pt. I — Converging souls
The beauty of coffee shops is that they’ve got a knack for stories.
Tacked paintings, unnamed faces on the walls, streams of melodies from bands no one has ever heard of, and the delicate rosetta settling in the mug in front of her all have stories to tell. Visions and memories people want to mull over as they unwind from a tiring day.
She watched the steam of her coffee rise in slow, steady breaths. A few tables in front of her sat a couple sharing headphones. Maybe it was just the room lighting, but she couldn’t help admiring how beautifully their faces glowed next to each other.
Outside snow collected on the streets and sidewalks, on the brims of hats and the shoulders of coats.
Aimlessly, her eyes searched the evening sky. An acoustic guitar swelled in and out of her consciousness all the while. Every now and then she caught a line that sent a sharp pain in the center of her heart – but what they meant then are entirely different than what they mean now.
As the music came to a close, so did the pains in her heart. Dissipated. Gone.
She shut her eyes to everything and leaned back into her chair, letting out a long sigh.
These words, in her mind, swirled and blended into streams like the milk in her coffee mug. Sometimes moments like these made her feel removed from the people around her. A parallel-type of loneliness with no hope of a converging soul in this world of dissimilarity.
But that’s when she felt a shift in the air. A jazz number.
A shadow through her eyelids.
She opened her eyes, and there he was.