This is the environment that I like. A small, cozy place, with warm and dark colors. Low lamps, which illuminate what they have to illuminate. Jazz music in the background. My hands on the nice wood and my nose catching the aroma of a well-filled cup of coffee.

I haven't heard from Maria for two months. The break was sad, too. She took her stuff and left. As simple as that. She could have also taken away the doubts that have plagued me all this time.

I love the smell of coffee. And the cafeteria's smell, which is slightly different. It might be the mixture of coffee aromas with other products for sale. Once they told me about a coffee bean that had been left in a sunken ship, in its sacks, for centuries until it was discovered. Someone dared to try that fermented coffee. To his surprise he noticed that it had its nuances that made it special. A new variety of coffee emerged, a valued one. To be honest, I don't know if this story is real.

Maria didn't like coffee. That deprived me of the pleasure of having a coffee with my partner to talk about stimulating topics. She preferred drinking coke, anyway... What lack of taste. Nor did she propose stimulating topics.

I started with coffee shortly after entering the university, so many years ago. I felt moved by the situation, it seemed that studying at the university exhorted to drink coffee, which was an inherent part of it. I remember the insecurity when I asked for it for the first time, in the faculty canteen. "A coffee please". "An espresso?". "Yes, I express to you that I want a coffee".

Many times having a conversation with Maria would stress me. Each one tried to impose his/her favorite topic on the other. I came to accept that feeling ignored was part of our relationship. Now that I write it down, it sounds pathetic.

There is less than half the coffee in my cup. I don't want it to end. I remember when Maria said to me: "You will see how you'll miss me when I'm gone". I felt safe, and replied: "That won't happen, because we'll always be together." Smile and kiss. But Maria is gone, as almost my cup of coffee is.

The coffee was not discovered by humans. It was some Ethiopian goats, who chewed some berries that they shouldn't have chewed and they started running wildly through the plains. The shepherds began to make kneadings of the fruits of those bushes. It's interesting how long the coffee has traveled to end up turning into a steaming cup in my hands. A light layer of milk foam in the bottom is all that remains. At times I think of something: that, in reality, our relationship was like a decaffeinated coffee. Diamond was glass, gold was paint, and silver was steel. I am assaulted by a funny idea: What would those Ethiopian shepherds of yesteryear think, if someone asked them for a decaff coffee?

I gaze at the cup, already empty, concentrating on the bottom; as if I could find there the answer to my distress. So absorbed am I, and hypnotized by the solo saxophone of jazz music, that I enter a kind of mystical state of deep reflection. There, at the bottom of the cup, I see a strange entity of foam forming. It transmits a message composed of phrases without words, whispered, suggested. It tells me that I am the stupidest person in the world: I am longing for the pebble that I have removed from my shoe.

I go back to reality, dazed. I get up without taking my eyes off the cup, while I mutter these silly words:

-Thanks, cup, for the therapy session.