Instant Story - Midnight Coffee

An older, grizzled mountain man has been driving his Camaro across the desert for almost 20 hours straight. His mother is on her deathbed, and he is trying to get to her before she goes. It is late at night, and the strain is beginning to get to him. He starts having trouble staying awake, so he decides to pull into a fast-food place to get some coffee. He goes through the drive-thru line, but when he pulls up to the speaker something is wrong. He hears the sound of some sort of fight through the speaker. Suddenly a pregnant woman runs out of the restaurant, screaming. She runs down the road. Then several police cars pull up, and the police run into the building. He drives away, still very tired.

As he drives down the road, he sees the pregnant woman. He drives past her. He watches her in his rearview mirror. She suddenly clutches her stomach and collapses. The man stops his car, then reverses it to the pregnant woman. He opens the door, and asks if she needs any help. She is Hispanic, and does not speak much English, but he understands the words hospital and baby. He helps her in the backseat, and drives off.

Unfortunately for him and her, the hospital is across town. He struggles to stay awake as the woman screams and yells at him. He eventually begins to hallucinate, and almost falls asleep at the wheel. After almost crashing his car, he decides that he needs some coffee in order to make it to the hospital. Against the protests of the young woman, he pulls into a parking lot and runs into the coffee shop.

Inside the coffee shop the employees are all closing down the store. The man orders the strongest coffee they have, but the barista refuses to make it for him. They argue for a bit, and eventually the man pulls a gun on the barista. Under threats of death, the barista quickly makes a cup of coffee for the man. The man takes and chugs it in one gulp, throws away the cup, then pays the barista. Refreshed, he runs back into the car where the young woman is struggling with her baby. They drive off.


They make it to the hospital with seconds to spare. The woman goes into the emergency room, and the man collapses into a chair and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he learns his mother passed away, and that the young woman successfully had a healthy baby.