Thursdays at Coco Cubano

I have half-a-dozen half-written blog posts on the screen in front of me. A dozen more ideas are floating on the edges of my mind. My fingers ache to tap the keys and create a symmetry of words that finally delight my soul. Words flow through me only to be deemed lacking. I strike the delete key and another paragraph becomes lost to history.

I turn my head to the sun and close my eyes to bask in its warmth. The chill of the day is gone and shadows are banished. Inspiration comes at me from all directions: skateboarders in their concert tees, suit-clad office drones escaping their glass prisons, lovers with their fingers intertwined, dented fenders on expensive cars. I attempt to write all their stories and fail. I lean on the delete key and another urban fairy tale disappears forever.

I am an autonomous island in a sea of coffee craving café goers. The smell of hot chocolate wafts past, tinged with the scent of lime from my neighbour’s Corona. Secrets are whispered quietly between friends oblivious to the strangers around them - they lean into each other as if the millimeters between them were a great chasm to be overcome. I sip my sweetened coffee and brush my fingers over the keyboard - it is my job to observe and record. I drum the delete key and erase the unworthy words again.

Music flows through my earphones and lights up my smile as song after song reminds me to be joyful. Buses fly past on their way to a dozen places far from the window at whose edge I perch. Strangers dance by each other through the intersection, uncaring of the stories that might secretly connect them. The blue sky of the day fades into the pink of dusk and there is a sudden moment of clarity as cars pause at the red light and silence echoes for the space of a breath. I draw the picture in words and hit save.