I need to wake up, mumbles a shaking, out of shape, and sharpness, grey collar employee, while barely standing up, heading above chessboards of open space cells, under a ceiling of permanent twilight.

"Anyone for a break", he starts timidly.

"Coffee!" he continues by raising its white red-lettered mug, on which it can be read The Mug Is A Lie.

"...with Me?" he ends, after realizing that nothing could break the thunderous strikes of thousand fingers on computer keyboards, like a never ending cicadas cacophony.

He hesitates to postpone the call, but the stacking of blinking red notifications on his screen chases him away. So he goes, tired, along the main way, following the parallel lights marking the floor to the exit. Sometimes, he takes a glimpse at the windows only to see the darkness of space, and the slow moving spaceships, with their numerous uncoordinated light signals, waiting for their turn, at the gates to the whorl.

At the entrance, he walks on the sentence, Space Customs Office, and continues his way along a brown line, passes in front the elevators, until he reaches another entrance, Coffeeteria. The room is minimal, two pots, and nothing else. He checks the first one, empty, the second, empty too.

"Come on guys, he complains. I refilled it last time."

With one hand tightly on the mug, he grabs his smart-assistant with the other, opens the company app, and records a voice message into the group Coffeeeenjoyers: "Who didn't refill the coffee?"

Time passes, and he takes the chance to verify if there are beans left. None. A beep sound comes from the smart-assistant, speaking with a synthetic voice: "There should be coffee. I remember refilling it."

"There is no beans left", he answers, the anger strangled by its falling dark circles.

Time passes, and he turns in circle, clockwise, waiting for the beep.

"I am at the 85 floor. There is coffee."

With a spurs of energy, he exits the Coffeeteria, only to stop hereafter, and wait, again, in front of the elevators, for another beep, of another kind.

Time passes, and the doors open to a lean white collar employee who was minding his own business, before taking a second look at the mug. He calls out the tired one that already took his place and punched the floor.

"Where are you going?

- Coffee Break, he answers while averting eye contact.

- I remember, you, already had one. Is it the same? Or the eighth? the doors start closing, so he starts raising his voice, but he gets less audible. Your reports are still due to management, have you..."

Beep, the elevator shows 67 floor.

He hurries to the Coffeeteria, bumps someone, but keeps his pursuit. Arrived at the entrance, same layout, two pots. He checks the first one, empty, the second, empty too. His animosity changes target as he tracks down the last soul that emerged from his lost paradise.

"Hey you! Give me your coffee!"

The blue collar employee shouts, subdued into fear by the bestial glance, drops his mug on the floor, and flees. Its empty. The sound echoes into the corridor, calling curious collars, and halting the frenzy of the tired one.

He takes a look at himself, and his bountifully filled mug, from a darkness that could eat his whole sanity, layered by puny bubbles of drowned enmity, the whole spinning into a whorl, into his mind, ultimately.

"What are you doing? Security! hails one of the white collar.

- Coffee Break, he answers mindlessly.

- You have been fired months ago! For failing to report to management on a tainted cargo of coffee beans.

- But I have reported... I remember it. I think I remember it, he continues while putting his lips on the mug. It was good.

- Don't drink it!

- You can't stop me."

As he drinks to the last drop, his lips fuse with the mug, which devours slowly his face. He mumbles in terror, but nobody comes to his help, until his vision fade to black, two shots stop his heart, and the last words he heard: "It's Coffee Time"

One security guard advances towards the corpse, kicks the mug away, and confirms the kill, while the other shuts down the crowd.

"We are in a pinch, says one of the white collar. Looks like we have another case of coffee poisoning, and authorities do not seem to get closer to the source of the problem.

- You right mate, answers one, leaving. Guess I will start digging tea.

- Another mug to clean", mumbles one blue collar, near them, while putting it into his bag.

Time passes, an employee enters the Coffeeteria and picks, stored near the hot brimming pots, cleaned, one of the white mug. He joyously reads on it, in red letter: "It's Coffee Time!" Amused, he then checks the pots. First one. Empty. Second. Empty. Beep. "Who didn't refill the coffee?"