"Coffee, Cream, and Sugar"
By Kara 'Windof'

"So then, my bros, they just look at this cliff edge and they're all like, 'no, way, dude' and I'm all like, 'fine then! I'll just do it alone!', so I took the parachute and I totally jumped. It was like, friggin' sweet. Those other guys, they just couldn't handle it but I could. That's just the way I am. I'm totally extreme... Hey, you listening?"
Evelyn stared at the man before her, eyes wide open and mouth slightly ajar. 'Was this guy for real?' She thought as she nodded dumbly. "Uh-huh."
"Cool, so anyway, then I beat them at..."
Evelyn already wasn't listening as Brad Tanner rattled off another load of flattering b.s. about himself and how he was so much more macho than... every other man in the world. Was this his idea of a good date? 'Hey, buddy, ask about me...' Evelyn snapped out of her reverie only briefly to clasp her wine glass tightly and take a long sip. Where did she get this guy anyway? He was worse than her last date, the village idiot from an illiterate clan of morons. She didn't think that anyone could really be this full of hisself.
"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I helped those kids at the orphanage to read?"
"No, but I bet you will." Evelyn replied in a purposefully monotone voice. And yet Mr.-Windbag just kept talking!
"Well, anyway, I'll tell you now."
'What is wrong with me?' moaned Evelyn. 'Is God just completely against me having a happy life? I can never get a really great guy to go out with me. I'm 23 years old and I've dumped 38 men since the 9th grade. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too damned picky to find a guy. Or maybe there just isn't a Mr. Right out there for me. Maybe I'm doomed to be alone forever...'
With this disheartening thought, Evelyn grabbed her wine glass again and drained the rest of it in one gulp. Brad stopped his self-promoting for one minute to glance at her in awe. Ignoring him, Evelyn reached for the near-full wine bottle.
"Hey, are you really gonna drink all that wine? I mean... it's kinda expensive." Evelyn glared at him incredulously and put the bottle back in the ice bucket.
"You know, it's really against my morals to date an alcoholic, maybe we can get you some help. I know a really good therapist--"
'AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!'
Evelyn stood up so abruptly her chair almost fell over. She grabbed her coat and purse and turned to Brad. "I've got to go. I just remembered, I have to... I have to go to my AA meeting." She lied.
"All right, good luck then, Evelyn! I'm always here for support if you need it. I had a really great evening!" 'Yeah, cuz' you spent the whole thing talking about yourself you pompous windbag.'
"Oh, Evelyn, wait!"
Evelyn turned around reluctantly. "What?" She asked curtly.
"I think I forgot my wallet at home, could you...?" He gestured to the table and Evelyn's eyes widened a fraction. She turned on her heels and walked out of the restaurant.

Evelyn poured the cream in her big cup that they served coffee in in this coffeehouse, her favorite coffeehouse around. She stuck the little stick in and swirled it around, watching the cream and sugar dissolve. Somehow, it reminded her of hopes and dreams, being swirled around in the flurry of her life. The sugar could be her hopes, the cream represented her dreams, and the black, rich coffee was her life with all it's downfalls and unexpected turns. Maybe, if she drank her hopes and dreams, they would come true...
Evelyn took a sip. It was good coffee, but she didn't feel enlightened yet.
"You're here pretty late." Sam, the guy who always served her coffee walked up to Evelyn, wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Everyone else is gone for the night, even our other regulars."
"Yeah, well, no rest for the weary." Evelyn sunk into the couch, Sam sitting right across from her on the other couch. She threw an arm over her face, blocking out her vision. When she pulled the arm off again, she stared at the spiky, orange-haired young man across from her. "I had a date tonight."
"Oh, do tell." Sam sat back in his seat.
Evelyn stared at him dumbly. "Don't you have something to do right now?"
"I do, actually, but I'm locking up tonight so I can stay as long as I want to. Course, if you don't want to tell me, that's perfectly fine. I'll just leave you to your miseries--" He moved to stand up.
"The guy was full of himself." Evelyn finally relented. Sam sat back down and waited for her to continue. "Seriously, he must have told me about every single accomplishment he's ever made since he was about 8 years old. He couldn't have *been* more bigheaded."
"That sucks."
"Yeah, it really does. As if I've hadn't had enough with my past dates. Marcus Harrell-- Mr.-All-Brawn-And-No-Brains; Gregory Finn who lied about everything-- he told me he owned part of Microsoft! Oh, and I almost forgot about Daryl Haffah, who seemed like a really great guy until, at the end of our date, he told me he had to get home to his *wife*."
Sam flinched. "Ooh, harsh. Hey, Evie, it could be worse. You could date an escaped serial killer or something."
"You know, there was Todd Fishel who kept a LOT of garbage bags in his basement. He told me he was in the middle of spring cleaning though, so I don't know..." Sam chuckled lightly, leaning back on the couch.
"Oh, Evie, you certainly are the magnet of bad dates."
Evelyn snorted. "I'm so lucky to be so attractive to the entire population of jerks in this world."
Sam stood up from the couch. "Hey, I gotta get on cleaning the kitchen out. You can stay here until I lock up, if you want to wait that long."
"I'll just stay out here and work on Journey's End. I'll see ya later, if I decide to get out of here." Sam left the coffeehouse's front room, disappearing into the kitchen and Evelyn pulled out her navy blue notebook, the sketchy beginning for her new novel, Journey's End. She wrote a lot of stories, mostly short ones, but she never published any of them. They were more for the entertainment of herself and any choice friends who she let read them. Her stories had a lot to do with her personal life, and Evelyn couldn't stand having the whole world read into her mind. She opened the notebook, pencil in hand, and scribbled a few errant sentences. Suddenly, inspiration struck her and she dropped the navy notebook into her bag and pulled out a blank green one.
Opening up to the first page, Evelyn ran her hand down the white surface, tracing the sheet with her finger idly before deciding on a beginning and began scribbling down the letters in a messy scrawl that was typical of her when she was in 'the zone'-- the time when her hand controlled the pencil and not her mind. Her best ideas came out of the zone.
When she'd written two pages, she snapped out of the zone and skimmed over what she'd just wrote. It was about a young woman searching aimlessly for love, like most of her stories. She could never write a novel without adding in some kind of romance. She was a hopeless romantic, she admitted to herself often. She desperately wanted Buffy and Angel to get over their differences and get together, and she cried in Titanic when Jack died. It was lame, she knew, but she couldn't help herself... It was just the way she was.
Anyway, this woman in the story, she was talking about how she'd never find the man of her dreams... She thought something was wrong with her... thought maybe she wasn't destined to find the perfect man for her...
"God, self-insertion much?" Evelyn said to herself, a bit disgusted. But as her eyes skimmed over the lines of writing, she found more and more that she didn't know how to continue with this story. Where was she supposed to go with it now? What did she do? Would the woman's dreams ever come true? Evelyn lay down on the couch, leaning against the arm, her full, bouncy red hair spreading out like an ocean of curls. She closed her eyes, imagining her own destiny...
... And when she opened them up again, she was in Heaven. Literally. The place was incredibly heavenlike. The sky above was a clear blue, bluer than any blue that anyone on Earth had ever had the privilege to see. She was walking on a cloud, her bare feet sinking in like they were walking on a plush carpet. This was a special place, she knew. It was for her alone. She sniffed the air-- the clean, unpolluted vanilla air that wasn't at all like the New York smog she was used to-- and threw herself down on a cloud, not at all surprised that she didn't fall through to the ground far, far below. She rolled over onto her back, throwing her dainty hands into the air.
Evelyn stood up and ran over to a mirror that just happened to be there, specifically for her because she requested it. She admired herself, wondering where those 5 extra pounds of baby fat had gone and why her waist looked so much more like a supermodel's. She was wearing a beatiful white gown that fit her perfectly. Why wouldn't it? It was made just for her. Her lips, a little fuller, were coated with a light pink lipstick and her makeup was perfectly applied and didn't run. She looked *perfect.*
Evelyn took another deep breath of the fresh air... and exhaled abruptly. "I'm dreaming." She told herself. "I'm just dreaming, and nothing more. I'm not perfect, I'm a journalist for a magazine living in a dirty condo in New York City. This isn't me, this is just a dream."
Evelyn turned around to sit on the cloud and wait until she woke up, but she was caught mid-spin and jumped, startled. An incredibly handsome man was holding her in his arms, gazing into her eyes. He was the most beautiful man Evelyn had ever seen, with a flawlessly constructed body and dark, chocolate brown eyes. He had untidy brown hair and was a little unshaven which, for Evelyn's personal preferences, made him look even sexier. As he stared at Evelyn in his expensive black suit and tie, still holding her in his strong but gentle grip, Evelyn managed to stammer, "Wh-- Who are you?"
The man grinned, a horribly irresistable grin that made Evelyn want to melt right there into a puddle, and he answered her, in a not-at-all irritating voice, "Daniel."
"Daniel." Evelyn repeated, dumbstruck. A moment later, she found her voice. "Daniel, why are you here?"
"You created me." Daniel told her. "You wanted the perfect guy, the 'guy of your dreams'... Well, I'm him. I'm everything you want in a man. And it's all thanks to you."
"I-- I created you? That's impossible."
"This is your dream. Nothing's impossibe." He leaned in and kissed her on her lips. Just as she started letting herself go and enjoying the kiss, Daniel pulled away. "Come on. I've got something to show you." As Daniel took her hand and led her across the road of clouds forming under each step she took, she suddenly didn't want to wake up anymore.
"Here we are." Evelyn blinked and suddenly they were in a dazzling garden. Her attire had changed to a purple tank top and floral skirt with sandals. She was now standing on a cobblestone path winding away into a maze of green trees, plants, and flowers of every color she could imagine and some she could never imagine in her wildest dreams because they didn't exist anywhere else but here. Reds, purples, yellows, pinks, blues, and lots and lots of green. Quaint forest animals, not afraid to be near her, feasted on grass and mushrooms nearby and birds of all types landed on the slender branches of trees.
"This place is paradise." Evelyn murmured.
"It's your paradise." Daniel told her. "You control it." Daniel let a tiny sparrow land on his hand and brought it close to his face, stroking its tiny back before releasing it into the sky. Evelyn was struck silent by the delicate elegance and charm of this place, and only when she could regain her composure, she attempted to talk to Daniel about what he'd said earlier.
"What are you saying... exactly? That... this... is my dream scenery, you are my ideal man and I can have you, now, because I'm dreaming about you?"
"Sort of like that." Daniel didn't sound at all annoyed that she had asked, but when he answered, he made it sound so much like it didn't matter what the terms of her being here were. It only mattered that they were here in this moment, and that it was going to last forever.
"God, my dreams are so cliche'." Evelyn commented dryly.
"It doesn't matter, they're *your* dreams, and if they're like this, then this must be how you want them to be, how you imagine Heaven to be."
"I'm not actually in Heaven, am I?" Evelyn asked, starting to feel worried that maybe this Utopia wasn't all it was made out to be.
"Of course not. I'm the only one here who has died and gone to Heaven." Daniel put his arms around her waist and kissed her again. "Just to have this moment with you means everything to me." He whispered.
Evelyn let herself be lost in his touch for a minute or an eternity then he pulled her away again.
"Come on." He led her again, running this time. Evelyn ran after him, never running out of breath, never feeling tired, past the glistening fountains of water, past the fairy tale statues and brilliant gardens, taking in every inch of scenery, the energy building inside her until she laughed out loud. Daniel wrapped his arms around her, stopping their movement.
"You are my divine beauty, Evie." Something about that nickname struck a chord, but she forgot about it instantly when her world around her changed again, this time to a modern living room overlooking a busy street below.
"Where are we now Daniel?" Evelyn asked, curious.
"This is your ideal future. This is our house. Just like you always wanted."
Daniel's intellectual voice-- his words-- alone felt like they could make all of her dreams come true. This couldn't be happening to her. Good things never happened to Evelyn Darby. This was like something out of the movies... She watched entirely too many movies...
Evelyn waltzed over to a shelf full of books and was startled to pick out one called Journey's End. "Those are your books." Daniel told her. "All of them. Your stories are a big hit and you're a bestseller. I'm a doctor. Together, we've brought millions of dollars home to the family."
"Family?" Evelyn choked. As if on cue, a tiny, cherubic child entered the room, her red hair duplicating Evelyn's own. She rushed up to Daniel and the man scooped her up in his arms.
"Daddy! Mommy! Guess what?! I drew a picture in school today. Look." She held up a piece of paper so Evelyn could see too and pointed out each of the characters in the picture. "There's, you, mommy, and there's you, daddy, and there's me, and there's Chara, and there's Danny, and there's grandma and grandpa over there. Do you like it?"
'This child can't be mine. This wonderful, angelic child cannot be a product of me. Aside from her hair, she looks much more like Daniel, her... her father... She's beautiful, and she's just plain perfect... Like I now am...'
"Mommy?" The child prompted.
"I love it honey." Evelyn managed to get out. Satisfied, the child grinned happily and was set down by her father before bouncing off down the hall. Evelyn watched, as if in slow motion, before rushing over to Daniel and embracing him, locking him in a passionate kiss that she never wanted to end.
"I love you..." Daniel murmured, breaking the kiss for a moment.
Evelyn pulled away, speaking to Daniel in a honeyed voice. "This is really a dream come true. I write about guys like you all the time, thinking about how I'd never find you, and now I finally have you here in this dream world, and you treat me better than any man I've ever known in my whole life. This is unlike anything I've ever experienced and I hope this never ends."
"It doesn't have to. I'll always be here for you, I'll always stand by you, no matter what." Daniel answered.
"I've lived my whole life believing this could never happen though. I've dated every loser on the planet with no luck. I've never done anything really wrong, never meant to hurt anyone in my whole life. Why can't I ever have a guy like you?"
Daniel leaned in closer to her face, slowing down this moment like it was everything that mattered in life and beyond. Nothing else was there, no one else existed, nothing else was important, except the two of them, here, at this exact moment in time. Daniel whispered in a husky, chocolate voice and Evelyn absorbed every word. "You can have a guy like me... every time you pick up your pencil and start to write."
Evelyn froze.
And the moment melted away. Just like that, the dream world had lost its attraction. "Well I'm kind of sad and pathetic!" Evelyn bemoaned.
Daniel pulled away. "What?"
"I can have a guy like you everytime I write about you? What a jip! I get to write about Prince Charming, I get to *create* him, but I can't have him. That's just unfair." Daniel didn't say anything. But Evelyn wasn't looking at him anymore. He wasn't real. He wasn't faultless. He was just a figment of her imagination, concocted to make her feel better about herself. According to him, she could never really have Prince Charming in real life because she could only attain him in her dreams. It just wasn't fair.
"But this is your Utopia Evie. This is everything you want in life and I'm offering it to you. All you have to do is stay here and live."
"I'm not living here, Daniel. I'm not living at all when I'm here. I'm dreaming, this isn't real. This is just a hallucination and I'm not really here, so how can I *live* here? Huh?"
"If you just belive--"
"No," Evelyn interrupted. "I'm done believing. You've ruined that for me. I don't ever believe I'll find my true love and you've proved that for me. But I can't stay here, I can't keep living here in this false reality, pretending that everything is real and true. I have to stop living in a made-up world where I'm a princess and grow up Daniel! I don't want to play around with the universe to fit my own ambitions because the universe isn't mine to own. I don't want to be the center of attention, Daniel. I want to share my universe with my true love, or I'll just end up feeling even more lonely." Daniel just stared at her. "I want to go home. I want to stop dreaming. This isn't a dream anymore, its a nightmare. Please make it end."
Daniel strode toward her and instinctively, Evelyn stepped backward. But Daniel wasn't warned off. He took Evelyn's head in his hands and brought her up to his lips, giving her one, last passionate, world-destroying kiss... before Evelyn pushed him away.
"I still love you Evie." He told her warmly.
"Just, go away." Evelyn waved her hand at him. "Or however I get rid of you."
Daniel shrugged and vanished in a swirling mist of air. And just like that he was gone, and with him the ambiance of this dimension and all it's perks. What was left was a tacky cloud world filled with angst and anguish. For the briefest of instances Evelyn almost wished Daniel was back, that she had called him back, but she shook the thought off. She didn't need him to survive. She could be strong on her own. She didn't need a fake world of hope. What she needed was substance, was knowing that she was actually living her own life and that she didn't control everything because she didn't want to control everything. Spontaniety was the fruit of life. If she didn't find the perfect man, she didn't find him. She'd give up trying. Maybe he didn't even exist outside her dreams. Finally having hit rock bottom, Evelyn saw a darker cloud looming ahead and she headed steadily towards it. Two steps away she heard a voice behind her, calling her name.
"Evie."
Sighing, Evelyn said out loud, without turning around, "What do you want?"
"Evie."
"For God's sake, *what*?!" Evelyn turned around. There stood Daniel. Only, it wasn't Daniel anymore. His features had changed to a less handsome, but cuter, more curious looking face. His untidy brown hair morphed into an even messier, spiky, orange head of hair. And his clothes were no longer the jeans and blue t-shirt she'd left him in, but a pair of black cargo pants and a yellow DMB t-shirt. Her surrounding's weren't the living room of a millionaire, but the coffeehouse she'd fallen asleep in, lying down on the couch. She was looking up into the face of Sam.
"Evie? You awake?"
It took a moment to let the whole thing sink in. The whole thing. When she realized Sam was staring at her expectantly she answered, "I'm wide awake."
"Sorry to wake you up, you looked so peaceful, but I have to close up the shop now and get home. I wish I could stay, it's so lonely at home, but it's almost midnight..." Evelyn was only half-listening. She was too busy staring at Sam's face, etched with compassion and regret for bringing her out of her dreams. She only wished she had the guts to tell him she was happy he had pulled her out.
"It's OK." She managed to say. "Hey, Sam, do you maybe... do you wanna come over to my place? I'd love to have the company too." Sam blinked, and smiled shyly.
"Sure. If that's OK with you, sure. Let me just go get my bag." He left the room once more and Evelyn sat up on the couch, stretching her tired limbs. She'd went to Heaven while she was asleep and now she was back living her life which had all of the sudden become not so boring anymore...
Evelyn packed her notebooks away in her bag and smoothed out her hair, doing a little makeup reapplying before picking up her cold coffee cup on the table in front of her. The young woman peered inside at the dark brown substance and twirled her coffee stick in it once more, re-stirring up the cream and sugar and watching it spin around. She thought once more to the simile she'd created earlier between the cup of coffee and her life. She had been about ready to give up on her dreams of ever finding the right man. But as she sat here, now, she wondered how the coffee would taste without the cream, without the sugar. It wouldn't be the same. It would be a bitter, bland experience with no taste to it. Just like the coffee was nothing without the sugar and cream, her life would be nothing without hopes and dreams mixed into it. It was the same the other way around. Her dream world was full of sugar and cream, but it was lacking one important thing: the coffee-- the basic essence of life itself. You had to take what you could get from what was given to you. So, even if it meant that you'd never get what you wanted, you'd still be able to taste the invigorating coffee, whereas if you'd returned the coffee, you could only imagine what it would taste like, and that wasn't real. It wasn't the same.
"Here, I'll take that for you." Sam took the cold coffee from her and put it on the counter near the sink. "I'll just get that tomorrow. Come on, you ready to go?"
Evelyn blinked. "Yes, I'm definetely ready." She walked out besides her friend feeling more emotion towards him than she ever had noticed before. He put his arm around her shoulder and when they got outside, Evelyn shivered in the cold air. Seeing this, Sam pulled his jacket off and draped it over her shoulders, smiling sheepishly at how obviously cliche' he was being. Evelyn smiled warmly, pulling the comfy jacket tighter around her shoulders and cuddling up close to her 'friend'. 'Maybe I've finally found my Prince Charming after all...'