Beauty Is Found in Sarah Black’s Flash “Barista”

Barista
Sarah Black

That kid, he's as sweet as a Twinkie. He brought me a Mexican Mocha in a bright red cup, the foam on top a curvy little heart. He's letting his hair grow, and the bangs are curling on his forehead like some guitar boy from 1967. Which I remember, being alive in 1967. He was born in 1987. Or possibly later.

I picked up the cup, sucked the tail of the little heart into my mouth, cinnamon, nutmeg, sweet chocolate. He watched me drink, leaning over the counter on his elbows. I knew I had a little mocha moustache but I couldn't lick it off, not with him watching. My face flushed red. It wasn't a pink blush, like this pretty, soft-eyed boy would do, but a real flush, a hot flash flush, and I had to stumble like a fool out the door, stand in the street and let the snow blow cold on my face.

Originally appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly and appears here courtesy of the author.

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The beauty of Sarah Black's "Barista" is its ability to be both incredibly simple and incredibly complex at the same time. It's a story about an older woman who finds that the barista at the coffee house she frequents, who is considerably younger, is attracted to her. She likes the attention but finds attraction comes with the constant reminders of how much older she is compared to him. He brings her a mocha with a foam heart on top, and then he proceeds to lean over the counter and watch her drink it. Initially all she can think about is how she was around at least twenty years before he was born saying, "Which I remember, being alive in 1967. He was born in 1987. Or possibly later."

What I love about this piece is how quiet it is. It is a simple moment in time. A woman getting coffee, getting attention and getting embarrassed, but it's more than that. To me, this is story is also about a moment an older woman finds her age embarrassing. From the very beginning of the story we know that the woman isn't attracted to the barista. She finds him "as sweet as a Twinkie." You get an endearing feeling from that. She says that "he's letting his hair grow," so we know that she's seen him regularly enough to decide just how sweet he is. Then when her face flushes, Black is very specific to say that this isn't a blush of embarrassment. It is a hot flash. This woman finds the hot flash, not the attention, embarrassing. She "had to stumble like a fool out the door," to escape the fact that she is old enough that to get a hot flash. Black's choice to make it snowing outside supports the idea of an escape. The character was trying to escape both the heat and the situation and found relief on the other side of the coffee house doors.

In this piece, Black does what flash fiction was meant to do. She takes and isolated moment and expands it to show its importance. Every good flash has carefully chosen words, and this piece is no exception. Black starts the piece off by characterizing the barista as "sweet as a Twinkie" and goes on to talk about the drink he brought. Readers can't help but associate the barista with the drink. This is reinforced later in the second paragraph when Black describes the drink as "sweet chocolate," and then goes on to say how the barista is watching the main character. The drink becomes and extension of the barista, which is an excellent technique. Finally, one of the most important and most challenging parts of flash is creating characters readers can connect with in so few words. Black executed a story that successfully attached readers to the character and only needed 158 words to do so, the mark of a quality flash.

About the Author

Meghan Rogers is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. She is new to the world of flash fiction, but is enjoying the creative challenge. Her favorite things to write are novels and short stories that tend to be more young adult. When not writing, she enjoys reading, sports and watching way to much television.

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