Chapter III
She crossed and uncrossed her legs, looked up at the black roof and down at yellow floor, on left to scan at the second entry point of the coffee shop and on right to eye the washrooms. She picked up her carry bag, got up, and hung it on her left shoulder. She stared in front only to find the barista looking at her, with pleasant expression. He wore gold rimmed eyeglasses and greeted her with smile. She smiled with reservations, as she would have to any unknown person. He asked her, “Hi there.”
Confused, as she hadn’t made up her mind, she remained rooted there. How should she proceed here? She pondered. How she wished this to be a normal coffee shop? She would stomp next to counter, yell her order, gave her VISA card, move out of queue to wait on her drink and check her phone till a voice would call her, “Kelly, your double shot caramel macchiato with skim milk.” Swiping the dresses or her news feed up and down in her cellphone, she would pick up her drink and storm out of the coffee shop. Seeing her immobile, the barista waited for her to make move. At last, she zigzagged her way to the coffee counter, trying to make up her mind and at the same time trying not to look weird. To her surprise, the barista had hold onto his pleasant expression, “Hey there! How can I help you?”
. “I-don’t-know.” How hard she tried to hide this but she found her heart naked? She stood facing the glass order screen and the barista.
“Okay, but you have to tell me what type of I-don’t-know. Depending upon your pain, I-don’t-know can be of multiple type. Different types of I-don’t-know require different treatment and we don’t want to treat you harshly. Here, have a look at this chart and match your I-don’t-know with your pain.”
“How?”
“There is a formula on the top of the chart to calculate the pain.”
Pain = (Hope.Optimism)/(Anxiety.Loss).Physical agony. Confusion. Procrastination status. Loneliness
Beneath the formula, there was a table where the numerical number of pain calculation is compared with I-don’t-know. She knew that even if someone gives her a piece of paper it would be really tough to come up with a no as it wasn’t so easy to come up with precise number for different factors in the equation. In addition, she didn’t have any hope left in her and in humanity, in general. Thus, she put low numbers for different factors as she tried to mentally calculate the equation and she got disheartened from the results. Then, she dismissed the idea of asking a piece of paper.
“I’m really bad at math.” She looked at the barista.
“Aren’t we all?” He smiled and tapped the screen on his side. The order screen in front of her came alive and the calculator icon rhythmically bobbed on the screen. The barista added, “Please use the calculator.”
“Oh! Okay.” She plugged in the numbers in the different factors in the formula. She did the calculations and wondered whether she had actually used all the values correctly or whether she had been hiding her true feeling, even though the barista had left momentarily. She pondered. But the barista was like a doctor in this scenario and one shouldn’t hide anything from a doctor. She looked for the barista. In her search, her eyes didn’t find him but her nose got the smell of fresh chocolate chips cookies.
“Hello?” She had to call for him.
“Just a minute.” The voice appeared even before he stepped out the kitchen. He peeled off his gloves, put them in his pockets and asked, with a smile, “Are you ready?”
“I guess.”
“What did you get in the pain calculation?”
“Is 7 a bad number?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t decide that for you. You can take more time.” He turned away from the screen.
“No. Actually, I’ll go with 7.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Great. May I get your birth sign?”
“What’s that for?”
“I need that to calculate the proper amount of caffeine for your drink.”
She passed her identity card to him. After checking her date of birth, he returned her card, with a smile. Then, he asked her to fill in her physical stats, childhood memories, family history, allergies, and her relationship status into the order screen. Then, he asked for last finger of her right hand.
“What’s that for?”
“To confirm your DNA authenticity as we have a big problem of doppelganger. In addition, a research group we are associated with want to know how the caffeine affect you genetically.”
She stretched her hand and he signaled out the finger. He pricked, she squirmed, and he collected few drops on the tip of a pen like machine.
“Did it hurt?.”
“Yes, it did but that’s okay.”
The way the twinkle appeared in his eyes, she felt that she had seen him before but she couldn’t come to a conclusion. It’s such a small town, she concluded.
“You can go and make yourself comfortable at seat no. 11. Please put one headphones. We will play the curated soundtrack for you. After 10 minutes of musical conditioning, I will bring your drink.”
“Sure. How much do I need to pay?” She unzipped her carry bag to pull out her wallet, out of habit. The moment she asked the question, she knew why did she bother to ask this question.
“Nothing…” The barista asked.
“An espresso shot, please!”
The barista was interrupted. A hand with an empty coffee cup was stretched over her head. A voice boomed over her head. A big white guy with red cheeks and beady dark eyes in his baggy jeans and checkered shirt stood behind her. He was shaking. Everything about him was actually shaking: she couldn’t come up with a reason that whether this was excitement or addiction or something else. She turned and stood on her left. He took her place and came face to face with the barista and the order screen.
“Hey man, give me another espresso shot. I’m this close to cracking the puzzle of my divorce.” With his left hand, he gestured with the space between the thumb and the finger.
“I am sorry you have the full quota of your dose today.”
to be continued…