Macbeth Much?

“You sure this is it??” I asked, filled with trepidation.

“Yeah, I’m positive. Come on, let’s go in,” Zira tugged on my hand the weird-looking cottage. I had to stop her.

“Wait.” I held fast to the ground. “Are you sure we need to do this?”

Zira gave me an exasperated look as she turned to me. “Listen to me, Jimmy. The Supervisor is coming in this week. You need to tidy up your reports, which last I checked, is piling to the heavens. You need this. We need this.”

Sceptical, I continued. “And you’re positive they’ll have a solution for it? I mean I can just binge on endless cups of coffee.”

She gave me a dry look. “And when, has that ever worked for you?” When I gave her an icy stare, she continued. “Look you can always go back, but remember how long it took us to peruse through this forest. You want to go back after everything?”

I looked back at the wide expanse of trees behind me and the last hues of the pink sky that signalled that night were at the corner. She was right. I couldn’t go back. Motioning to Zira who already had a winning smile on her face, I said, “Let’s do this.”

We entered the cottage and were greeted with a gust of smoke that had us clutching our chests as a fit of coughs seized us. I heard laughter a distance away. Was that a cackle? Looking at each other in the dim lights of the lobby, we hurried along the path, following the smoke. In the middle of a large room, we met two women who seemed to be engaging in a friendly conversation. They were stirring the contents of a large cauldron over a blazing fire and didn’t seem to notice our arrival.

I whispered to a silent Zira. “What book have we stepped into? The witches in Macbeth reincarnated?”

“Who said we ever died?” An eerie voice said from behind me making me let out a very unmanly shriek. The lady behind me guffawed in response as she walked up to the other ladies who’d stopped stirring whatever it was in the cauldron and were laughing as well.

“We’re just messing with you.” One of the ladies said.

“Should have seen the look on your face.”

“Now,” they turned serious all at once. “How may we help you?”

Still a bit spooked over the last three minutes, I gestured to Zira to state the reason for our coming.

“So,” Zira began. “We have a-”

“Look! It’s time!” One of the ladies shouted, pointing outside the window. I looked up to see the brightest, fullest moon I’d seen in a while as it shone beautifully, sending a glimmer of light directly into the cauldron. In a flash, the ladies hurried around the cauldron. They carried a large bowl towards the cauldron and started pouring in its contents. They all looked really weird and were those actual centipedes? I shuddered in revulsion but remained silent.

“And now,” they said in a deathly whisper. “The final touch.” They carried a handful of the last content in the bowl and I caught a whiff of something familiar. Coffee Beans. Reverently, they poured it into the cauldron and the most pleasant scent immediately emanated from it. I took a step closer and saw that the formerly dark liquid was now a golden brown under the gleam of the moonlight that was already beginning to fade away.

They ladled the golden liquid into a smaller bowl and walked towards me. I took several steps back. “You’ve not even listened to what we want,” I paused. “And I’m not drinking something I saw live bugs go into.

They stopped and giggled like they hadn’t heard something so dumb in a while. “Men,” they chorused, including Zira who took the bowl from them, blew at it and took a long sip. Her eyes widened and a look of undiluted pleasure swept her face. She quickly gulped the rest of the drink down to my consternation and handed the bowl back to the ladies who just smirked at each other like they were privy to something surreal that I had no way of ever knowing.

“It tastes divine and so similar to coffee, you’ll hardly notice the difference, Jimmy. Except for some exotic taste that’s so rich.”

“Must be the bug,” I muttered under my breath as I took the bowl from the ladies that they had already refilled. I looked at Zira for a second. She didn’t seem to sprouting horns from her nose. Yet. Tentatively, I took a sip and allowing myself no more time to think, I gulped it down. I felt a stirring in my chest and the calming aftertaste the liquid had. It was similar to actual coffee like Zira had said but had a more profound feeling. Somehow, I knew my reason for coming was solved.

Turning to the witches, I made to speak but they had turned their backs on us, already whipping up new concoctions in their cauldron. “Thank you,” I said aloud but they didn’t reply. Motioning to Zira, we started creeping out of the cottage.

“That would be 350. Drop it at the door.” They called out to us. I fished out the money from my wallet and dropped it like they said. Holding Zira’s hand we raced out of the cottage and didn’t stop.

---

“And how do you feel now that you have cleared three weeks' worth of paperwork without feeling the slightest bit of tiredness,” Zira stopped at my office with a box of doughnuts, grinning.

I smiled at her. I’d scaled through without a wink of sleep. A thought came in and I suddenly frowned. “We’re done now.”

“So?”

“How do we go back to sleeping normally?”

Zira looked at me with wide eyes. “Guess we’ll have to go back.”

I gulped. “Guess we do.”

Jhymi🖤

---

_{Source I, II, III}