Observations in a coffeeshop.

Observations in a coffeeshop.

location: Pacific Coffee at Cityhall
music: mixed tape on the speakers

It's yet another rainy afternoon, not unlike the one yesterday.

There was a point in time when rainy days gave my heart the chills, but my good old romanticism about rain is back.

It makes me feel snug and protected here inside the cafe while the world outside gets wet. The champ who's supposed to be here with me has overslept, so I get the chance to get acquainted with the leather chair I'm perched on and a headstart on my revision.

The two hours I had alone in here, drifting in and out of the world of communication research, was like a prolonged state of meditative calm. There's hardly any hustle and bustle here in the cafe, and I've been sitting amongst almost the same people who, like me, have seemingly found their own piece of quiet.

Something I read in a book some time ago has been resurfacing in my mind of late. In the novel, the protagonist was musing on how sad it was that we almost always never get a chance to know the strangers we pass by, or are seated beside; despite the fact that out of the billions of people in the world, we are at the same place at the same time.

It's how I feel right now actually. It's kinda surreal.

Take the man who was seated beside me, until just a while ago. We'd sat side by side for the past two hours, so near yet so far. I didn't take a good look at what he looks like, or at what it was exactly that he was doing on his laptop, but I could feel his presence beside me. And over the course of two hours, I have seemingly accepted his superficial idiosyncracies, like his penchant for laughing out loud at whatever it was on his laptop.

Or like the lady with straight shoulder length hair seated in front, with her back to me. I don't know what she looks like, or what she does for a living, but I know she exists in this world.

Or the tall man to her right, who until about half an hour ago, was alone. A lady has joined him now, and it seems like he is an actor of sorts, or so I think from the snippets of their conversation I hear. I think I even heard Fann Wong's name mentioned.

It's kinda like co-existing in anonymity within the confinements of this laidback paradise.

Our presence lends some sort of comfort to one another that we are not alone, all the while maintaining our masks of privacy. Life is so curiously warped, and so warpedly brilliant.