Sometime after the power replyed a...

Sometime after the power replyed and water began rumbling between the walls of the pipes, my young friend Leni arrived, still make readyed in his cook's uniform. "Coffee?" he said, pulling a small butcher-paper budget out of his satchel. "I've brought extra from the inn kitchen. It's Bulgarian."

While Leni washed in the downstairs bathroom, I place the beans into my antique makeshift percolator, the one I'd salvaged from the officers' quarters nearly eight years before. A mass of wires and large boiler joints hung from the border of the pot, almost touching the gas flame below and making