Fascination

From an azure mug resting on a pine table, the earthy aroma of creamy hazelnut espresso lingered in the café’s cosy atmosphere, its wisps of steam drifting away into the air, engulfed by the drowsy soundwaves of a whimsical dream-pop beat that wafted through the dim-lit room. Something ever so peaceful could be found in the fuzzy ambient buzz; a boisterous silence akin to lush woods and wave-lapped shores.

Sometimes, it’s all it takes. A different place for a different mood, and the world doesn’t feel quite as lonely anymore. A new song just in the old way we like it. Some art books to leaf through with an arborescent mind. The daunting mystique of an old map, for a rhizomatic wander. One more of those fleeting lapses whence life blooms and is actually experienced, beneath or between the productive outbursts subduing it.

“Fine, I’ll stay a little longer”, you yield a concealed coy smile from behind the glass of a heavy-on-the-rocks spirit to the cheering of friends and loved ones. Hands folded, all cards on the table painting windows into otherworldly places, you realise — no deadlines, no time to go, only time to live by. Thus the dead of the night moves into the wee small hours of the morning… And the world warms up a little, the very fabric of spacetime woven by a fool’s cracking laughter.