The Word of the Bean

I like my women like I like my coffee: empowered with fundamental rights

Welcome to The Moon at the End of the Road! It’s so good to see you again.

This week’s tale is a long boi, but hot damn you don’t want to miss a word. Have your coffee beforehand — you might not want it afterwards.

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Special thanks this month to Roy Claflin and Ian Donnell Arbuckle, two of my most vocal supporters. Thanks for reminding me I have at least two readers.

The Word of the Bean

Image by cromaconceptovisual / 251 images on Pixabay

First came the word, and the word was Bean. Bean was the word that woke the tongue, the first word to emerge after the yawn, on the very first morning that was. Bean was the word Waz had been spreading through eerie neighbourhoods of screeching unseen cats and rusting chainlink borders for three days when he flew backwards like a rejected angel, propelled by a clock to the jaw from a well-built troll defending his porch. The cinnamon-leather book spilled to the concrete along with his busted ass, scripture fluttering in the wind. Waz's tailpipe was still stinging as he reached out for the gravel-studded book and got to his feet.

"Satan don't get to darken this doorstep," grunted the man on the porch. He wore a wifebeater that looked like it belonged to Bruce Willis at the end of Die Hard, sweat-stained and stretched over a meaty body that held power beneath its soft bulk. Waz's tongue felt out a molar, slightly looser for the punch. 

"It's just coffee, mate," he said, brushing dirt off his slacks. 

"I know the devil when I see it," came the reply. "You got ten seconds to get off my property before I ask Trevor to escort you out."

Trevor appeared to be a rusty old basset hound who looked like he had no interest in getting involved, but Waz moved on hastily. 

It was the third strike-out that day, and it wasn't yet noon. Waseem's feet ached in his old school shoes. He was dressed like a Mormon with a tan, starched white shirt and dark slacks and even a little name-tag, though they didn't have any Waseems, so it said Walter. It was a strange feeling, to be irked at his failure to do a job he wasn't particularly invested in. The training had been paid, but the gig itself was commission-only, and commission came from sales, which were crummy in the kind of neighbourhoods he was sent to patrol. There were supposedly prizes for big sales, impossible bonuses to tease them: the mirage of Rolexes and far-flung vacations loomed big for the wide-eyed hopefuls, who even coveted the small incentives for best sales that day. Yesterday he'd watched one thin older white man clasp a tube of Rolos to his chest like a newborn, the gift for selling three bags of beans while the rest of them returned empty-handed and hollow. To Waz the rewards were dog treats, little Pavlovian hand-outs. He turned away from the white man in sorry disgust.

"Who sells coffee door-to-door anyway?" he teased Hassan after work that day. 

"We're not selling coffee," Hassan replied, button-mashing a boss into digital pulp. "We're selling a lifestyle."

That broke them both into violent cackles that descended into hacking coughs and eventually deep tokes on a much-needed joint.

He'd taken the job because he needed the money, and Hassan needed the bonus for referring him. Waz's belly ached at guaranteed money. It should have ached all the time, the IBS roiling from the lack of vegetables in his cheap deep-fried diet, but it seemed to do so pointedly, poking him from the inside when a good direction suggested itself. He liked fresh air; he liked meeting new people. He even liked coffee, though not this brand. Bitter coffee was served twice a day from a vending machine for the three weeks of training, a steaming hot reminder that you had to get good at sales, because boy howdy this brew wasn't going to sell itself. It did not conjure delicate hands plucking virgin trees, as he was told to suggest; it reminded him of Mickey, a man he'd been seeing for a while. Mickey laid roads for a living, and the smell of hot tar followed him like a black dog. The smell was in his hair and soaked into his pores, so every time they got sweaty Mickey leaked the essence of a smooth new highway. Drinking the company coffee took Waz back to licking Mickey's neck one scorched night with the window open and the burnt orange sun refusing to die as asphalt clouds rolled in. Mickey tasted like a sunburn on his tongue, a hot grimy palette that didn't translate to the little plastic cup of liquid; it made for terrible coffee, and even though he sold it with a smile, he drank it ungratefully.  

"At least it's free," said Hassan.

"Yeah," agreed Waz, who loved a freebie, "but they should be paying us to drink it."

The sun niggled at the back of his bent neck, while on the other end his soles burned from over-use. He didn't make eye contact in the street with anyone, only on their doorsteps, where potential customers usually appeared as one suspicious eye peering through a crack in the door, TV blaring over their hidden shoulder. His first task was to get a foot in the door, and it was about as easy as a run on Takeshi's Castle. One man would only talk through the letterbox, his lips wiggling obscenely in the gap. Another flung the door wide open, but the smell inside the neat semi raised the smallest hairs on the back of Waz's neck, and he quickly made excuses before he too was buried under the floorboards. He carried a satchel around his shoulders, pristine faux leather stuffed with sample baggies and sign-up sheets, but the book he kept in his hand, like a preacher drawing power from the portable battery of its pages. The book was called The Book of the Bean, and it started like this:

First came the word, and the word was Bean. Bean was the word that woke the tongue, the first word to emerge after the yawn, on the very first morning that was. 

Those who wake by the Bean are blessed by its powers, gathering great strength from its fortitude; they shall inherit the blessings of the Earth.

It was an absurd sacrilegious marketing tool, and Waz loved it. The book was full of prophecy and promise, cooked up by a marketing team he had developed a great respect for. Without the book, he was a salesman; with it he was a pastor, a rabbi, a hot-footed imam rap-tap-tapping on those forlorn doors, bringing liquid hope to those inside. To Waseem the prop was an admission: yes, the job was bullshit, but have fun with it. He could do with more consistent income than the dole and his sales bonus, sure; but it was summer, and he was restless: for now, this was better than tweaking cover letters to fit the multitude of retail jobs that never replied. 

The neighbourhood was unfamiliar. After his rudest rejection yet, he came across four doors that didn't answer, two houses entirely abandoned, and one up for rent. The street ended, rounding the corner into a long stretch of scruffy park. Waz passed the parched grass, tab ends strewn like seeds, a broken swingset and a slide missing the bottom end of its trunk, its lip curtailed to a sharp cliff edge. There were no birds to hear and no trees to shade under and the pavement had cracks erupting in ants. Opposite the park was a row of condemned terraces, and at the end of the empty street stood a large building, its blinds shut like the closed eyes of a sleeping monster. Here the road ended, the snoozing house guarding the end of the cul-de-sac with its big haunches spread to touch both pavements. There was white plaster and some chipped pebbledash on the exterior, flaking like a leper into a garden fuzzed with dandelion clocks. Drawing closer Waz could see the grime filming the windows, the peeling lacquer on a battered old door, once perhaps ruby or pillar-box red, now the colour of dried blood. The gate screeched when pushed and he had to stomp his own path through the weeds. He knew it was a lost cause, but something nagged him to reach for the old brass knocker anyway.

He was about to leave when the door creaked open.

"Can I help you?" asked a very tired voice. The hallway was so dark its owner couldn't be seen. 

Waz lit up his best smile. 

"Actually, I'm here to help you," he told the darkness. "Have you heard The Word of the Bean?"

---

Mr Barnaby served tea in an old china set so cobwebbed with cracks, Waz had to slurp it down double-time to get ahead of the leaks. On the inside the house was much less imposing, the old carpet thick with dust, the chairs squeaky and fat. Mr Barnaby was approximately the same age as moondust, a hunched old codger with the appearance of a snail and a wide yellow smile. He insisted on Waz staying put as he fixed the tea tray, dragging an oxygen tank and a vastly inflated sense of optimism behind him. To Waz, Mr Barnaby's relationship with mortality was that of a joyous madman dancing on a cliff edge, both aware of the precipice and insistent that he alone could defy its gravitous pull. 

"Of course I have cancer," he announced jovially over the fast-supped tea. "Who my age doesn't?" He seemed unperturbed by this, or the other ailments that ate at his elderly body: the swollen arthritic knuckles, porous lungs, and map of liver spots soaking through his paper skin like wine stains bleeding through napkins. His denial of imminent death, so close it may as well be lodging in the spare room, did not feel like denial: it seemed to Waz that Mr Barnaby was simply waiting for a reprieve, a call from the governor right as god's hand was on the switch. He couldn't decide if the attitude was disturbing or aspirational, but either way it would be crude to turn it into a dime. 

"Go on then, young man," Mr Barnaby said, indicating Waz's book. "Tell me all about this Bean business." 

Waz looked down at the book. His thumb toyed with a seam on the mass-produced leather as he thought of what to say. 

"I'm not sure what to tell you, sir," he said honestly. To his surprise, Mr Barnaby gave a raspy laugh.

"You're a good egg, to be fearful of tricking an old bloke with one foot in the grave," he smiled. "I'm crazy dear boy, but I'm not senile. You go ahead and tell me the story in your little book there; I'll decide whether or not to believe it."

So Waz sat next to the drained cups and told of the virgin forests where the beans were hand-plucked from burgeoning bushes. He painted the sherbet orange and lemon wash of the skies, the verdant greenery where the little beans grew, the quiet of a jungle dominated by birds, where humans moved in whispers and picked beans with reverent hands like gathering prayers. He sermoned that when brewed it tasted like a darkening horizon, and that for just a short while after, the warmth of its gentle power radiated through the body, adding a little boost that might just be enough to carry a person through their day. 

Mr Barnaby's eyes misted. He took great huffs through his oxygen mask, cupping it over his nose and inhaling deeply as Waz spoke, gaze fixated. Finally, when the story was over, he took the mask away and looked at Waseem with watery grey eyes. 

"I hope these forests are plentiful," wheezed Mr Barnaby. "For I am going to need a healthy supply."

---

The commission from Mr Barnaby was huge, and the thought of it became a lead weight in Waz's pocket. His colleagues clapped him on the back for the sale, and he imagined each hand was a fist, pummelling him for the swindle. The old man had probably bought more coffee than he had time on Earth left to drink, and despite his client's enthusiasm for the impending bags of beans, Waz felt sick with himself. The team leader shoved a Mars bar in his sweaty palm. 

"Best sales today, Walter! You earned it!" 

Waz looked at the chocolate bar, sad and rumpled. He tried to palm it to Hassan.

"Don't," said Hassan, pushing it back. 

"I'm not—"

"Does he have a roof over his head?"

Waz hung his head. "Yes."

"Heating? Food?" 

"That's not the point."

"It entirely is." Hassan looked at him seriously. "You made rent. Who cares if the guy was old? He wasn't senile. You sold a product he wanted, and you get to keep on living."

But it kept bugging him. In the water patches on the ceiling, he saw the old house on its empty street, the old man moving slowly through its rooms, collapsing in his sacks of beans and being discovered there a disturbing length of time after the fact. 

Next Saturday, Waseem went back to Mr Barnaby's. 

"Waseem!" The man greeted him at the front door like an old friend, his nose tube absent. "My dear boy! Do come in."

The house smelled different. As soon as Waz set foot through the door, he could taste a new lightness in the air: it was as though someone had hoovered the atmosphere. Mr Barnaby shuffled along in his house slippers, a little less stooped without his tank, leading Waseem into the stuffy front room.

"This is Waseem, my lovelies," Mr Barnaby announced to the unexpected cluster stuck to the seats like quiet barnacles, wide eyes staring up at him through spectacles as thick as coasters. Mr Barnaby took his shoulder with a surprisingly firm grip, steering him to an empty armchair. "This is the young man I was telling you about — our fabulous bean seller!"

There was a shift in the attention of the room, a sharpening sensation that turned the eyes into curious knives. Waz counted four pruned faces pointed in his direction. The armchair beneath him was made of stiff leather that creaked cricket song if he moved an inch. He waved to the strange crowd.

"Hi."

Their faces wore the passive expressions of a witch hunt. Some looked old enough to have been in the original audience.

"I've been telling my neighbours here all about your wondrous coffee," Mr Barnaby beamed. The word neighbours rang cold on the demolished street, but he continued. "It's quite a wonder, that bean of yours. Would you mind expounding on its merits? You do it far more justice than I, and they are terribly interested."

They looked terribly lobotomized. Waz shot Barnaby a desperate look.

"I was actually just coming to check up on you, Mr Barnaby."

Barnaby's face brightened. "A social call! My dear boy, I am honoured. Truly above and beyond, this young man. We can only hope the next generation is filled with Waseems."

"You could certainly teach my grandson something of civic duty," remarked one of the sepia mummies drily, to dusty coughs of laughter. There were more brown age spots across the group than on a bunch of old bananas, and as much movement as said contents of Waseem's own neglected fruit bowl.

"We want to hear The Word of the Bean," another member of the ossuary said. Their sexless eyes were wide and hollow as a diagram of a black hole. Waz felt his throat tighten. 

"I haven't really got all my stuff," he said awkwardly.

"Just give them the basics, lad. If they're interested, you can pop back tomorrow with your little sign-up thingy-me-wotsits." Barnaby perched at the back of the crumbling horde, rosy-cheeked and expectant. 

"Well," said Waz, feeling the heat of some celestial moral gaze burning the back of his head, "first their came the word, and the word was Bean…"

Mr Barnaby's social circle was a deep well of those with one foot in the grave and money to burn. Waz spread the word in his living-room sermons to gatherings of the decrepit, human beings that embodied the word "moth-eaten", shambling near-dead great-great-great relatives that turned their hearing aids up and their hungry eyes on Waseem. In amongst them were scattered customers, also Barnaby's friends, looking like shiny apples in a rotting orchard. As he spoke they would exclaim ecstatically, launching testimonials out, unprovoked. 

"My bad hip is better than the replaced one!"

"It cured my liver spots — soaked 'em right up!"

"I haven't had this much energy since my honeymoon in Brighton!"

Waz was uncomfortable with these claims. He didn't ask for or endorse them. 

"And you're not paying them off?" Hassan asked, gobsmacked. 

"Never," said Waz, who hadn't considered such a dirty game. "I was thinking of asking them to stop."

"Don't," said Hassan. "Let them speak their truth."

The next day the company sent along a congratulatory fountain pen with their logo engraved on it. Waz wore it in his shirt pocket with dubious pride.

Every time he went, the Barnaby congregation had grown, and its veteran members had gorgeously regressed: their skins smoother, their bodies looser, their hair darker. Each visit felt like inching back in time toward younger, sprier days. Waz reflected their good health back at them, preaching in a new pressed shirt with the fountain pen clipped in the pocket and shiny leather shoes that had never stepped on a playground. His hollow cheeks filled out, his belly calmed, his appearances at drive-thrus became fewer and further between. The only thing that disturbed him any more was the steady darkening of the room's smiles, fading from white to beige to brown-tinted parchment studs, spread proudly in warm reception of The Word of the Bean. 

"A fine one today, my lad." Mr Barnaby clapped him on the back with a still shockingly firm thump. His skin had tightened over the last few weeks, to the point Waz wondered if he'd pegged it all in the back and was walking around with a stegosaurus spine beneath his cardi. Usually he didn't stick around after the forms had circulated back to him, but today curiosity held him back.

"I've got to ask," he said, rubbing his wrist under the new company watch (not a Rolex, but the fanciest timepiece he'd had anyway), "is it true?"

Mr Barnaby was delightfully bemused. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"I don't want to be rude," Waz began tentatively, "but when we met, I got the impression the undertakers were circling." (Barnaby cackled). "You look like you've bought yourself twenty years. You and the rest, with their healed dicky hips and newly functional prostates — yeah, I overheard Mr Frogatt in the kitchen. Unfortunately."

"And you're asking the source of such miracles?"

Waseem took a step closer. 

"It can't be the coffee," he whispered uncertainly. 

Barnaby's wide mouth cracked open. His teeth were the pale brown of baking clay; Waz could smell the unmistakable bitter-sweet of coffee like rotten perfume on his breath.

"Logically, it can't be true at all," Barnaby said softly. "I'm no fool, Waseem. I was never sold on anyone's god, and I've been propositioned by all sorts of deities and wonders over my years. But this?" He tapped Waz's Book of the Bean, held against his chest like a shield. "This is a miracle from the earth. Keep the faith, lad. It certainly seems to be keeping you."

Not long after, he was called into the office. Sales were going up like a rocket ship, but there was no sense of congratulation to the invite. There was no sense of any emotion: just a perfunctory summons, like jury duty, that gave him the sensation of standing on wobbly ground. It didn't help that the office was entirely empty, closed offices sealed behind silent doors. In the corridor, Waz found a loose thread in his suit pocket and spun it round his finger, strangling the circulation. 

"Waseem!" The man who burst from the corner office had a face Waz felt he should recognise. Big white teeth spread beneath chiselled features and cold eyes that the smile tried and failed to warm, like a lighter sputtering before a pile of twigs. He took Waz's hand and shook it firmly, his other palm cupping Waz's elbow in a political fashion. Waz waited for the clue that would tell him who Mr Important was, but the pause hung between them with a horrible weight.

"Hi," he said, eventually. The Important Handshaker laughed.

"Hi! Ha. How casual! How Waseem!"

Had he bumped his head? He'd never met this man before. His smile burned with the brightness and purity of bleach. 

"Your sales record is simply breathtaking," The Man of Mysterious Import gushed. "How do you do it? Oh, do come in!" He ushered them into the office, a neat, spacious room in rich brown tones and dark hardwood furniture that was both tasteful and utterly impersonal. Waz searched the desk for a name plaque, but The Superior Being was too well-known to need one. Waz slumped onto the corner sofa, whose creaking leather sighed with a confused weariness that resonated. 

"So this is a good meeting?" Waseem finally asked. 

The Essence of Importance slapped his knee. His face screwed up, arrested by laughter, but no sound came out. Waz, who had been taught some of the quirks of white people, tried not to stare.

"Good one!" The Man Too Important For Reality wheezed, sitting down opposite him. "No, Waseem, this is a great meeting. We're here to celebrate. Coffee?"

"Uh—"

He knew he should say yes, wanted to say no, and found a hot cup shoved in his hand before he could answer either way. 

"Thanks," he said glumly. It still tasted like tar. 

"Waseem, you are our most successful new salesman in — well, gosh, in at least eight fiscal quarters!" The Bloke of Bespoke Suits beamed. "We wanted to bring you here, shake your hand, and offer you a little token of our appreciation."

The Baffling Corporate Climber reached into his suit and extended a small white envelope. 

"All yours," he said, though he kept his grip on it for several seconds after Waz reached back to take it.

"Is it a cheque?" Waz asked. 

The Animated Tailor's Dummy roared silently again. 

"No," he said. "Better." 

More tax-deductible, thought Waz. He opened the envelope.

CONGRATULATIONS, read a piece of heavy stock, gold-embossed card. YOU HAVE EARNED A FREE ROUND TRIP TO YOUR CHOICE OF DESTINATION — ANYWHERE WORLDWIDE!

He searched for an asterisk, but there was none. When he looked up, The Boss With No Name was grinning at him with coiffed mania. 

"Anywhere you want, bud! We'll even toss in a very generous hotel and expenses package. You get extra paid time off to take it, obvs." Wow, he really verbalised obvs. "Whaddya say?"

He was looking for deferent gratitude, but what came out of Waz's mouth was: "Literally anywhere?"

"Absolutely!"

"No restrictions?"

"Anywhere on Earth," the corporato beamed. 

"I want to go where they grow the beans," said Waz.

The grin shut off like a dead neon bulb.

"Wot?" The Newly Perturbed Man burped in a distinctly unpolished accent.

"The virgin forests. The careful hands. I want to see them," Waseem said calmly.

The Clearly Ruffled Dude straightened his tie. "That's an unusual request."

Waz shrugged. "It's not like it's Antarctica." 

"Would you like to like to go to Antarctica?" The Slightly Desperate Suit scrambled. "We could arrange that." 

"I want to see the sherbet sunsets," Waz said. 

"It's not super accessible," The Backtracking Man said. 

"But it's on Earth?"

"Well, yes—"

"And you said anywhere on Earth. No restrictions."

"I did," said The Regretful Man, regretfully. 

"Then I want to see where the magic happens," said Waseem.

"Fine," conceded The Suddenly Deflated Man. "I'll make some calls."

"Great!" Waz lifted the coffee cup up to toast. "To the Bean!"

The Defeated Man raised his cup half-mast and downed it quickly. As the dregs ran down his throat, Waz wondered if the forest sunsets would rival that burnt orange night with Mickey.

---

The closer her got, the smaller and more packed his transit became: from the comfortable commercial plane, to the local Cessna with an engine roar that rattled his teeth and a hold rolling with mangoes, to the bus pursued by an aggressive alpaca herd, and finally the truck into the jungle's heart, a ride he shared with a pleasant goat named Pedro, who drooled on Waz's lap in his sleep. The forest was sticky and green, the greatest collection of green hues he'd ever seen, like a paint shop gone mad for avocado and summer grass and pampas and lime and emerald, a verdant spectacle he feasted on through the truck windows. The company put him up in a fancy hotel designed to look rustic (thatched umbrellas over the al-fresco dining tables, vines directed carefully to crawl up the walls in a romantic droop). Waz stood on his balcony and sniffed the air: bright under the muggy heat, the forest dark and dusted with stars. He had never felt so alone as in that velvet darkness, the trees cushioning every sound but the click of crickets. It was a deeper kind of freedom than he'd ever imagined, to be that far away from the press of reality. 

At breakfast, a corporate rep found him. He was eating Greek yoghurt by the pool, watching the sparkle of sun on the water, when a tidy woman in cream linen approached. Her smile was as tight as a pulled hamstring, and just as painful. Waz felt his shoulders stiffen. 

"Waseem." Her voice was crooning; she had the air of a children's dentist — pacifying in tone, but the needle was poised out of site. It jarred him to attention. "I'm Madeline. I'll be your tour guide."

Waz put his spoon down. "They worried I'll get lost?"

Madeline smiled sharkishly. "Something like that." 

The first prickle of heat swept in on the breeze. Perhaps he could lose the babysitter. Perhaps he really would lose himself in that endless coffee bushland. 

"Best go before it gets too hot out," Waz suggested. 

On the dirt road out to the plantation, he watched the blue mountains wash by in a watercolour heat-haze and thought how easy it would be to disappear here. 

The scent came first, rising like soft steam over the hills. There was a rich mineral quality to the soil, lifting the hot air with the bright taste of rain; then came the sweetness of leaves, fragrant as cut grass, and as they rounded a final hairpin he saw it at last: under those rolling orange sherbet skies were the thick bushes, wriggling as if tickled by the bean-pickers moving among them. Madeline led him quietly through the rows of trees. Bright red beans plopped into vast wicker baskets with strange caution, as though the pickers didn't want to wake something that slept. Why, he couldn't figure; Madeline laughed off the question, and the pickers themselves kept their eyes glued to their work, treating the tourists as ghosts. The rustling of leaves cluttered the air like cicada chitter, but the pickers didn't speak. Everyone wore pocketless overalls and blank expressions, like a cult. 

"Is it everything you expected?" Madeline asked. Her pace was brisk as a foreman, business-like. 

"Hard to tell when it's going by a mile a minute," Waz chuntered. Madeline cocked her head back as though his was the driest wit. 

"We aim to make life go faster," Madeline commented by way of excuse. She was nearing the top of a row, about to turn around a fresh corner of bushes. Waz lagged, letting her go on ahead. Crouching as if to tie a shoelace, he squinted at a glimmering basket of beans. He snuck a hand in. The beans rolled loosely over his palm. A picker turned around and held him with wide, terrified eyes. 

"Waseem?" Madeline's demure panic came through several feet of bush. The picker bent to a knee. Eyes on Waz, they scooped a tiny palmful of beans and slid them into his pocket. By the time Madeline rounded the corner, the picker was back on their feet, carefully studying the bush. 

"Sorry," said Waz. "Shoe came undone."

Madeline's smile was polite as a debutante. There were storm clouds in her eyes.

---

Back at the hotel, Waz put the beans on his bed. They were not what he had imagined: immaculate ruby beads, glinting with fruity shine, a cluster of cherry bombs nesting in the plush white linen. He felt a strange protectiveness rise in him, watching the clutch. 

Waz watched the beans for two uneventful hours before falling asleep. He woke to lightning cracking the sky above the forest like an egg, gooey light splashing across the tree tops. The rain was a flurry of nails on the window pane. Half asleep, he wandered out onto the balcony.

He didn't realise he was holding the bean until there came a wriggle in his palm. 

Waz unfurled his hand. Under the water, the bean rocked gently back and forth with the rhythm of a hatching egg. Waz peered closer.

A black eye the size of a pore opened.

Then another.

Waz sank to his knees. He cupped his hands together, careful not to drop the bean. 

"No way."

The bean blinked. A crack appeared beneath the eyes. The thin line spread open into a thirsty mouth. The bean wriggled on its back, trying to catch the raindrops. 

By the time Waz had filled up the bedside glass with water for the bean to lap at, it had sprouted thin, feeler-like feet, and was merrily sprinting across a blotter of complimentary hotel paper. Waz offered the water — the tumbler hot-tub sized by comparison — and the bean drank gratefully, emitting tiny squeaks.

"Jesus." Waz sat in the desk chair, goggling at the living bean.

It really was special coffee.    

The bean burped, tumbled drunkenly on its round behind, and giggled. It grinned up toothlessly at Waz.

He snatched the bin and hurled violently into it.

"Uh-oh," trilled the bean.

---

The bean slept that night in an ashtray lined with cotton wool balls, tucked up under a Kleenex blanket. Waz stuck the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and poured three minis of tequila down the drain to ward off suspicion of anything but a hangover.

The bean slept in late. Waz ordered room service, allowing the bean to nibble at his eggs and toast. It only spoke in unintelligible squeals, but it was friendly enough.

"I can't believe we've been drinking you," Waz said. 

Its pinprick eyes were wide and innocent. 

After lunch, Waz fished out a biro from his bag. With the bean watching curiously, he scribbled on the hotel paper. 

WAZ, he wrote. The bean craned its apple-ish body forward to look. 

"Waz," said Waz, indicating the word and jabbing at his own chest. "Waz."

"Eeee," squeaked the bean. Waz sighed.

"This is pointless, isn't it?"

The bean got agitated. Bent low, it butted its head into the biro, grunting as it tried to push. Reluctantly, the bean flopped back, panting. Waz's eyes widened. 

"Hang on!" he told the bean. It watched intently as he rustled through his backpack.

Waz pulled out the fountain pen. He tipped out the sugar packets from their small moulded-plastic home and snapped the ink cartridge into the well left behind. The bean looked up at him expectantly. 

Waz daubed a finger in the ink and set it to paper. The bean squealed with excitement. 

Within minutes it was running back and forth — splashing in the ink like a kid in a puddle, then dashing across the sheaf in dizzy little footprints. It made for staccato, choppy handwriting (footwriting? thought Waz), but it was legible, and by Jove, the clever little bugger had figured out some basic English.

MAPO, it said. 

MAPO

IS 

BEAN

"Hot damn," said Waz, looking at the exhausted creature. "Mapo is genius."

Mapo grinned widely, then flopped back into a deep sleep.

---

Soaps and 24-hour news was probably not the best diet for learning a language, but Mapo was ravenous and picked it up quickly. Waz learned a few key squeak variations (hunger; frustration; a bizarre trill that indicated some need for relief, though where and what Mapo defecated was unclear). Mapo rode in Waz's pocket when they left the room, Waz putting in a good appearance of a holidayer enjoying the complex. Madeline checked in once, but seeing Waz graciously tan by the pool with a cocktail seemed to ease her suspicions. For thirteen days he pretended to lounge, figuring all the while how to get Mapo home through security. 

None of the other beans came to life. Mapo inspected them once, and his disinterest was telling. Waz put them in his suitcase anyway. 

"So you're not all alive?" he asked Mapo. 

"Moop." (No).

"But it's not just you?"

Mapo gave him a long, hard stare that burned into his conscience. 

"Moop," it said eventually.

By the day of the flight, they had a plan. Waseem packed his bags carefully and put on his cargo pants. When he was ready, he turned to Mapo. The bean's expression was remarkably stern for a ball with legs and no eyebrows.

"Ready?" Waz asked. 

"Eeee." 

Mapo slipped into the barely-noticeable inner calf pocket of Waz's cargo pants. 

"Let's hope that cotton weave really is breathable," he sighed, as they left the hotel.

Sweat dribbled into Waseem's ear as he queued for airport security. The atmosphere was sluggish with wet heat. He shuffled in line, sandwiched between a large grumpy man using a khaki sun hat for a fan and a family with a pair of unruly toddlers swirling in untempered boredom.

"Stop it. Stop!" the mother snapped. The father was checked out, eyes panning up to the lazy ceiling fan. 

In his pocket, Mapo gave a wriggle. At least he was still alive.

"No food, seeds, plants?" the security agent asked, scanning Waz's passport.

Mapo hugged his calf.

"No."

"No weapons or accelerants?"

"No."

The agent gave him a long, flat stare.

"No boyfriend?"

"What?"

The agent winked. 

"Just kidding. Airport romances never last." 

His eyes were burning with hope. Waz kept his eyes from darting to the nearest restroom. 

"OK," the agent said finally, sensing Waz's reserve. "Have a nice trip, cutie."

Waz's insides finally unclenched.

"We'll make it yet," he told the pocket bean.

---

Hassan was waiting for them at the airport. 

"Jammy dodger!" he greeted Waz. "Can't believe you got an actual trip out of them. We all thought that one was bullshit."

They rode home in Hassan's dodgy old motor. The thing should have clapped out years ago, but Hassan was meticulous with upkeep, from the beeswax furniture polish he used to clean the dash to the loving weekend tinkering that kept the banger purring along like an adored kitten. Waz was mostly silent for the journey, with Hassan filling in the entire conversation with speculation about Waz's overseas adventures. They were just pulling off the motorway when Hassan asked:

"Did you pick me up anything?"

Waz would have squirmed a little in his seat and said sort of, at least, there was definitely something I wanted to show you, but before he could say a word Mapo leapt out of his pocket with a delighted "Ta-da!", causing Hassan to yelp and only narrowly avoid taking a diagonal short-cut across the roundabout.

"What the fuck is that?"

Mapo grumbled. It sounded like a small dog.

"Someone with a bad sense of timing."

"Someone?"

"We should wait until we're off the road to discuss it." 

Hassan fixed his hands at ten and two. "Right," he said, eyes glued to the road. 

Mapo glared at him the rest of the ride.

Back in Waz's flat, they had the strangest conversation any of them had ever been in, even counting that one time on salvia where Waz briefly thought Hassan was a circus master. By the end of it, Mapo and Hassan were still staring each other down, but with a wary understanding. 

"So what are you going to do?" Hassan asked. 

"We haven't decided yet."

"We?" Hassan's eyebrows shot up. Mapo growled. 

"No offence," he placated the bean. "But exactly what social skills are you bringing to the table?"

Mapo dropped onto his apple butt sulkily. 

"You can't work for them any more," Hassan continued. "Neither of us can. I won't."

"No one should," agreed Waz.

"This one's the only proof you've got, right?"

"Mapo," Mapo squeaked angrily.

"Right, yeah, Mapo. Sorry."

"They don't all …" Waz searched for the right word. "Hatch?" 

Mapo nodded, which looked like an egg inclining forwards. Hassan's brow gained a new furrow.

"You got any ideas?" he asked finally.

"I do," Waz said hesitantly. 

"But?"

Waz let out a slow breath. "You sure you want to quit?"

"Fuck yes." Not a second's pause. 

"Alright, then." Waz pulled out his phone. "Let's do this."

---

5.

55.

5,482.

5,000,000.

Every hour, every minute, the number climbed up like a mileage clock on a long-haul truck breaking the land speed record.

No way.

So cool!

Calling it: fake. Fakety fake-ass FAKE. 

This is some weird fucking ad campaign, but I'm here for it.

The Resignation Video, as it was called, had earned viral status in hours. Three succinct minutes of Waseem, Hassan and Mapo, direct to camera, unveiling the horrors of beans. 

It had the kind of reach they could only have dreamed of. The problem was, no one believed them. 

Thanks for the sales boom, came the text, sent from HR to both of their phones simultaneously. You are of course fired.

"We fucked that up royally," Hassan grimaced. "Not sure if it could have gone worse, but — no, scratch that, I'm sure. This is the worst we could have done." 

Waz stared at the blotches on the ceiling, saying nothing.

"We didn't reach even one person," Hassan huffed. "The internet really is making us dumber."

Waz grabbed his shoes. 

"Come on, Mapo."

"Where are you going?" 

"House call."

***

At first glance Mr Barnaby seemed to be wearing a toupee. It took a minute for Waz to recognise the old man's wispy leftover hair had had a full revival, having regrown in thick thatch-coloured tufts, now bobbing along as the not-so-old man sheared the dandelions from his garden. 

"Waseem! My dear lad. It's been a while. I'm afraid it's only me today. Doing a spot of upkeep on the old lawn. Far overdue, I know."

"It's just you I want to talk to, Mr Barnaby," said Waz. "May I come in?"

Sitting alone together in that living room was an eerie mirror of their first encounter. Waz fiddled with his tea cup (from a new, uncracked set), wondering how to broach the conversation.

"It seems wrong for age to preach to beauty on this account," Mr Barnaby said gently, "but my dear boy, you look awful."

Waz rubbed his puffy eyes. The lack of sleep was catching up with him. 

"I found out something about the coffee," he said. "Something terrible that — Mr Barnaby, I don't know what to tell you."

Mr Barnaby gave a sympathetic, close-lipped smile that held an eon of wisdom despite the youthier face. 

"As I said before, lad: just tell me the truth."

It took a long time. He went all the way back to his misgivings in selling the beans, to the meeting with The Man of Some Importance, the encounter with Madeline, the silent pickers and the surreptitious gift. He needed to say it all, worried if he missed a beat he'd lose Barnaby's trust. Finally, he pulled out Mapo, who quivered on his palm as the old man bent down to inspect him. 

"My god," Barnaby said finally.

"I don't know what to do," said Waz. I tried to let people know, but they're just buying more beans. They think it's some kind of joke."

Mr Barnaby was shaking. "What a dreadful position you've been put in." He sounded genuinely sorry. "I hate to say it dear boy, but there's really nothing you can do. Say you burn the forests down; well, then you kill them all the same. And if people won't listen to their own humanity, well—" He shrugged politely. "You're fucked."

"I thought you should know," Waz said glumly. "Even though—"

"Even though you've clearly noticed the new-found longevity it's brought me and my friends. A brave choice. I commend you for it. I don't know how the others will react."

"Does it really cure everything?" Waz asked. 

"No. Not quite. Everything's still there, just waiting to come back. I suppose it sort of put a few things on hold, allowed a few others to restore themselves. Still miraculous, but alas, a stopgap nonetheless."

"What will you do now?" Waz asked.

Mapo looked up at Mr Barnaby with his wide black eyes. Barnaby gave a sad, soft smile. 

"I shall ask you for one last favour," he said.

In the back garden of Mr Barnaby's crumbling house, the fire pit glowed hot and bright. Clouds of tar-coloured smoke rose into the sky, thick and grimy with the taste of coffee cremains. Mr Barnaby's eyes grew wet against the soot. He put his arm over Waz's shoulder as they watched the fire burn down.

---

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