I met Hastrom one day when he landed his little spaceship in my artificial garden, there I was one early morning trying to cool down a bit, as the heat was scorching and the anguish did not allow me to fall asleep.
I was looking at memories through the App to see holography.
One of my favorite images was from 50 years ago, it was my grandmother and me, she drinking a cup of hot coffee and I was ecstatic by the smell, I was only 7 years old, she refused to give me and promised me that she would give me a taste when I turned 10.
What my grandmother did not know was that coffee had little time left, despite the advances in technology, the coffee industry could not be saved, climate changes have made real disasters. When I turned 10 years old, not only was I unable to taste coffee, but I had to watch my grandmother die.
Seeing her in the holographic images made me feel that she was still with me.
That early morning, Hastrom invited me inside the spaceship, he assured me that there I would feel a pleasant sensation and that we could take a walk, I thought about it for a moment but his gaze was so clear that he offered me enough confidence. We are in the year 2500, beings from other planets have been visiting us for 100 years and it is normal, although obviously not all of them have good intentions.
Inside the spaceship there was a small oasis in the center, artificial oxygen, grass and flowers of natural origin and a small water cycle on a reduced scale.
Hastrom was very opportune that early morning and invited me for a walk. He has crystallized eyes with deep pupils, slightly bluish skin, silver lips, bare feets and he wears baggy one-pieces of vibrant colors and his tone of voice is quite monotonous. She is a beautiful being and her presence is luminous, as if she was born directly from the stars.
His visits became frequent and every day we had a different adventure, we went to the highest mountain peaks, to the little nooks and crannies of plant life that still exist on earth and to watch volcanoes erupt just a few meters.
One night he told me we were going on a special mission.
Before I knew it we were above the ocean and the spaceship began to spin at millions of revolutions per second at its ends, I felt the impact as we hit the sea and began the descent into the deep as if it was a missile free falling in the air, it was an otherworldly feeling. The spaceship stopped when it seemed there was nothing else below.
It turned on some external lights and I could see some marine species that I never thought could exist, much less that there was still so much life at the bottom of the sea.
We also spotted a worn chest that looked quite old.
"Human garbage" Hastrom said, pointing. He pressed a button and a sphere shot out into the chest, it opened, he stowed it inside himself and in an instant the chest was inside the spaceship.
Hastrom used a device to identify what the chest contained: can of seafood, can of fruit food, can of vacuum-sealed coffee.
"Coffee! Terran coffee!" exclaimed Hastrom in his characteristic robotic tone and with eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Coffee? Really? Hastrom, but... Can we? One of my dreams is..."
"I know, your grandmother's holograms.... I've always wanted to try Earth coffee, they say it's the purest there is" He interrupted.
"Does coffee exist on other planets?"
Hastrom did not utter any more words, he opened the can with a laser light that came out of one of his rings and inside was a bag of coffee, it seems that someone wanted to keep it well and who knows what happened next, or before.
He opened the bag and his nose looked like a rabbit's as he delighted in the most delicious fragrance and I remembered that aroma I knew at my grandmother's side.
Hastrom added some of the aromatic dark powder in a strange device and I could instantly recognize the delicious aroma that permeated so many afternoons in the company of my grandmother. On a digital screen he selected a couple of cups and then pressed the 3D button, out came the cups with freshly brewed coffee.
He took the first sip, his eyes sparkled, he let go of the cup for a moment, jumped up and down, bumping his bare feet against each other, continued drinking his coffee and began swaying happily and humming a song.
He noticed that on my first sip I scrunched up my face a little as my tongue fiddled in my mouth.
For the first time Hastrom let out a laugh and I blushed. He added some sweetener to my cup and invited me to drink again, he distracted me by showing me the fish peeking out of the spaceship , suddenly I felt a small euphoria and immense desire for another sip and then another, I was filled with an energy I hadn't felt in quite some time.
"I feel like running, Hastrom."
"Me too" he replied as he pressed on the spaceship the -exit- button.
I was astonished when the spaceship began to descend, I thought it would go upwards, I did not think it was possible, I thought there was nothing below, or maybe burning lava.
We arrived at a paradisiacal place and the spaceship ejected us, we fell without hitting each other and started to run like children.
