Momentary Blindness

Chatter and music push and pull at each other. Sometimes I hear one, sometimes I hear the other, although I am listening for neither. I don’t know—“Bruléed Hot Chocolate?”—what causes the switch, but as of right now I am aware of both. Foster The People is playing alongside three women chatting about that time they met at the Gap. They exclaim over the ages of their daughters while Foster The People talks about “all the other kids.” This balance of sound is occasionally interrupted—“Caramel Nitro?”—by the bang of an espresso machine and called coffee orders, accompanied by the smell of my cappuccino. The coffee’s milk could have been sweeter, maybe the shot—“Latte, whole milk?”—was left to sit for too long. I’m wearing fingerless gloves to type. They are wooly and reach fairly far up my fingers. It makes it hard to reach the “a” and “p,” also these quotation marks, but my hands are too cold all the time for me to even think about taking them off. The sun was hot on my cheek a few minutes ago, which was nice, but it was also glaring in the corner of my eye. It’s cloudy now, and I can feel the coolness of the window. The table vibrates as someone slides—“Cappuccino?”—their drink across the uneven wooden surface that makes my laptop tip back and forth as I type. Someone opened the door, and it sends a fresh wave of hair-raising goosebumps over my skin—despite my gloves. The women are talking about Father John, who is very Catholic apparently. Whoever that may be. “Cappuccino?”

(February 2, Kru Coffee)