It's the coffee, you know?

Blue moon

She sat there, near the window, with an empty coffee cup in front of her. She was staring in the space, thinking about…nothing. The girl was simply mesmerized by the city lights that played on the painting on the wall in front of her. She blinked lazily and traced shapless forms on the napkin with her finger. Something was missing and only when she reached for her cup she realised what. She ran out of coffee. Out of all places she had been to in last week, there, in the small coffee shop near the busy street she had found the best coffee in town. So she came there every night, with her journal wrapped in black, worn out leather,  and a black liner. The red-haired girl sat there, in the corner, near the window, in silenced and tried to listen to the world. She tried to hear it loud and clear. And then, after her heart was fluttering with emotions and thought she would put them down on the yellowish sheets in her journal. She was drawing for herself in a lame attempt to understand the world. Emm was saying that what she was doing wasn't lame, but she didn’t thought of it as being something special. She was doing what her heart told her. Oh, but she didn’t know how to listen to her heart the way she listened to the voice of the world around her. The girl knew exactly what others wanted but sometimes she felt stuck in the middle of things because she had no idea what was right for her to do. Such a silly, little, clueless girl.

 On her first day there she asked for a menu even though she knew she wanted to try the coffee. She scaned the list with different drinks that had caffeine and her nose wrinkled, trying to make a decision.

Irish coffee or Caffè Marocchino or just simple coffee?

 She furrowed her eyebrows and pinched the bridge of her nose.

 Simple coffee it is then.

 She knew that there were hundreds of different types of coffee in the world. She even drank one with orange syrup and it was literally heaven on her tongue, but there was this small habit of hers when she visited new places. She drank coffee, just coffee . She wanted to know how it tasted in different parts around the world. She would drink it and write about it. First thing first, when the waiter put down the cup in front of her, she would draw it. The cup, the tiny plate and spoon. With the journal on her knees she would  draw every single detail sometimes. Other times she would draw a sketch, a quick one. It depended on her moods. But she would always draw the cup before drinking the liquid in it.

 Second, after she took a sip, she would write about the taste, the way the coffee made her feel when she tasted it for the first time. When she was at lost for words she would draw the taste.

 Least but not last she would write the entire drinking journey until the last sip. Only then she would close her journal, paid and left the place. It took like two to three hours the whole thing. She would just sit there, with her red hair tucked behind her ears, with blue-greyish eyes that watched the world outside with hunger, lust and a passion burning in her heart. With loneliness when the world decided to ignore her. With love and happiness when the it smiled back at her.

 She watched the kids. The cars that passed by. The wind that ruffled the leaves. The woman who waited for her lover. The man who kissed his girlfriend's flushed cheeks.

 She watched the world in order to forget about her own.  And a smiled crept to her lips as she was taking the good vibes in and her eyes sparkled with joy like there was no tomorrow.

  After her fourth night there she realized something. She loved that city. She loved the people even though she didn’t talk to them, especially those from the coffee shop. She knew that she would ignore them the second she would open her notebook but she still loved them. She loved the buildings. The architecture. The way the city made her feel. Free. Safe. Independent. She knew that she couldn’t escape from the cage that faith put her in, but she thought that the city was a bigger cage. A beautiful one and not so smelly like Jonah's fish.

 It was summer and the sun was so in love with the moon. Its colours were so gorgeous every time the moon was about to step in and take its throne. She wanted to be someone's moon.

  When she had to leave, she wanted to cry. The girl would miss the comfortable chairs and the small, round table near the window. She would miss the tall the woman from the paintings from the coffee shop who looked at the customers with mysterious eyes. She would miss the smell of the streets. Of the coffee shop. Its taste. The taste of the city. It gave her wings. People there had wings and her had grown bigger and bigger.  It made her think she was in the city of angels.

                                                                        ~~~

  Now it was autumn and she was far away from that place. She still craved for that coffee and that place. She flipped the pages from her journal, remembering those moments...when she saw something. Something that wasn't there last time she checked it.

 When the girl first bought the journal she wrote something on the last page.

 "How do I look in your eyes?"

 She wrote that on the spur of the moment because when she bought the journal, in the beginning of the year, she was in love with the idea of love and she wanted to feel it. Maybe she read too many cheesy romantic books. But she still was in love with love.

  Now, unde her neat writing, there was a sloppy one.

 "You have a blue moon in your eyes, coffee in your bones and ink on your fingers. Learn how to mix them and you will obtain art. You will obtain…yourself!"

 It was dated on one of the days she had been in that city.