The guy at my feet looks pretty dead, but I don't have time to be happy about that right now.

I gotta get some coffee.

The hallway I'm stumbling down is a dim grey wallowing pit, but all I'm thinking is "kitchen, kitchen, where's your goddamed kitchen?"

A coffee maker, is what I really need. I don't give a shit about the kitchen. I need a nice, fat-bellied 10-cup capacity pot and a new brick of freeze-dried grounds. I need Arabica, Columbian-blend, Circle-F Mart crap beans, I don't care. I gotta get some coffee in my system, fast.

Kitchen! Where's the coffeemaker?

There's only an ancient-looking toaster on the three dinky feet of counter space. I can't use a toaster. Piles of dirty dishes in the sink, the stove ditto with dirty pans.

I'm ripping open cabinets now. Dry goods, cans. Spam. Are you kidding me? Were those squishy pieces in the the spaghetti sauce spam chunks? I'd feel sick if I wasn't already shaking. Instant. There has got to be some petrified instant in here somewhere.

You bastard! Not even instant?

Oh, great. Now I'm starting to hallucinate. In my hand, I can feel the warm glow of the jumbo coconut latte I was holding a week ago when that psychopath shoved a gun in my side and forced me into his truck, leaving all that precious coffee splattered on the asphalt of the coffee shop parking lot.

Coffee shop! That's the answer!

I'm out the front door and into the weed-filled yard before facts register in my caffeine-deprived brain. I've got no money. I don't even know where I am.

Trees. Fields. Some. . . sheds or something. Great, I was kidnapped by a lonely farmer. That explains this stupid granny dress and pearls he gave me to wear and the moth-eaten slippers on my feet. Probably missed his Mommy too much.

The breeze out here smells like macchiato.

He's still dead. Still got a fork rammed in the side of his neck. "Money! Keys! Coffee!" I scream at him as I shove open different doors.

My shoes are in his bedroom, along with the rest of my clothes. I don't even want to know, I just put them on.

There's twenty bucks in the wallet on his night table.

My wallet now.

No keys.

Damn.

I can't believe it, the keys are in the truck's ignition. Where am I, Mayberry?

I'm tripping so badly as I pull out onto the road, I could swear the pine freshener dangling from the rear view is filling the cab with the fiery, sensuous smell of espresso.

And now as I'm looking for road signs to direct me back to town, the only thought going through my brain is, Oh, god, I could kill for a cup of coffee. I could kill for a cup of coffee. I could kill for a cup of coffee.

And then I think, oh wait, I just did.