End of the World and Coffee

       "Be caref-ouch! Elvi, be careful, there’s a table to the right." "Hush!" Elvira Västerström hissed at her uncouth husband. “You should’ve taken the torch, they wouldn’t notice light, but they’d sure hear you stumbling around in darkness." It was really dark. Moonlight turned taped windows into dim grey squares; her husband and the furniture just dark spots, and glasses on her nose didn’t help. In fact, they did their best to fall off. She had to inch along a wall and rummage around the shelves, hangers, and table, hoping to feel the tin foil rustle under her fingers. As of yet, she heard only polyethylene-like rustling, or clinking, or scraping, or cracking of joints. Old age is no joy. At last, something fell with an ear-splitting rattle. It sounded like a can full of bolts and nails. Ulf crouched to catch and silence the wretched can, but too slow and too late. The relative silence after the fall was disturbed by an inhuman, clawed trot. "Stand still and silent,” Ulf whispered, contrary to his own message. But the sounds were too close, and one more dim figure appeared from the doors. It was pale and furry, four-pawed, the same height as the kneeling man, and it went straight to the humans. Claw clicking gave way to squishy noise. "Bosse, no, bad boy, stop drooling over me and go back." Ulf was nagging and tried to push the dog away. Elvira breathed again. Her son’s dog was a silly animal and could not find an object by smell (otherwise she’d just give Bosse an old empty package and order to seek it, and they wouldn’t have to mill around), it didn’t even serve as a watchdog because it didn’t have a habit to bark at any intruder. Which was probably quite handy now, when it became quiet agai– "Meowww?!” An indignant wail, this time definitely catlike, cut through the silence. The cat was not seen, but it was heard all too well. "Misse, quiet!" the Västerströms hissed in turns. "Don’t worry, we didn’t come here to eat without you... Ulf, do you see if she’s bristling? You should’ve taken a torch, really." Still on all fours and groaning, Ulf tried to find a grey cat in a dark room and knocked over something else. "It’s useless, let’s leave!” Elvira tried to pull him up, but he waved her off. "No! I’m sick and tired of it all, I stay and go on searching!” Ulf raised his voice to a half-whisper. “What have we done to deserve this at the dawn of our days? I was planning to walk through bars and squander my retirement benefits on betting, and nothing of this!” A circle of light fell on them suddenly from a candle lantern and lit a littered workroom stuffed with all sorts of tools, cans, boards, and rolls, a white dog, and two elderly people. The lantern was casting sinister light and shadows at the face of Stig Västerström, like in a third-rate horror flick. "What do you think you’re doing so late? Father, you should stand watch and monitor the cat!" Elvira shrank. Why did her son grow into such a dictator? It should be Ulf’s fault. Almost pulling his wife down, Ulf stood up, squared his shoulders, and squinted at their son. "I look for coffee. I know you’ve tucked it somewhere away from us. It should still have left!” "Right, darling,” behind her husband’s back, Elvira regained courage. “Last month, you’ve brought a whole box of instant coffee from the gas station. Twelve packs! And there’s just ten empty packs with tomato seedlings in the warm room. Where are the two remaining packs?” "Listen, you old people, you don’t need coffee, you need sedatives!" A reverent son snapped at them under his voice. “There wasn’t anything left! I’ve told you to use the stocks sparingly, but you drank it like the supermarket was next door and still open! Stop making ruckus and go to bed before mutants from all the valley gather under our gates!” "You ungrateful thing!” Ulf shifted to half-shouting, too. “Elvi, what kind of monster have we raised? He refuses one last cup of coffee to his parents! I revolt! Down with the tyranny!” "Right, darling, down with the tyranny!” Elvira felt too cold and tired to fear Stig properly. “Even criminals have one last wish before execution, and we are robbed even of that! If we die tomorrow, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!" "Cof-fee, cof-fee!” they chanted together and shook fists in the air. "No revolting!” Stig loomed above them, but the sinister face lighting lost its effect. He had other methods, though. “Or you’re not getting any sugar from now on!” "So noisy!” A new voice peeped in, sleepy and childish. Oh, Mia, poor kid. “Mom is complaining. Granny, grandpa, if you sleep tight, you won’t need coffee in the morning. And stop bothering Bosse, it’s cold to sleep without him." Grandpa intended to continue the strike, but Elvira remembered now that she was also a granny, and remembered something else, and punched Ulf in the side to shut up and surrender. Then she dragged him and led Mia back to bedroom through dark halls, with Stig in the rearguard as a jail warden. His glasses were gleaming ominously, but he did let his mother go to the toilet once again before sleeping. In the bathroom, Elvira Västerström climbed the lavatory pan and reached the top of the ventilation channel. There, unseen from below, a rag wrapping was hidden well. Behind its loose corner, blue foil was glistening, and an edge of a birthday card glimpsed. Elvira remembered the calligraphic inscription on its other side: “To dear granddaughter Mia from Granny Elvira for her eighteenth birthday, with love”. Well, she remembered it now, but just ten minutes ago, in the half-lit workroom, she had been earnestly sure the missing coffee was usurped by Stieg and not saved away prudently by herself. Elvira breathed out. She’d better write down her last will and state the hideout of the treasure in it. Even if she survived until Mia’s coming of age, she wouldn’t remember where she had hidden her present. And Elvira wanted to leave a bright memory behind for her descendants. Stig might be a lost cause, but let Mia remember her Granny fondly by one of the best things of the old world.