Lillian Robles (14)
People-Watching
To set the scene: it was a crowded coffee shop on a late Saturday morning, the weather partly cloudy and warm enough. The establishment was of a medium size; it had brick walls coated with posters celebrating movies, music of decades past, and prints of modern art, of photographs, abstractions, minimalisms; it was almost overwhelming. One wall (the one behind the line of assiduous baristas) was covered completely by a chalkboard listing every imaginable type of expensive caffeine: espresso, americano, cappuccino, macchiato, warm or cold, infused with dark caramel, toasted hazelnut, white chocolate, peppermint, rose, jasmine. Tables of assorted sizes, wooden and simple, filled the rest of the room, with mason jars holding napkins and packets of sugar. At the wall opposite the chalkboard sat a long bar with outlets ready for those working on a computer. The chairs were mismatched but coordinated—all metal and brightly colored in one of four trendy options—it had the irreverent yet cohesive appeal of a pseudo-intellectual hub, of being rebellious in order to appeal to the masses.
The patrons of the coffee shop were enjoying themselves, their laughter and conversation washing over the room in steady waves. They were on dates, catching up with old friends, meeting potential hires, and on the far side, a group of these patrons worked intently, each hunched over and oblivious to the world. It was a pleasant ambiance: the scent of coffee was strong, the sounds of people living and interacting were enjoyable. Nobody cared to be secretive in such a place; particulars of the people oozed out from the ways that they sat and moved and dressed.
Somewhere in the middle of the floor, at one of the small, square tables, sat a couple on a date. Both leaning in, hands around cups of coffee, smirks playing on their faces. It was picturesque, it was quaint, it was heartwarming. Surely the pair had only just met, a bit of friction at their accidental meeting producing the spark at the moment being fanned. It had been a few weeks ago—no a few hours. This was fresh. Both had been waiting for someone to light something inside of them, and then suddenly the person, the one who had been dreamt of so quietly that the dreamer themselves could hardly hear, was there. Right there.
The woman on the left, in the floral dress and the leather jacket with curly hair pulled back in a careless updo from what had been a rushed morning, leaned back. She crossed her arms in self-satisfaction, the satisfaction of having caught exactly what she wanted—who she wanted—after such a long and arduous history of failures. She shifted again, accidentally pushing the table away from her, a smile, two smiles, a little bit of laughter and it was readjusted, it was surprisingly light. A moment of awkwardness and then a moment of laughter.
I studied the pair a little longer but got bored of how unchanging their happiness turned out to be. I looked to their right at a larger table.
This larger table was made to seat four, but a fifth chair had been pulled up at a corner so the party could sit together. Empty plates and cups had been stacked in the center in a haphazard game of Jenga, which was complicated by the occasional crust or slice of fruit, whatever remained from breakfast. The five sitting at the table lounged in familiarity, feet kicked out every which way, two or three of them speaking in casual, meandering conversation at once.
They were friends—old friends—meeting up for the first time in “far too long.” It was clear in the comfort and smiles, the affectionate interruption which I could see but not hear, that they were friends from college or high school, or had all been the kids on the block and used to play together. The old friends were (I watched closely) about to end what had been hanging on by a thread. How easy it would be to ruin the meager relationship with some divisive subject or other, how little they saw each other already, how easy to break over politics, relationships, an old fight they had thought was long buried. Likely the latter. Pesky thing. I leaned closer, trying to figure out who would bring up the taboo and ruin it all.
One of them added another coffee cup to the pile, and then all dishes were in the center. The one who had added the final cup leaned forward, playing with a strand of hair, listening to the one opposite her. What a history they had, and the conversation between these two—these two alone—grew. They had a connection on a higher, better level than that which existed between the rest. It must have built up slowly and gradually until the pair almost spent the rest of their lives together, but it fell apart. It would take time for the two to be drawn back together, and if somebody said something controversial, pushing each member away and into corners of different worlds, then love, love which had taken so much time, would be lost in the blink of an eye.
A part of me wanted to call out like I was watching sports. Some people can’t contain their excitement and simply must say something. I’d have been like that were they not able to hear me. But they could, so I bit my lip. I could feel my heartbeat quickening. I picked up my coffee cup but forgot to take a sip.
Of all the tables in the coffee shop, this next one was the least relaxed. In fact, both inhabitants were sitting as if pulled upward by a puppeteer. The two were dressed less casually, too, and while the feet of the patrons at other tables were kicked out comfortably, these two crossed ankles and kept elbows off the table. There sat a woman in a steel blue, wool skirt suit, all the buttons fastened, unlike how it had been stylishly displayed on the mannequin in the store. Her hands were folded and while they were around the same height, she seemed to be looking down at the man across from her, perhaps because her posture was a bit better. He was wearing a striped button-down shirt and a pair of khakis, and while both were sitting up straight, he looked uncomfortable while it seemed that she never sat another way. Most of the table was taken up by scattered papers, and in the corners sat matching half-empty cups of tea.
The comfortable one, the woman, the one with the upper hand, asked a question, and he inched forward, beginning to speak. It was a job interview, for the office was closed, but no time could be spared, for the position he interviewed for was the most essential of pieces. Yes, the person who had previously filled the spot he was applying for had been important and their leave sudden. And of course, her, the boss, was happy to give up some weekend for this, for her professional life dominated her entire life. She adjusted her jacket, somehow making it a show of power and not a nervous tick.
He was not as uptight as her, but hardworking and talented, for as she looked at him, it was not with scorn, and she would have done just that was he not impressing her on some level. His portfolio was what she was looking at and the missing graphic designer on her marketing team was hindering productivity. Only, he was an artsy type, which she generally did not like to work with, but it would be good for her, they would grow close and both change for the better because of it.
My coffee was cold, but I took a sip. My table was the square kind for two and by the door. My computer sat in the bag I had brought. The bag was on the chair nobody was using. I put my coffee cup down so the table wouldn’t be empty. I’d had a plate, too, but I finished the muffin that had been on it by breaking pieces off and eating it like popcorn. A waiter must have taken it while I was watching the people. I turned my attention to the row of computers.
The people working were hunched over and, instead of socializing like the rest, receded into themselves so deeply that they poured out their souls. Writers flocked to coffee shops. Perhaps it was being in the thick of the main fascination of the writer, which was, of course, the intermingling of people, perhaps it was a place where they could sit undisturbed outside of their cramped apartments, perhaps it was simply the caffeine. No, all three.
To be able to get close and to read the words flowing out of them at various steady and uneven paces would be to read the souls of strangers with complete ease, which was what I longed to do. The first person, the one on the far left, was writing a love story. I could tell by the writer’s demeanor, flushed, like she herself was falling for the hero: mysterious, moody, mesmeric. It was the kind of story made to tenderly warm the heart and certainly, it was fantastic, as, like a tulip, love blossomed on the computer screen.
The next writer, one with an edge to them and a certain air of intellectualism, was in the world of a dystopia. An extended allegory to entice the reader, make them think without knowing it, as all the best do.
A coming of age novel from the next writer, a young girl’s journey. She would fight her inner demons and outer obstacles and find peace and balance in life, along with a passion she would follow that would support her, just as the writer had in the production of humanity on a typed page.
Another one was not a novel, but a screenplay, a family drama. They, too, would overcome. After blood and anguish and screamed fights and tearful reunions, perhaps a death, they would be okay. The audience would cry and laugh and it would touch every heart in the room.
I watched them type adamantly and with such determination, fingers with the rhythm of runners on a track. Experts, Olympians perhaps, and the clacking of the keys like footsteps, bringing each one closer to the next draft of the next masterpiece. Another step and another and another going through the marathon, and one stopped to take a sip of coffee, so I imagined them sweating and panting, ice water falling down their shirts as they tried to drink as much in as little time as possible in order to refuel. I tapped the table absentmindedly and with roughly the same rhythm as the one on the far right, only I was going at random, and nothing was coming from my tapping as I marched in place.
Speaking of the one on the far right, I couldn’t tell what he was writing, but he could be the next Hemingway, redefining the literary landscape, pioneering a new way to tell stories. The romance could be the basis for a wildly successful blockbuster ten summers on. The screenplay would be a critical and commercial success. The dystopian would hold a mirror up to society in a way nobody else could, ready to win the Pulitzer everybody had said it was a shoe-in for. Any one of them, all of them, on the brink of something incredible, and the writers were to become household names.
Or, the writing wasn’t that good. Not good enough or actively bad. Florid prose or boring prose or a bad plot or flat characters or so convoluted it could not be understood. There was no way for the writer to tell the quality of a work. The excitement would fall away when other people saw it. The thrill of writing would turn into heart-sinking disappointment.
The romance might get published. It could be enjoyed by a few people, but they would know that it was no good. The fact that they read it would be embarrassing and they would not recommend it.
The air conditioning was on, but I felt uncomfortably hot. I looked back over the scene before me. It was so close and yet looked like a miniature and I became unsure. Or rather, I became sure. I knew nothing at all. Centuries ago, this thought had been brilliant.
I was not a curator of the human experience. I could not pick apart all going on around me. The writers I watched did not exist as beacons of literary geniuses, but as people typing and nothing more. And I was not even a person typing and nothing more. I was a person accidentally tapping the table for no reason other than that I was able. I wasted my energy on quiet, incessant little noise.
It was not just foolish but egotistical to assume I knew the hearts of the people around me. I thought I was ever so carefully taking the gears out of their backs, lying them out on a mahogany worktable, cleaning and examining, understanding to the point of the possibility of expert recreation, and artfully reconstructing. I could not do such a thing to myself, let alone a complete stranger. And this was essential. Understanding humanity was the pillar which guided my work and yet I could not manage it.
I took another sip of my coffee and while it was, of course, cold, I finished it regardless. I set it down once again, for the final time, and did so with force, so much so that it shook the table the smallest amount, but enough that people turned to see the disruption and I lowered my gaze. I looked at the door, which was glass and showing through it a grocery store on the opposite corner, people walking in and out, overflowing bags in hand. Instead of leaving, I sat there and stared at the table, at my thumbs twiddling, at the way my wrists moved subtly as I did so, and slid down a little further into my seat.
Lillian Robles is fourteen and a high school student from California. She loves character exploration, the beauty and power of prose, and the semicolon. She has a personal vendetta against Percy Bysshe Shelley.
People-Watching
To set the scene: it was a crowded coffee shop on a late Saturday morning, the weather partly cloudy and warm enough. The establishment was of a medium size; it had brick walls coated with posters celebrating movies, music of decades past, and prints of modern art, of photographs, abstractions, minimalisms; it was almost overwhelming. One wall (the one behind the line of assiduous baristas) was covered completely by a chalkboard listing every imaginable type of expensive caffeine: espresso, americano, cappuccino, macchiato, warm or cold, infused with dark caramel, toasted hazelnut, white chocolate, peppermint, rose, jasmine. Tables of assorted sizes, wooden and simple, filled the rest of the room, with mason jars holding napkins and packets of sugar. At the wall opposite the chalkboard sat a long bar with outlets ready for those working on a computer. The chairs were mismatched but coordinated—all metal and brightly colored in one of four trendy options—it had the irreverent yet cohesive appeal of a pseudo-intellectual hub, of being rebellious in order to appeal to the masses.
The patrons of the coffee shop were enjoying themselves, their laughter and conversation washing over the room in steady waves. They were on dates, catching up with old friends, meeting potential hires, and on the far side, a group of these patrons worked intently, each hunched over and oblivious to the world. It was a pleasant ambiance: the scent of coffee was strong, the sounds of people living and interacting were enjoyable. Nobody cared to be secretive in such a place; particulars of the people oozed out from the ways that they sat and moved and dressed.
Somewhere in the middle of the floor, at one of the small, square tables, sat a couple on a date. Both leaning in, hands around cups of coffee, smirks playing on their faces. It was picturesque, it was quaint, it was heartwarming. Surely the pair had only just met, a bit of friction at their accidental meeting producing the spark at the moment being fanned. It had been a few weeks ago—no a few hours. This was fresh. Both had been waiting for someone to light something inside of them, and then suddenly the person, the one who had been dreamt of so quietly that the dreamer themselves could hardly hear, was there. Right there.
The woman on the left, in the floral dress and the leather jacket with curly hair pulled back in a careless updo from what had been a rushed morning, leaned back. She crossed her arms in self-satisfaction, the satisfaction of having caught exactly what she wanted—who she wanted—after such a long and arduous history of failures. She shifted again, accidentally pushing the table away from her, a smile, two smiles, a little bit of laughter and it was readjusted, it was surprisingly light. A moment of awkwardness and then a moment of laughter.
I studied the pair a little longer but got bored of how unchanging their happiness turned out to be. I looked to their right at a larger table.
This larger table was made to seat four, but a fifth chair had been pulled up at a corner so the party could sit together. Empty plates and cups had been stacked in the center in a haphazard game of Jenga, which was complicated by the occasional crust or slice of fruit, whatever remained from breakfast. The five sitting at the table lounged in familiarity, feet kicked out every which way, two or three of them speaking in casual, meandering conversation at once.
They were friends—old friends—meeting up for the first time in “far too long.” It was clear in the comfort and smiles, the affectionate interruption which I could see but not hear, that they were friends from college or high school, or had all been the kids on the block and used to play together. The old friends were (I watched closely) about to end what had been hanging on by a thread. How easy it would be to ruin the meager relationship with some divisive subject or other, how little they saw each other already, how easy to break over politics, relationships, an old fight they had thought was long buried. Likely the latter. Pesky thing. I leaned closer, trying to figure out who would bring up the taboo and ruin it all.
One of them added another coffee cup to the pile, and then all dishes were in the center. The one who had added the final cup leaned forward, playing with a strand of hair, listening to the one opposite her. What a history they had, and the conversation between these two—these two alone—grew. They had a connection on a higher, better level than that which existed between the rest. It must have built up slowly and gradually until the pair almost spent the rest of their lives together, but it fell apart. It would take time for the two to be drawn back together, and if somebody said something controversial, pushing each member away and into corners of different worlds, then love, love which had taken so much time, would be lost in the blink of an eye.
A part of me wanted to call out like I was watching sports. Some people can’t contain their excitement and simply must say something. I’d have been like that were they not able to hear me. But they could, so I bit my lip. I could feel my heartbeat quickening. I picked up my coffee cup but forgot to take a sip.
Of all the tables in the coffee shop, this next one was the least relaxed. In fact, both inhabitants were sitting as if pulled upward by a puppeteer. The two were dressed less casually, too, and while the feet of the patrons at other tables were kicked out comfortably, these two crossed ankles and kept elbows off the table. There sat a woman in a steel blue, wool skirt suit, all the buttons fastened, unlike how it had been stylishly displayed on the mannequin in the store. Her hands were folded and while they were around the same height, she seemed to be looking down at the man across from her, perhaps because her posture was a bit better. He was wearing a striped button-down shirt and a pair of khakis, and while both were sitting up straight, he looked uncomfortable while it seemed that she never sat another way. Most of the table was taken up by scattered papers, and in the corners sat matching half-empty cups of tea.
The comfortable one, the woman, the one with the upper hand, asked a question, and he inched forward, beginning to speak. It was a job interview, for the office was closed, but no time could be spared, for the position he interviewed for was the most essential of pieces. Yes, the person who had previously filled the spot he was applying for had been important and their leave sudden. And of course, her, the boss, was happy to give up some weekend for this, for her professional life dominated her entire life. She adjusted her jacket, somehow making it a show of power and not a nervous tick.
He was not as uptight as her, but hardworking and talented, for as she looked at him, it was not with scorn, and she would have done just that was he not impressing her on some level. His portfolio was what she was looking at and the missing graphic designer on her marketing team was hindering productivity. Only, he was an artsy type, which she generally did not like to work with, but it would be good for her, they would grow close and both change for the better because of it.
My coffee was cold, but I took a sip. My table was the square kind for two and by the door. My computer sat in the bag I had brought. The bag was on the chair nobody was using. I put my coffee cup down so the table wouldn’t be empty. I’d had a plate, too, but I finished the muffin that had been on it by breaking pieces off and eating it like popcorn. A waiter must have taken it while I was watching the people. I turned my attention to the row of computers.
The people working were hunched over and, instead of socializing like the rest, receded into themselves so deeply that they poured out their souls. Writers flocked to coffee shops. Perhaps it was being in the thick of the main fascination of the writer, which was, of course, the intermingling of people, perhaps it was a place where they could sit undisturbed outside of their cramped apartments, perhaps it was simply the caffeine. No, all three.
To be able to get close and to read the words flowing out of them at various steady and uneven paces would be to read the souls of strangers with complete ease, which was what I longed to do. The first person, the one on the far left, was writing a love story. I could tell by the writer’s demeanor, flushed, like she herself was falling for the hero: mysterious, moody, mesmeric. It was the kind of story made to tenderly warm the heart and certainly, it was fantastic, as, like a tulip, love blossomed on the computer screen.
The next writer, one with an edge to them and a certain air of intellectualism, was in the world of a dystopia. An extended allegory to entice the reader, make them think without knowing it, as all the best do.
A coming of age novel from the next writer, a young girl’s journey. She would fight her inner demons and outer obstacles and find peace and balance in life, along with a passion she would follow that would support her, just as the writer had in the production of humanity on a typed page.
Another one was not a novel, but a screenplay, a family drama. They, too, would overcome. After blood and anguish and screamed fights and tearful reunions, perhaps a death, they would be okay. The audience would cry and laugh and it would touch every heart in the room.
I watched them type adamantly and with such determination, fingers with the rhythm of runners on a track. Experts, Olympians perhaps, and the clacking of the keys like footsteps, bringing each one closer to the next draft of the next masterpiece. Another step and another and another going through the marathon, and one stopped to take a sip of coffee, so I imagined them sweating and panting, ice water falling down their shirts as they tried to drink as much in as little time as possible in order to refuel. I tapped the table absentmindedly and with roughly the same rhythm as the one on the far right, only I was going at random, and nothing was coming from my tapping as I marched in place.
Speaking of the one on the far right, I couldn’t tell what he was writing, but he could be the next Hemingway, redefining the literary landscape, pioneering a new way to tell stories. The romance could be the basis for a wildly successful blockbuster ten summers on. The screenplay would be a critical and commercial success. The dystopian would hold a mirror up to society in a way nobody else could, ready to win the Pulitzer everybody had said it was a shoe-in for. Any one of them, all of them, on the brink of something incredible, and the writers were to become household names.
Or, the writing wasn’t that good. Not good enough or actively bad. Florid prose or boring prose or a bad plot or flat characters or so convoluted it could not be understood. There was no way for the writer to tell the quality of a work. The excitement would fall away when other people saw it. The thrill of writing would turn into heart-sinking disappointment.
The romance might get published. It could be enjoyed by a few people, but they would know that it was no good. The fact that they read it would be embarrassing and they would not recommend it.
The air conditioning was on, but I felt uncomfortably hot. I looked back over the scene before me. It was so close and yet looked like a miniature and I became unsure. Or rather, I became sure. I knew nothing at all. Centuries ago, this thought had been brilliant.
I was not a curator of the human experience. I could not pick apart all going on around me. The writers I watched did not exist as beacons of literary geniuses, but as people typing and nothing more. And I was not even a person typing and nothing more. I was a person accidentally tapping the table for no reason other than that I was able. I wasted my energy on quiet, incessant little noise.
It was not just foolish but egotistical to assume I knew the hearts of the people around me. I thought I was ever so carefully taking the gears out of their backs, lying them out on a mahogany worktable, cleaning and examining, understanding to the point of the possibility of expert recreation, and artfully reconstructing. I could not do such a thing to myself, let alone a complete stranger. And this was essential. Understanding humanity was the pillar which guided my work and yet I could not manage it.
I took another sip of my coffee and while it was, of course, cold, I finished it regardless. I set it down once again, for the final time, and did so with force, so much so that it shook the table the smallest amount, but enough that people turned to see the disruption and I lowered my gaze. I looked at the door, which was glass and showing through it a grocery store on the opposite corner, people walking in and out, overflowing bags in hand. Instead of leaving, I sat there and stared at the table, at my thumbs twiddling, at the way my wrists moved subtly as I did so, and slid down a little further into my seat.
Lillian Robles is fourteen and a high school student from California. She loves character exploration, the beauty and power of prose, and the semicolon. She has a personal vendetta against Percy Bysshe Shelley.