Prologue
All my life, I’m feeling empty. Empty as the deep dark void somewhere around in this cruel world. The only thing I could think of that can fill that emptiness inside me is coffee. I don’t know why or when did I get the fondness to drink coffee, but it helps to fill in that void.
I drink coffee every morning, during afternoon lunch. Hell, I even drink coffee at night—especially when I got work to do. Yeah, it’s unhealthy, but it’s the only thing that keeps me from going, from continuing to pursue my life choices. It helps me to thrive on each rejected work I’ve done and presented.
Luckily, there’s this Café from a block away from my apartment. Well, I only order the same thing over and over again anyway. Espresso. That’s it, that’s the only thing I order. I’m not the kind of person to experiment on stuff that can help me taste different stuff—does that even makes sense?
The Café itself isn’t always crowded with caffeine-addict like me. Most of the time there are a few people entering and exiting, I didn’t even bother to have the energy to check up on them. They’re just strangers with different struggles like me. There’s no person in the world that doesn’t have any struggles in their life. Even the happiest looking person has some demons to battle.
As for me, the demons keep whispering that I wouldn’t be good enough for anything—or to anyone—ever. I’m a failure and I should just give up on my passion since no one will ever approve the stories I’ve been writing throughout my life. Perhaps that was the day when I got the liking to drink coffee, since it’s the thing that helps me to drown out those whispers. Well, the whispers are still there, but I just did my best to ignore them while I drink my Espresso.
Yeah, I might sound pathetic, and a coward to try to drown out those voices inside my head, but I know that someday, someone will appreciate my works. Someone who’s apparently just entered the Café. I don’t believe in love at first sight—or even love in general—but there’s something about this woman who makes me feel some magnetic force around her. A force that wants me to be near her at all times, but the only thing that stops me are the voices in my head.
I’ll just shrug it off and continue on drinking my coffee. Love ain’t forever anyway, sooner or later, it’ll fade because of some tragedy. But an Espresso is indeed forever. Still, there’s something that’s off with this woman. She might be a wonderful person—judging on the way she treated the staff in this Café—but from the years of me being observant, there’s something deep and tragic inside her eyes. A tragedy that makes me want to figure out from a distance.
Keeping distance might be a great idea because I prefer not to feel like some creepy stalker trying to figure out a woman. It’ll be much safer to drink my Espresso and watch her from afar.
Perhaps one day, I’ll have the courage to even talk to her.
