Café One

During the summer, I started to spend a lot of money at Café One.

It began after Amelia decided to stay here for the summer. We were both unemployed and the AC in the apartment was non-existent. With both of us bored and being boiled alive, we decided that we would write the summer away at the nearby local cafe, Café One.

Café One was a special place unaffected by the trends of the city that surrounded it. A thin building smushed between unremarkable buildings on one of the busiest streets. The café didn't belong here but it was perfect. The interior was narrow with only four square tables that could each fit two people. Pictures of memories hung on the wall and the place smelled of coffee and inspiration. When it wasn't raining we sat on the café's patio.

If there weren't any plans for the day (which was usually the case), we'd arrive at the café around 11am. Amelia would order a cappuccino while I would get black coffee. We'd sip our drinks and open our notebooks to begin the day of writing.

Somewhere in the noon we would get lunch. After trying all of the menu I stuck to ordering the BLT. There was something special about this sandwich at Café One. You know it's a good BLT when the bacon is an afterthought. Meanwhile, Amelia never found the one-and-only go to. We watched the traffic and people passing by on the street while we ate. Afterwards we went back to the writing.

Friday nights were usually occupied with a party somewhere. Whenever asked, I would call myself a writer instead of my actual job title of being unemployed / doing nothing. But I rarely wrote. Amelia on the other hand did write. A lot.

We both needed new notebooks. Amelia's was falling apart and reaching its end pages. It was worn with history, travel, and who knows what secrets were held inside. I needed a new notebook because I dropped mine into a puddle.

Once it reached 4pm Amelia would start complaining about her hand cramping and we would start ordering beers instead of coffees and teas.

If we could afford dinner every day at Café One we would probably stay for the whole evening. Unfortunately the continuous ordering of drinks was already hurting our bank accounts. We would ditch at six and head home to eat some instant noodles.

We would continue this routine for the majority of the days that summer. The credit card was painful to look at. I developed a coffee addiction. And it was a lot of hours of sitting around trying to write.

During our breaks from silent concentration, Amelia would tell me about the stories she was writing. She was a fast writer and was constantly juggling between numerous plots. I always enjoyed hearing what new story idea she was creating.

She would say, "So there's a cataclysmic event where all technology stops working."

"All technology?" I questioned.

"Well not all technology, but all the communicative ones like phones and internet and text."

I continued to question, "What caused this?"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is about these two star crossed lovers in different countries that have no way to reach each other. And it's about them trying to find each other and also figuring out how to survive in a world with no internet."

I thought it over then said, "It's funny that it's been only a few decades with internet. If it disappeared now, the world would end. It would be chaos."

Amelia added on saying "And no phones. Though I don't think it would be that chaotic. I think people would become a lot more relaxed with no one on twitter telling them to freak out."

I asked, "So do the two find each other?"

"I haven't gotten there yet"

While Amelia wrote, I would have my notebook open but the pen would not be in hand. Instead I mostly watched the people walking by: The busy people in their suits flashing their brand new smart watches. The poor people looking tragic asking for the time from strangers. The kids exploring downtown on their phones. The optimistic dog walkers with their even more optimistic dogs.

And then there were the other people at the café. It was always exciting watching a couple and discovering that they were on a first date. Or old friends like us, just enjoying the day. It was also interesting to examine one of passing pedestrians take a break in the café and to determine who they were. I found myself writing about them.

The Book-Reader: A lone person sat at the table across from us on the patio. He was not writing like Amelia, and he was not people watching like me. Instead he was reading a thick hardcover book titled, "Fruit Blood". He looked young, rich, and pretentious with his expensive summer jacket and book in hand. I later looked up the title and it was an autobiography by Zhander Zane about being an orange farmer during the civil war. It looked like an interesting read. The Book-Reader only showed up to the café that one time. Was he from here and just happened to try out this café with his book, or was he a traveller, going from one city's café to the next searching for a place to establish his own orange farm. Unlike Zane, he would not face the challenges of managing a farm in the middle of a war, but now the Book-Reader would have to deal with the new challenges of competing against industrialized farming. Will he leave his mark and share his oranges with the world, or would he drink his orange juice alone? These were the adventures of the Book-Reader…

Not all my writing was speculative. I also found myself writing about Alex Brown, the owner of this café. After spending most of my time at the café I slowly pieced together his life story. He was born completely poor and stayed that way through his early life. When he graduated from high school he moved to New York City with no money and found himself living on other's people's couches. Regardless of his circumstances he found every opportunity to cook up meals for the generous people that helped him. He had a specialty of creating luxurious dishes from just simple cheap ingredients. Eventually he gained a reputation with his excellent cooking that got him a job as a chef in a reputable restaurant. Now in his later years he managed his own café with his wife and was taking all my money as I ordered another drink.

Amelia and I would edit each other's work, though it was usually me that was doing the editing as I had little to share. I didn't mind the editing, in fact I enjoyed it. Amelia's writing was fun, easy to read and flowed smoothly. Sometimes I'd spend more time adding to Amelia's work than writing my own stuff. I was good at expanding the slower sections in her work. It was a collaborative experience.

A part of me was envious of her writing. Maybe envious is the wrong word. She seemed to write so effortlessly. There's only so many times I could analyze a stranger in the café and write about them. But Amelia always managed to keep creating new stories.

"Okay this one is about Joe who works at The Archive, a very boring desk job that records all government electronic documents onto physical paper for safe keeping." She said this quickly with enthusiasm.

I replied to the premise with "An archive in case the internet randomly disappears."

"Yeah, so anyways Joe is working this really boring job but then starts finding documents about people he's met in his life."

"What kind of documents?" I asked.

"At first very boring documents with basic information like age and address. But then he starts finding more and more personal information like every purchase and everything they eat."

I add, "3:05pm, Randy eats five salted nuts from the jar."

"Yes exactly!"

"So then what happens?"

Amelia continued, "Then he finds information on one of his co-worker that he's been crushing on. And it's basically like reading a private diary about his crush."

"So where do these documents come from about with all their personal info," I questioned.

"No clue. I haven't gotten there yet."

I don't know how Amelia was able to constantly have pen to paper. To never struggle with ideas of what to write. I had ideas just like Amelia did. But she was able to just dive in and write without slowing down to question where to start or how to proceed. I could not.

I spent most of my time that summer contemplating what to write. As I tried to open a scene I would wonder if it should be in first or third person. Should it be morning or night? The protagonist nice or mean? Describe the room or move to next plot point? Use the verb think or question? What is the point of writing this story?

I pictured myself as one of those great philosophers. Sitting at a café all day sipping expensive drinks questioning, "why one writes". It's a completely useless task. Writing doesn't solve or accomplish anything. Amelia might be able to become an author of sort, but I'm too slow of a writer to ever pursue a reliable income from it.

Is writing productive at all?

The Book-Reader that shared the patio with us would disagree. He was clearly being entertained, enlightened, maybe even learning something new from the orange farming book. But I haven't lived the life of an adventurous wartime farmer like the author, Zhander Zane. I have no real stories to share, and what's the point of creating fake fiction?

Did Zane enjoy writing? Or did he just enjoy sharing the results? Did he enjoy farming oranges during the war, or did he just enjoy drinking orange juice?

I didn't particularly get a release of serotonin from writing. It was mostly a struggle and a debate of what words to use and not to use.

I did enjoy watching Amelia read what I'd written. Seeing her laugh as she read about the more or less true adventures of Alex Brown the café owner did bring a sense of… something. A sense of JING!

I didn't share all my writing with her. I have standards. Some of it is just too boring or terrible.

And some of it is too personal. Sometimes I watched Amelia intently working in her notebook and I couldn't help but form words on a page about her. I kept this writing to myself. Stories of how kickass she is or fictitious adventures of Amelia traveling the world.

It'd be too embarrassing to show my written appreciation to her. Hell, it'd be embarrassing to show anybody.

So why do I write to show nobody?

Good question. I haven't gotten there yet.