Shuffling his cargo in his arms to free up a hand, Narcissus pointed to a door at the back of the shop, half-hidden in a patch of shadow the warm lights overhead didn’t quite reach, and Beanny chirped back at him, “that’s the one!” How she knew what he was pointing at or that he was even pointing at all, Narcissus couldn’t hazard a guess. She still hadn’t turned around.

Still, he made his way to the back, with more shuffling and struggling as he spent a minute or two trying to figure out how to open the door with his knee – both arms being occupied with the bags of coffee beans. Grunting, sweating, and trying hard not to curse, he pushed past the door with his shoulder into the darkened back room. It smelled strongly of coffee and some other acrid smell he couldn’t quite place. Eager to be done with his task, Narcissus shoved the heavy bags on the first shelf he found. Some glass objects, beakers and tubes, clinked against each other as they were shoved aside to make room. This was not the coffee shelf, but that was not his problem. Task done, Primrose satisfied (hopefully), and now he could finally go home. Narcissus turned around, and two bright eyes blinked at him.

“Gah!” Narcissus stumbled backwards, nearly knocking over a shelf. The woman had appeared behind him silently, staring at him from behind round glasses. She tilted her head, seeming amused at his reaction.

“I thought I should say hello. I’m Beanny, the proprietor and inventor-at-work here.” She tilted her head the other way. The purple halo floating behind her head, glowing like the neon out front, illuminated the edge her cloudlike hair with a border of lavender luminescence. “Do I know you?”

“Narcissus Jonquil. We haven’t met. But you’ve probably heard of me from the people around here.” Narcissus spoke with confidence, recovered from his initial shock, but he gestured to himself like he was a product he was trying to sell to a customer some small part of him knew needed some convincing to think him worth buying.

“Sure, I’ve heard about you.” Beanny smiled with just one side of her mouth, as though what she just said was a secret joke.

“Yeah?” Narcissus’ expression brightened, and new motes of light winked into existence from his excitement, glittering around his dumbly grinning face.

“Yep. Primrose tells me about your little adventures over his morning coffee.” Beanny gave a short slight laugh, sparkling but sharp. “You annoy the hell out of him.”

The hopeful sparkle around Narcissus’s face blinked out in an instant. His eyes darkened. “Great,” he grumbled. “That’s just great. I do all this work for that arrogant prick, and all he can say about me is that I’m annoying! Why do I even fucking bother?”

Feeling annoyed himself, Narcissus impulsively moved to kick one of shelves, but caught himself just before impact – probably best not to beat up this woman’s furniture in front of her. Instead, his shoe impotently danced mid-air before swinging back down, like the world’s saddest dance step.

“Don’t worry your shiny little head about it. You can’t please everybody.”

“But – “ Narcissus began, but like his kick, he failed to complete what he’d started. Instead, that quavering note hung as Narcissus wrestled with anything he could say to rebut Beanny’s declaration that sounded neither too arrogant nor too pathetic. Beanny waited as he agonized, collecting data, and interrupted once he was silent long enough that she was certain he wouldn’t figure out what to say before dawn.

“Do-gooding is tiring work. Coffee’s good for that, you know.” She stepped back, letting the light of the café filter into the dark storeroom, an invitation of respite.

He was never one to resist a tempting offer. Ten minutes later, and Narcissus sat at one of the café’s tables, drink in hand. Each of his fangs were a secret sweet tooth, and he’d chosen one of those drinks that was more of a milkshake with a shot of caffeine in it than real coffee. Just as much whipped cream and candy as liquid, it was served in a transparent plastic cup, displaying the guts of the drink, brightly colored swirls of sugary goop mixed in with milky white froth. It seemed incredible that someone could look morose while sipping on one of those things, but somehow, Narcissus managed it. The coffee was more needed than he realized before Beanny offered it. Sure, he was tired before, carrying those bags, but just now he felt exhausted. He had experienced more than a few late nights, but at least he was usually having fun during them.

Through the café’s windows, Narcissus could see the Embassy greenhouse, the centerpiece of the Embassy. No bustle of busy gardeners around it, given how late it was. Though it was dark within the greenhouse, a few bright flowers stood out against the deep near-black of the foliage behind the glass walls, little spots of color smattered about on a deep emerald canvas. Some of those flowers, he’d helped to plant and raise. It should make him feel proud, to see his handiwork. But so what? Without the people there to see them, see him, those flowers were just more leaves and petals like the others next to them, insignificant. Narcissus turned his gaze away.

He wanted something for all his trouble. A little golden plaque with his name in curling font inscribed in it forever. A handshake from the mayor and the key to the city. A pat on the head and a puppy biscuit. Something.

“I thought this was what people wanted from me. But even if I’m helping, they hardly like me any better than if I shoved them in a locker or spit on them.” Narcissus whined to no one in particular, though Beanny was hovering nearby, listening to her delivery boy’s woes. Those were some interesting examples he gave. It sounded like he’d had experience doing both.

“What am I supposed to do?” He asked, again not necessarily expecting an answer, spitting out the words in between chewing on his straw.

“What do you want to do?” Beanny replied, simply.

Narcissus flicked his gaze up at her from under his scowling brows, then looked back out the window. He rolled his shoulders in a half-shrug and took a loud suck of his syrup-coffee mix. No other answer. Beanny laced her fingers together, tapping each paired finger together in turn, index to pinky.

“I conduct my brewery experiments for the satisfaction of finding out something new, getting just the right mix of ingredients, making something perfect. I do it because I want to. If someone praises me for it, fine. If they try to stop me…” Beanny dipped her head. Her glasses flashed for just a moment, hiding her expression behind the glare. The glasses slid down her nose, and her eyes were revealed again, one eyebrow quirked. “Listen, kiddo, there’s no point in living if you just act according to what other people want. Trust me.”

“What if what I want is to do what other people want?” Narcissus snapped, not angry at her, exactly, but having no other outlet. Thankfully, Beanny didn’t appear offended at his bluster. Perhaps she had experience dealing with sensitive sorts.

“Let me put it another way. If everyone else in Burrowgatory vanished, and it was just you alone in the world for the rest of your life – what would you do with yourself?”

“I don’t know.” Narcissus shook his head, raised his hands, then let them flop down. “I’d jerk off until I die.”

Beanny raised her hand to her chin, index finger curled around her lips, a wry smile behind it. She nodded, eyebrows raised, like he’d just said something profound.

“So, according to your great advice on life, I should just go fuck myself.” Narcissus picked up his near-empty cup and launched it across the room to the trash bin like a free throw. It bounced off the rim and clattered against the floor with the sound of hollow plastic and liquid spatter. Zero points.

“It’s an idea,” Beanny replied, smirk still intact. “Or, you could keep helping out, and tidy up that mess you just made.”

Before he could reply, Beanny turned and clicked away on her heels, disappearing off to the back room. Narcissus sat there on his chair, half leaned over, motionless, staring at the door Beanny has waltzed through, waiting for her to return. Minutes ticked by. The neon “OPEN” sign hummed. The streets were empty outside.

She did not return. Narcissus was left alone in the shop. What should he do with himself?

Narcissus heaved a sigh, got to his feet, and cleaned up his mess.