I Quit Thinking

CHAPTER 1

No Job, No Say

Do I have to repeat it? They are painting it with the wrong color. Are they dumb?

"It's orange-gold."

"Yellow-orange, Mister." I say.

"It's orange-gold, Louie. Go. Go. It's orange-gold."

"No, it's not. It's clearly not, Mister." I close the space between him and the coffee shop door that they're painting. A vintage door that is made of mahogany, designed with lots of vintage lines that I find more hideous, the color doesn't make any sense to me. "This is yellow-orange. It's not orange-gold."

"Are you blind. Why would a painter ignore the assigned shade for this door?"

"I don't know? Maybe-maybe you picked the wrong mix. I know, I heard your manager to give it an orange-gold this morning, but it's bothering me to see this now from my way home." I gesture to the door. "The fact that this situation could visit me on my bed before sleep. It's a real damage you're causing out there, big time, double."

"It's orange-gold." The man steps closer, tapping his brush on the edge of the door before pointing it at me. "See?"

"I'm sorry, I can't see." I step out of his way with a blank in my face. "You're mistakingly doing it proudly, Mister. But, go on then. Enjoy your last day on t-that job."

"Sure. It's orange-gold. Get a job young lady! Cos no job, no say."

Jesus, I step back and mind my way out of his callous face. Turning around, giving him my middle finger as I made a great distance from the new shop.

✷

The other week, as I'm walking down the street again to find an opening job nearby my apartment building, my eyes catches the coffee shop across the street. Only now, they are removing the said orange-gold paint on the double purpose vintage door.

It's yellow-orange, dumb, from where I'm standing I could still recognize the yellow reference and not gold. Where is that guy from the movie Shrek who is pointing his paint brush on my face for goodness sake, he's a Capital A.

"So, they're already replacing the yellow-orange paint on that door. It's just been a week." Someone says behind me.

"Yea. Cos the painter thought, or maybe insisted that it's orange-gold." I nod to myself, smiling for I know I made some sense that day, arguing with Shrek.

I glance to the man who just had a say while he steps on my side, and he's pretty nodding too. He's holding a long plain board with horses flying on the surface. My eyes dwindled at their perfect shades under the sun.

When I realized what he just really said, a laugh escaped from my lips... "Hey? You're seeing yellow-orange too?" I can't be wrong.

"I supposed. It's clearly yellow-orange." We both pinned our eyes on the coffee shop door across the street which half of it are now returning to just mahogany.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"On what? On the door?" He stands the board just beside us and crosses his arms on his chest. Oh, he got time to think, what a not-so busy day anyway to think. Standing across the streets instead of starting to find some opening job. Hay nako, Louie.

"That's a lot of thinking." I interject, he seems like a fine, educated man, or businessman with the same age as me.

"I think it's hideous." He say, "They made the shop look vintage, but the color choices they're giving their door doesn't mixed to the idea."

"That's what I said."

He takes my presence in and smiled at what I meant. "I know you thought about that too.." He extended his right hand in front of me and I just stared on it. "Miguel."

Ah, we're on a nice-to-meet-you thing now.

"I'm Louie, from across that neighborhood."

"Oh, you're from this cup town. Lucky girl, you've been surrounded by the best coffees in the world for years."

"Yup. I am used to them. And so used to people saying that too."

"Oh." He massages his head and laugh. "How was inhaling different types of coffee smokes every morning?"

"It's perfect."

"And?" He waits for my answer. Stupid is all that is coming out of my head. Think.

"And I should go, now. I have some works to do. See you around, Miguel."

That is stupid.

I start my day by climbing down on stairway to heaven, Joking. The town is part mountain and part city, it has stairways that bridges everyone every day, these rocky stairs were made long ago by women who was slaved by the Gaizzis, the first group of ranker who lived long ago and didn't last. As I was saying, this town has historic stairways, there's many of them and people just have to choose the best to use or should I say, the strongest. For my case, I choose none, all of them are helpful anyway, north or south. I'm currently counting my steps down the alley where coffee shops, bookstores, lots of stores, beans' stores are busy. To be honest, I visited them all yesterday and there's no opening job available. But who knows they accidentally have it today?

"Not again." The woman growls by just seeing me.

I smile and took her reaction pleasingly. "Here's your newspaper, Linda." I hand her the thick dusty gazette that she would love to read today. I learned that her weakness lies on old pages. "It's a 1984 edition."

Trembling. Linda's fingers are trembling. "Where did you find this gem?"

Flashback. I have many of them under my bed. The owner of my building apartment paid me to clean the sheets and bedrooms on the other floor before she made it officially rental again. That's where I took all the gems home on my own space. Lucky me.

"Ahhh, just from a random fragile place, it's hard for me to bring it around really. It's kinda fragile, too, you know. Are you going to read it?"

"No, give me some time. I'm so busy, Louie."

"Sure." I smiled, but I know she has a mouth that has a gold in it, she just have to spill it now.

one, two, three.

"How much is this... today?" She stumbles for word. "Come in. Let's have a talk inside."

That's what I thought. As much as I hate talking, I also hate waiting to count on four.