#total randomness

‘You never come back,’ one of the other beans said. ‘When you go…it changes you somehow and you never return to the jar.’

Maybe that was a good thing. Anything had to be better than the daily grind of sitting in that jar, not knowing when it would be your time to go. Yet, fear was stronger.

Please don’t take me. Take the others, but not me.

A prayer made in vain. It was only a matter of time before The Spoon caught him in its cruel lip.

‘I think we’re all looking at it the wrong way,’ another bean said. An older bean, who’d been in the jar longer. His voice was heavy with the weight of experience.

‘How should we look at it?’ Beano asked.

‘Well…tell me, how well do you remember being a seedling?’

A memory flashed in his mind, an image forming, of being green and small, before he’d swelled into something resembling what he was today.

The older bean nodded as though he held the same image in his own mind. ‘And can you remember when you were chosen?’

Chosen? He hadn’t thought of it that way but…perhaps that was what had happened that day – the day he was plucked from the plant, forever taken from the only world he ever knew, selected for roasting.

‘You were frightened then, weren’t you.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Of course I was frightened. I didn’t know what to expect.’

‘Yet you survived. You changed, but you’re here. We’re all here. We’re in this together, you know. Sometimes it’s easy to forget our shared roots – to let time harden and embitter us. But none of us is truly alone when The Spoon comes for us.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘I have to.’

‘So you’re not scared at all?’

The older bean sighed. ‘Of course I am. It’s always frightening, not knowing what’s coming next. But maybe that’s also part of the thrill.’

Thrill. Hard to imagine, but…maybe. He couldn’t deny that inner voice that said it was time to move on. There was nothing left for him in the jar.

If only there were some way to know for certain that whatever awaited them in The Grinder didn’t hurt. But if the other beans screamed out in pain, the sound was drowned out by the motor of the machine as it processed them into something else – something Beano could only imagine as he hung in the jar, watching, waiting.

* * *

The next time The Hand of Fate came, Beano knew.

It’s come for me. It’s my turn.

The lid was unscrewed, the air flooding in. The Spoon dove in, dislodging him and catching him in its snare. He fell, back into the jar, but the providential utensil came for him again.

Beano was lifted into the air, staring down at the other beans remaining in the jar. Beside him, other beans jostled with anxiety. Then they were sliding off The Spoon, into the silver bowl of The Grinder – him, the older bean, and several others.

Imagination had not prepared him for what lay within – four sharp blades, glinting under the kitchen light, emphasising their cold steel edges. It had to hurt. How could it not? If only he were a Mexican jumping bean and could leap on out of here. But he was a coffee bean, and this was what happened to his kind. There was no escaping your purpose.

The Hand approached, reaching for the machine, for a button. Any second now and this would all be over. He’d finally understand the great mystery that awaited them all. And he wasn’t ready – he wasn’t ready.

‘I’m scared,’ he whispered to the older bean, whose time was finally up.

‘I am too.’

The admission undid him. How was he supposed to hold it together, if his senior, the one who’d taught him there was some good in this, was just as terrified?

It didn’t matter, because The Hand was there, the finger extended, pushing the button. Then – the whirring sound, so familiar and yet new, fresh, when it was coming for him.

The Blades of Destiny didn’t just begin turning but whipped round, flinging him in dizzy circles, jumbling up with his companions. When The Blades made their first cuts, the sharpness was so exquisite that he couldn’t quite feel it, only had a sense of dissemblance. His consciousness was splitting, multiplying. Somehow, he was in more than one place at once, time and space but mythology.

Helpless, he surrendered – the only choice he could make before all choice was taken from him. He let go, released of his shell and whirling with the fragments of his brethren, until it was impossible to know where he ended and they began.

The old bean was right. We’re not alone. We’re all in this together – in ways we could never imagine.

Sweet silence settled as the blades fell still. He landed in a heap, somehow both less and more than he was before. There was no Beano, no older bean, no brethren. They were all one bean, released from the constraints of form.

The Hand came again, lifting the bowl out of the machine, into the air, and tilting it over a white cup. Soft as leaves, they were eased into the cup, caught and cradled in a filter, warm and snug. Then – burning – hot water being poured over them, releasing their essence.

Oh god, the smell that burst forth, filling the air! It was them, transmuted once again, now no longer solid but aroma, the aroma of spirit.

As they drifted over the kitchen, floating as steam and scent above the counter, they saw the jar that had once encased them, the prison they had once clung to, believing it protected them. The other beans remained in there, waiting for their turn, afraid of what it would bring.

If only they could tell them – could describe the beauty and ecstasy of what was coming for them.