?Interrobang! · Track 16 · middle
What Keeps You Up With the Caffeine Gone
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): a daily worry-journal / emotion-tracking log. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Decaf Derek — coffee Q-grader from the highlands of Ethiopia; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: the high Simien of the Ethiopian Highlands. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Derek scores the world's coffee but drinks decaf; left his daily worry-log in the highlands where coffee was born. What keeps you awake once you've removed the cause?
Lyrics
[Intro] Near Ras Dashen, where the air gets sharp. Smell of eucalyptus smoke on the dawn. I found your book, wedged under a stone. Its pages smelling of graphite and roasted beans. [Verse 1] A neat grid, drawn by a steady hand. Columns for worry, a scale from one to ten. Date, time, heart rate, noted with care. The same precision that weighs the air, the water, the grounds. Silver cupping spoon, white porcelain bowl. Scoring the world, losing your soul. [Chorus] You judge the aroma, the body, the bright. But you only drink decaf in the long, long night. You removed the stimulant, you cut the wire clean. So what keeps you awake, when the caffeine is gone? [Verse 2] A perfect ninety-six for a Yirgacheffe lot. A note in the margin: 'floral, apricot.' But there's no score for the feeling that creeps. No number for the promise your body never keeps. Just the third infusion, the baraka, the blessing. And another note beside it: 'tastes of regretting.' [Chorus] You judge the aroma, the body, the bright. But you only drink decaf in the long, long night. You removed the stimulant, you cut the wire clean. So what keeps you awake, when the caffeine is gone? [Bridge] At 4500 meters, you left this here to be found. A small book of numbers on the silent ground. The farmer who grew this coffee has no name. The wife who suggested this diary feels the same… a tremor in the hand no one can see. [Outro] The caffeine is gone. The reason is gone. But the worry scores a ninety-nine. It just keeps brewing. What keeps you up? What keeps you?