The Café || #SoloTravel Contest

The Café

MARTIE SHAY

          Martie, on an exchange program in Paris for her senior year, feels jittery as she sits in the small corner cafe, waiting for her host family to pick her up. Her jitters might be from the two minuscule cups of espresso — no cream, no sugar, so unlike the American way — that she's already gulped down this morning, but she suspects that her pounding heartbeat and racing pulse aren't the product of too much caffeine. This is the first time Martie has ever traveled — unless you count a tons of trips from her home just outside NYC into the city, which she does not. She's used to big cities, but not one quite like this. She finds the architecture and cobblestoned streets breathtaking. Her French isn't very good (she blames her high school back in New York for this) but she knows that she'll have to improve her conversational skills. She can't wait for what the year will bring, including new friends, strolling through parks, and graduating in the city she's longed to visit her entire life. Who knows, maybe she'll even find a boyfriend — she is in the city of love, after all. She doesn't know what will happen, but she's looking forward to every second. She's ready to take a few risks. It's going to be an experience she'll never forget, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

MARK EVANS

          Mark sits in an armchair, drinking his coffee in Paris no different than the way he'd be drinking it at his flat in London if he were there — it's the same way he's been drinking it his entire life: regular, black, no sweetener or sugar. He finds it as tasteless and dull as he does his daily life. These business trips are always the same. It doesn't matter where he's sent; the cities look different but his routine never changes. He awakes at the crack of dawn (if he's slept at all), takes a cup of coffee and something to eat (in this instance, a pastry), along with the day's issue of the local newspaper (in this instance, Le Parisien) and off he goes, in a taxi smelling of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume, to the company building in the city, only to sit in meetings for hours on end while trying to be heard among everyone in the boardroom. But this time, he's being spontaneous (which is very unlike Mark) and he's decided, for the first time in twelve years working at the same job (in the same office, doing the same things) that he's going to enjoy himself. The idea is foreign to him, as is Paris. He's thirty-six, single, and has never set foot in another country with the intent to sightsee. This time, though, drinking a cup of coffee in the actual cafe in which he bought it, exploring the Louvre, and eating a croissant next to the Eiffel Tower might be just what he needs to get his life back on track. And he might be late for his ten o'clock meeting, but he's decided that he doesn't really care.

LILA ESTHER

          Unless you know her, and not many do, Lila can seem a bit odd. Her bushy blond ringlets whose length and volume hardly seem to end, and her purple overalls, and her bright rain colored eyes, and her clunky, brash jewelry which is meant to ward off bad omens and spirits, are often a sight for sore eyes. Everybody notices Lila, but she tends to notice them in a different way. It doesn't matter where in the world she travels (she's been to Morocco a surprising amount of times). She's always noticed. Today, she sits in the middle of the cafe. Lila is like that, you see. She doesn't understand why most people gravitate towards the corners of places, like restaurants and bars and Oregon. She doesn't mind being out in the open; everybody's always looking at her anyway. Because of this, they never notice that she's looking at them back. Such as the man in the business suit, who seems much older than his probable age of thirty-seven. He wrinkles his nose at the daily paper, which she can't read from where she sits, even with her too-large, thick-rimmed glasses, but he has an air of newness about him, and if she could see people's auras like her mother, his would definitely be a pale yellow. Or the young teenager at a table nearby, who's so excited or nervous or both that her knees have hit the table a few times. To Lila, it's not about the place. It's the people, and what she can observe.

CAROL DREW

          Carol was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year and a half ago, and she was told she had two years to live. So, naturally, she's been traveling the world ever since — alone, so that she can find peace with her illness. So she can appreciate the rest of her life and connect not only with the world and with nature, but also with her inner soul. She sits at a corner table, drinking a cappuccino and eating a large pain au chocolat, watching passersby through the window as the sleepy street wakes up. A woman is walking her dog in high heels. A man is leisurely riding his bicycle, and Carol can't help but laugh whenever he hits a bump in the road and nearly goes sprawling from his bike. There's a chocolate shop across the street, and according to her guidebook, it's one of the best in the city. Given the time of day, the chocolatier hasn't even opened his doors yet, but people are lining up outside to get the first tastes of his day's work. Despite the chocolate pastry in front of her, Carol plans to visit the shop after her coffee. After all, that's what life is all about.  

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Author's Note: Hi everyone! This is a short story for the Marriott Travel #SoloTravel Wattpad contest. (I've put the prompt down below!) I know that this doesn't come from my own personal experience, as I've never traveled by myself before, but I wanted to try and highlight the different ways that various people view traveling on their own. For ages I've had the idea of writing a book based on various characters who are on a train or airplane ride to get somewhere, and talk about their different lives and create a sort of plot with it. 

Instead of doing that, I decided to twist that same idea for this writing contest, which has to do with the perks of solo travel. I hope I portrayed each character how I truly saw them in my head, and I hope they're distinct enough from one another. I also hope that this entry, while slightly straying from what other contestants are uploading, is unique and original enough to win the prize! If not, it was a fun exercise to improve my writing!!

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Contest Prompt:

  "Taking cues from Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, write a story as an empowered solo traveler, and explore the following questions: What are you hoping to find and explore on your trip? Where would you go, and what life lessons are you looking to cherish forever? What makes that place such a draw for you personally? What makes it better to do it on your own?"