Coffee in Cartala

Just the first chapter of a story I’m working on called Coffee in Cartala. Hope you enjoy!

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Coffee had been illegal in Cartala for over five years now, and a burgeoning smuggling operation had grown. I should know, because I was responsible for establishing both the smuggling ring and the black market operation that supported it. The citizens of Cartala wanted coffee, and I wanted their money.

My name is Bailis. I am the youngest of three children born to a merchant family in the city of Cartala, on the planet of Shur’tugal. My older brother, Jerin, was the eldest, followed by my sister, Karsin.

We lived on a small estate in the city, with our parents, two older brothers, and our servants. We had the best food, and we all dressed in the finest clothes. My father made a great deal of money, and so we had more than we could possibly need. It was not a bad life.

But then the government banned coffee, and our life changed.

Coffee had been the mainstay of the Cartalan economy for almost a thousand years. It was grown and harvested on plantations in the mountains, and shipped downriver to our port. But then the government banned coffee as part of an effort to promote native products instead of imported ones, and our entire economy began to crumble.

The people of Cartala were forced to buy things from other planets, and trade became very difficult. Many lost their jobs, and many lost their homes. Those that were able fled to other countries, looking for work.

Our family’s finances started to suffer. My father tried to keep his business afloat, but he was only one man, and it was too much for him. He went bankrupt. He had to sell our land, and my mother took in laundry. She worked day and night, and she got sick often, but she kept working. She kept us alive.

We were lucky enough to get some money from an old uncle of my father’s. But it wasn’t enough, and it was never enough. It was never enough to live on.

Karsin found work as an assistant to one of the city’s merchants. She tried her hand at writing, hoping to find a new job. But she was only able to get a few small contracts here and there. Jerin tried to get a job as an artist, but he could only manage to sell two pieces in his lifetime. I tried my hand at the black market, selling coffee, tobacco, and sugar smuggled in from other planets. I made more than enough to keep us fed and clothed, and I was able to send Karsin some money.

But my family could not afford anything else. And every time we were able to afford something, the government banned it again.

When I was seventeen, I started to meet with other smugglers. I learned how the system worked, and what products were being banned and why. I began to realize that the government was using coffee as a way to control the population, and force people into a life of poverty.

I began to use my family’s contacts to send things in from other planets. Sugar and tobacco were banned in Cartala as well, but people still wanted them. They wanted their coffee, even if the government wouldn’t let them have it.

My smuggling operation grew quickly. We started small, but it did well, and we kept growing. We ran shipments of tobacco and sugar from different planets on the same routes, using the same ships. We bribed officials, gave bribes to people in power, and did whatever else it took to keep our shipments safe and make our customers happy. We began to move larger shipments of coffee and tobacco as well, but we still ran our primary trade in sugar.

As I grew older, my friends began to leave me behind. I was not an easy person to get along with, and my work was becoming increasingly dangerous. Some of my friends decided it was safer for them to leave me alone, rather than risk my anger or my vengeance.

But I didn’t let that stop me. I kept running my smuggling operation, even after my friends left me behind. I worked harder than ever, making sure my shipments got to where they needed to go. I was making enough money now that we could finally eat and have a little bit of luxury in our lives.

But then my father died, and my mother took sick. There was nothing left to do but wait for the inevitable.

Karsin was still working as an assistant for her old boss. Jerin was working on another piece. He was never really any good at art, but he kept trying, hoping that one day he might find his talent. I was running my smuggling operation, but I couldn’t run it forever. I couldn’t run it forever, because eventually I’d be caught by the authorities, and they would destroy my family.

And so I left it behind. I told my family I was going to travel across the sea to visit an aunt on an island, and that I would be back in a year’s time. I would have been back sooner, but I had to take care of some business first. I had some contacts in another country who owed me a favor, and I had to help them out with a little bit of work.

I was supposed to meet them on my trip to the island. I was supposed to give them some information they needed. But then I received a message that my contacts were dead, killed by the government’s agents, and that my help would not be needed. And so I returned home.

I returned home to my mother lying in bed, coughing up blood, with nothing to offer her but some rye bread and water.

I returned home to my sister, weeping in her bedroom while I held her in my arms.

I returned home to my father lying in a pile of his own filth and vomit in the corner of our home, surrounded by flies and rats.

I returned home to my brother, kneeling over our father’s corpse with tears pouring down his cheeks as he prayed for him to be given entrance to the afterlife.

I returned home to find Karsin and Jerin waiting for me at the door of our home, holding bags full of things they had gathered for us. Their eyes were red from crying, their faces were pale from grief, but their eyes were filled with love.

My brother and sister loved me so much that they had left their jobs, their futures, their dreams behind in order to care for their mother and me. They had given up everything for me.

And I knew then that I had failed them.

I was the eldest son in our family, the one that was supposed to take care of them. I had failed them. And so I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to fix our broken world.

I was not the only one to feel that way. Many others felt the same way. Many felt betrayed by the government and by the other nations in our system, who used our system to benefit themselves. They saw our problems clearly, and they were doing everything in their power to fix them.

They had started by focusing their efforts on the cities closest to our port, hoping to inspire people there to start organizing into groups that might be able to oppose our government and change our system from within. They called themselves The Revolutionary League, and they hoped they could bring about change from below.

They were planning something big, something big enough to get the government’s attention and get their attention. They were planning an uprising, one that would hopefully inspire the rest of our system to follow suit and throw off the chains of their oppression.

It was a dangerous idea. It was a terrifying idea. It was a brave idea. And it was an idea that I could not stand idly by as someone else took credit for my ideas and accomplishments.

So I joined The Revolutionary League. I started by giving them money so that they could buy weapons and food to distribute to the poor of our society. I tried to raise awareness, but it didn’t seem like much was going to change for a long time yet. The government’s control over our people was too strong for change to come quickly, so it was up to me to help make change happen at all.

The government had begun their attack on our people slowly, bit by bit, so that our society would grow dependent on their support before they removed that support and left us all with nothing. They began by banning the coffee we all loved so much. They began by taxing the products that we needed in order to survive in the first place. They began by using our fear of change against us.

I worked for weeks on end, helping The Revolutionary League build up their network of supporters in the slums of Cartala. It was hard work, and it was dangerous work, but I didn’t mind it. I was determined to change the world for my family.

And then a government official came to visit our house.