Damien Galeone

Oh, how I love the word double, whether used as a noun or an adjective it usually conveys twice the allotted amount of something. Double-stuffed Oreos, double shots, and double dares.

And while double anything always seems to get me in trouble, the lure of it is too enticing.

Enter a new fad: double roasted coffee. This entails brewing a pot of coffee at night, refrigerating it and then using that pot of coffee as your ‘water’ for the next day. So you are brewing coffee with coffee rather than water.

Logic: if coffee is awesome, double coffee is double awesome.

Cup 1

Feeling rather energetic, I decide to take up a household chore or two. So in the next 9 minutes I do the dishes, scrub the shower curtain, replace the drapes in my room, sweep the balcony, groom the cat, and clean all the doorknobs in my flat.

See, it’s not about accomplishment, it’s about movement! I have never had a better idea than double brewing coffee. I am going to do this every day. Oh wow do I love moving. Maybe I’ll start doing ballet.

Cup 2

I am introduced to the base level of communication that occurs within my house. It’s sort of a low hum that conveys messages and thoughts of all objects on a hypersonic level. And for the first time, I hear everything.

My brain: Wow this is strong coffee. Why is the kitchen table talking to me?

The B Monster: Meow (or rather mňou, which is Czech for meow). This is loosely translated to one of two things: feed me or clean up my poop.

The kitchen table: I have nothing to say for you, but bravo!

My shoes: Please stop eating so much food.

My pants: I agree with your shoes.

My body: Go to the bathroom right now! Now!

My toilet: For the love of all that is good and holy, get a toilet brush, please. Please!

Cup 3

I start to get…creative. I write a flash fiction story that is a sequel to one I have just written in my head. Then I sing both of them to the cat. Then I sing both of them to Bob Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue. Then I sing both of them simultaneously. Then I sing both of them backwards to see if they contain any messages that might be of any interest to Satanists. They do not.

I then create and outline an entire series of fiction for cats. My logic is that if nobody has written a book for cats then cats have nothing to read and if cats rule the internet and I can exploit the heretofore cat fiction market I will be one rich bastard. Unfortunately, I cannot write any of this down because my hands are shaking, so I do jumping jacks while summarizing my cat fiction stories in Morse code on the floor. In German. Cats probably speak German.

My last thought before the inevitable crash: If cats speak German, why don’t they study English? I mean, really.

The Crash

Ninety minutes after this all started, I am on the couch. My breathing is even and slow and Terry Pratchett is helping me come down from this wild ride. I haven’t felt like this since I discovered the mixture of Jägermeister and Red Bull in 2002.

Like most ideas and thoughts I have had in my life whilst riding some dragon or another, the ones I have come up with today die away with my buzz. I am now just a strung out dude who thought his furniture was talking to him.

Still, maybe I’ll start my cat book tomorrow.