journal.coffee

Some part of me knew they were right, you know? That I wasn’t going to be great.

I wasn’t going to be great at all. They’d keep telling me it isn’t that easy, and they’d keep putting me down asking me to be better, and they’d just keep being right all the time. Maybe, I didn’t even want to be great in the first place, and what was greatness anyway?

Still, there was something in how I felt, something that I couldn’t stir or shake off, and I knew there were others like me. As much as I knew that it wasn’t true, I couldn’t not believe that I wasn’t destined for greatness. It didn’t serve me to not believe in the myth of myself, and by extension, it didn’t serve you.

So, for your sake and for mine, I have to keep believing. I have to keep doing what I do. I have to continue this little war of mine that I wage from a desk in a tiny apartment, sitting down until the myth rings true or until they admit that it is, in fact, easy. Until they acknowledge that you just sat upright every day, and you put in the work, and that was great in itself.

I think they keep telling us to stand down because they don’t know what we know: that greatness comes from the legend of you, the one you keep telling yourself over and over, every day. That it has nothing to do with them. That greatness has nothing to do with monuments and relics. It never did, and it never will.

Greatness was all about the every day. It was in the myth of you that you kept telling yourself even when nothing made sense.

I couldn’t tell you how it felt. I can’t do justice to what I saw when I did. You had to be there to see it with your own eyes. I was a part of the greatest generation in the history of this sorry planet. We were all a bit crazy, all of us starting little rebellions from our bedrooms.

We pretended to play by the rules during the day. We pretended all day long, and we laughed, and we cried, but at night, when the door was shut, we sat in front of dimly lit screens, making art. It was our Renaissance.

It was our street in Florence. It was our cosy café in Paris. It was much more, so much more than that. It was an unprecedented revolution of epic proportions. It was when “art” was realised for what it truly meant: expression.

It was the Silicon Age of Art. I really can’t tell you how it felt, but we were, in our own way, infinite. We were forever. All of us combined, creating art together. Art was free, art was out in the street: in every home, in every room, in every screen, and in every head.

We were all artists. We all had something to say, and we damn well said it, every day. No one in the world, no one in the past, and no one in the future could ask us to stand down because we wouldn’t, and they knew it. We were there, we were then, and we were ready with our crafts in our hands. All of them knew it. All of us knew it, too.

We were all in it together: the grandest collaboration of all time. Some wrote, some painted, some shot, some clicked, some danced, some sang and some talked. Some of us would be remembered forever, and some of us would get lost within bytes and bytes of data, but we couldn’t care less.

All we wanted to do was tell them how we felt, and we did it every day, as honestly as we could. It was the greatest generation on Earth. All of us creating cluelessly, all of us creating ruthlessly, united by the dimly lit screen at night.

Art was no more, and everything was art. Nothing mattered, and everything did. We were millions and millions of people leaving our legacies behind every day. We were the greatest generation of all time. We were infinite. We were art.

You had to be there to see it.

People tried too hard to define other people. It has taken me all my life, up until this very moment to say, “no, this is you trying to put me in a box, the existence of which is the very thing I oppose.” I wasn’t a strictly bothersome person, but if there was any rebellion in me, it was to not pick sides. That was my fight, and I believed it to be a good one.

I loved everything, and I loved everyone, and I was not going to sit around explaining it all. There was no point explaining. There was nothing gained from trying to tell others what I meant, and those who understood, did it all on their own. They understood that I refused to be put in a neatly drawn definition which I couldn’t have known myself.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to know it either. It was a fool’s errand because I was, like all people and things I knew, too infinite to be boxed-in to one opinion or one perspective. We were all only a speck of who we could become.

There were days I’d wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and not recognise who I was myself. I woke up anew every now and then, and from that moment on, I was a different person. I believed in different things, said different things, and did different things.

It was beautiful to me, all that potential in all of us. It was the only thing that mattered, and the only thing I thought people ought to think about. All else was, in my honest opinion, a desperate attempt by desperate individuals to make sense of something they could never understand. So, that was my fight. A fight I’d fight silently for the rest of my life.

Well, at least, until they’d pronounce me dead one day. Yet, even then, I’d live on in these words, and so, even then, they’d be wrong. That was my rebellion.

Maybe many years from now, I’ll take a walk along the promenade in the city where it rains a tad bit too much. Maybe it will start to rain. Perhaps I’ll rush to the petit café nearby as I run for shelter. Maybe I’ll slip and stumble on the slippery, pebbled yard.

Maybe, I’ll bump into you.

“Hi,” I’ll say and stand there, dumbfounded, at a loss for words that would otherwise form too cleverly on my tongue. You’ll look at me for a second, dazed. Perhaps, in that moment, you’ll decide between pretending to not know me or giving me a long-overdue hug.

Maybe, you’ll decide on the hug.

Maybe we’ll take the table outside, hiding under the shelter. Maybe we’ll decide to talk about life. Maybe we’ll be awkward and not know what to say but knowing us, I’m sure we’ll start blabbering.

Perhaps we’d start right after we said goodbye.

Maybe, we’d tell each other the stories we’d been saving for years, hoping for this little coincidence, knowing to some degree that it was bound to happen.

Maybe, I’ll ask you what you were doing in the city, and maybe, you’d tell me you just wanted to visit. Perhaps you’ll ask me the same, and perhaps, I’ll crack a joke about taking the train only because I knew you’ll be there.

Maybe, we’ll laugh as the rain would stop.

I wonder if we’ll decide to keep sitting anyway. Maybe, we’ll sit there for hours, until it’s closing time, and maybe, we’ll get a takeaway in the final call, only to walk along, together.

Perhaps, it will all make sense then, and perhaps life will have all been worth it till then.

Maybe we’d look back at life and how it unfolded. Maybe we’ll laugh about it all as we’d sit under the night sky, staring at the sea, together, sharing stories until the sun starts to rise.

The possibility, the maybes and the perhapses make me wonder, though.

I wonder how that morning would feel. I wonder if we’ll sit together till the sun rises. I wonder if we’ll even get that takeaway. I wonder if you’ll decide on the hug. I wonder if I’ll bump into you. I wonder if I’ll even take that walk. I wonder if we’ll ever be in the same city.

I wonder how life will unfold until then. I wonder if it will even unfold at all.

When I was slightly younger, I’d often hear a word in my ear. It would appear as if by some divine intervention, and I’d rush. I’d rush to write it down. I’d rush to record it somewhere. I did not want to lose it. It was my stroke of genius, I thought, I need to see this through.

So, in my selfishness, I’d take that word and build sentences around it. The sentences would become paragraphs, and before we knew it, we had a semblance of a piece of writing.

I still hear the words, even more so now. I hear them when I’m sitting by myself, exhausted, listening to the rain patter on the window. I don’t move a muscle anymore. If there is anything I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that the right word comes back to you.

The right word is meant to arrive, knock for a bit, and now that is the trick, you don’t open the door. You never open the door because the word has to grow. The word has to find itself first before it finds you, and so you let the door stay bolted as it rains outside. A while later, it leaves, but you don’t forget it. You know it will come back.

A week goes by, a month goes by, and sometimes, years go by, as you keep sitting by the door. Then one day, there it is, there is the knock. The knock isn’t as panicked as it was earlier. It’s calmer, softer. The word knows you’ll open the door. It knows you’re waiting for it, and you were, in fact, waiting for it.

While you waited, you’d grown as well. You learned that a word of passion was useless if it didn’t know where it belonged. You learned that you had no role in this. Well, beyond the role of the one who puts it on paper. You were just an agent in this thing that was larger than you, much larger.

There was no divine intervention. There was no genius. It was all about the right word, as it had always been. It was never just about the right word, though. It was all in how the right word arrived. That was the undisclosed secret.

The most well-kept of them all, protected by all those who had ever managed to put an honest word down through the course of history, and trust me, just one was enough. One honest word was all it took for you to understand the truth.

It was never about you.

The human heart was fragile; the soul more so. It seems everyone was broken in some way. There were no people around me. There were just broken shells, frantically looking for pieces to complete themselves or for a reason behind their cracks.

Some hid their chipped paint by coating over their decaying colour. Some borrowed pieces from others leaving them incomplete instead. Some gave up, altogether.

It was a shitshow of ceramic clay dolls, all broken, all falling apart, walking about like creepy marionettes in a play without a script. Their threads intertwining and taking some others down as collateral damage. What mismanagement!

Everybody improvised, everybody was in on it, and no one talked about it.

There was no audience. It was all too deplorable and exhausting to watch. Sometimes, some of them found pieces that fit perfectly all on their own. Those were the lucky ones: the ones who didn’t destroy others to complete themselves. That rarely happened, though.

On a normal day, all of them were snapped, broken, fragmented. They still went on though, finding pieces. I’d just stand in the corner most of the time. I had a few pieces left in me but a lot of me was broken too. I had no interest left in finding any. Not anymore.

Now, I preferred watching instead. I’d just look at them all, going about their business, shard for shard, heart for heart. There were so many broken people in the world, you couldn’t stop counting, and they all made it, eventually. I could make it too, I thought. I just didn’t know how.

What a shitshow.

“Are you going to write full-time now?” They ask me every now and then, and I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if they want to know whether I’ll make money off these words. If it’s that then, to their disappointment and to my misfortune, these words aren’t worth being printed on a page, or maybe they want me to put more words out and more often.

However, I don’t keep anything to myself. It is pointless to keep something to yourself. What good will come of that? Of course, once these words are out, they’re not mine anyway. They belong to everyone, as they should. They belong to them all, as they should.

Tell me, though. What good is life if not shared word-for-word?

Isn’t a moment wasted if it’s not turned into a metaphor? Aren’t heartbreaks pointless if they don’t help another heart heal? Isn’t laughter unnecessary if the joke is never told? Even a breath is futile if it fails to take another’s away.

With that in mind, I write. I may not always put it down, but trust me, I write.

I write when I’m doing the dishes, hating every bit of it. I write when I’m taking a walk, looking around frantically. I write when I’m making coffee, watching the water bubble over. I write when I work on a problem, pulling my hair out of frustration.

Every breath I take is noted down. Every thought I have is neatly filed in a cabinet. I curate my emotions and put them out for display.

I write when I miss my mother, and my father, and my brother. I write when I’m on the phone with a friend, longing to see their face. I write when my heart is broken every year or so. I write when I’m drunk, losing myself in crowds only to feel less alone.

I write when I’m on the floor sometimes, as the moon shines brighter than the sun does on some nights. I write when I’m so peachy, you can see me hop around in happiness.

You see, I’ve spent my life making sure there’s always a story or two to tell, making sure there is always something to put down, hoping it helps just one person feel something, feel at home.

I don’t know what to say to them when they throw the question at me every now and then.

You see, I’ve been writing full-time for a long time now; it is life that I’ve lived part-time.

Sometimes, after a long day ended, I’d just lie down on the couch. Tired but trying not to fall asleep, staying awake intentionally.

The apartment, dimly lit with lamps on the lowest brightness possible, would be on that cosy-cold — a sweet spot of eighteen degrees on the air conditioner. Some chill, electronic, rhythm and blues track would play in the background. Its low beat reverberating throughout the silent flat in a silent building in a silent neighborhood on a silent night. A cup of freshly brewed tea would sit on a coaster on the table right near the couch, wafting its aroma towards me.

I’d have nothing but some sleep in my eyes. No dreams. No goals. Just some sleep and a lot of exhaustion. It was then that I let all that control go, and unclenched my body and mind, and let out a huge sigh. The sigh would almost always be followed by a smile. Not a full, cheerful smile but somewhere in between not smiling and smiling. It was the smile of contentment. It was the smile of enough — of I did enough, I was enough, I have enough.

Then, I stared at the ceiling and I kept staring for an hour or so. This was my moment. It was mine alone. No obligations, no things I had to do, no favours, no one who needed my help, and no chores. No one wanted me right now. No one asked for my assistance. It was in this moment that I didn’t even need myself. In this moment, I could just be. I could just exist. Weightless. Powerless.

So I did just that. I’d lie there, on the couch, breathing — in and out — slowly, until I dozed off.

Life. You go out with a friend. You stand at the bar. A stranger joins you. You talk about stuff. You agree. You disagree. You clink some glasses. Some beer is spilt. An hour goes by. Let’s do this again, you say. The spirit is cheery. You exchange numbers. You never meet again. Goodbye.

Life. You’re walking. You see a café. You walk in and to the counter. A hello to the barista. They remember your order. You bump into a person. Sorry, I didn’t see you there, you say. It’s okay, she replies. You wait for your coffee, together. You ask a dumb question. The conversation flows. You exchange numbers. You never text again. Goodbye.

Life. You pack a backpack. You go to the mountain. You meet a merry bunch along the way. You talk to them. You reach the ocean. You tell them everything. They do the same. You call each other friends. You gaze at the sky with nothing but stars. You camp in the desert. You exchange numbers. We’ll stay in touch, you say. You don’t. Goodbye.

Life. You run into an old friend. You learn where they are. They’re doing great. Small talk. You realise it all works out for everyone, eventually. You talk for some time. You tell them you gotta rush. They tell you they’re busy too. Let’s make time to meet, you agree. You exchange numbers. You don’t make time. Goodbye.

Life. You’re stuck inside your house. The world is in flames. The day is almost over. You don’t know what to do. You lie down for a bit. Tired is an understatement. The apartment stays quiet. You play some music. You recall it all. You open the contact list. You scroll up and down.

You start typing.

Hi, life never allowed. I’m sorry I never really got back to you. I don’t know if you have this number or if the one I have is correct for you. I just wanted to say it was nice talking to you that day. I hope you’re doing okay. Take care.

Life. The phone stays silent. Maybe, they switched numbers, you tell yourself. You fall asleep. The phone beeps once. The phone beeps twice. You don’t budge. It stops buzzing. You wake up in the morning. You check your phone. You smile. Sorry, I fell asleep, you type. Let’s get in touch soon.

You never do. They never do either. Goodbye.

Sweetheart, I enjoy it, you know? I enjoy waking up alone and having no one in particular make coffee for me or wish me a good morning or a good day. It is freedom. It is freedom in not knowing how my days go because I don’t have to talk about them. I enjoy the comfort of my own company now.

This is somewhat new to me. I’ve stayed alone for most of my life without much say in the matter. Yet, this time, it’s deliberate. It’s not my situation but a choice. I’ve chosen to deliberately keep my heart to myself this time. Forgive me, please.

It seems, I lose my agency when I’m in love, love. It’s all downhill from there. I’ll rely on you for a day, then a week, and then, you’ll hate me. I’ve learned, I don’t understand love yet. Everything I was taught about it was wrong, and it is only now that I’m beginning to understand it.

Sweetheart, life is hard, but asking you to pick me up every other day is even worse. I’ll be fine but I need time. I need time to become whoever I’m trying to be or fail in the attempt. I can’t drag you through that. I can’t drag anyone through that.

I have to spend every day looking at my reflection, and stare at it for so long that I’m coerced into liking it. That’ll be a start, at least. The world did a real number on all of us. They forgot to tell us that you had to be a whole first before you gave someone a part, before you gave someone your heart.

It’s the movies, love. It’s the damned movies, the damned books. It’s the idea that there is someone out there who would magically fix our lives and us. They made us believe in fairies, and turned us into monsters instead. It’s only now that I see the curse. I have made up my mind to get rid of it.

So, I’m taking some time off. I’m taking some time off from the movies, the stories, the legends, and the heartbreak. I’m going to be by myself for as long as it takes. I’ve learned, I can’t love myself through you, or anyone else. I want to learn to do it on my own.

It’s been a collision course of broken hearts, love. I’m only beginning to fix mine. I’m sorry, my heart has been broken for far too long, but I’ve learned it’s no excuse to break yours too.

In some ways, I’ve always been a writer, but if I was being honest, I really began writing because I wanted to be one of the greats. I wanted to leave something behind that was celebrated for years after I disappeared.

Now, however, I don’t feel the same. I don’t want to be great and neither do I feel I deserve it. There is no great tragedy in me or my life. Nothing of enough mettle to prove that I persisted even though I did. My battles were in the every day — in the mundane.

Although, I think I know why I write now.

I want to write a word so honest and plain that it pushes someone else, perhaps, someone around or someone way beyond my time, in just the right way. Maybe, they come across something I said and it rubs them off in the wrongest way possible, or maybe, it stirs something in them that wasn’t there before.

So, I document this ordinary life — one without anything epic or grandiose in it. I do it honestly in every way I can, in every form I can, and I’ll continue doing it until I vanish. I don’t know any other way, and I have nothing better to do.

So, if you are who I have talked about, and if you’re reading this, do me a favour. Be great. Be greater. The world requires more like you and less like me — those who dwell in the every day. Just promise me that you’ll be honest, and I promise you, the greatness would arrive on its own.

Then, you won’t need anything at all.

They are running—rampant and hungry—dividing the city between right and wrong. They are running, each preaching their own gospel. Some say you may not believe otherwise. Some say you may not disagree. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone is right. “Take a side or we’ll take one for you,” a banner swirls through the air.

There is a kid—dazed and confused. He’s walking, stumbling into them as they ignore him walking between their feet. He sees a dog on the street — scared. He walks up to it and pats it on the head. He comforts him. Perhaps, he comforts himself in the process. He leaves the dog and continues walking.

They are here. They break down the door. “How do you think?” They ask me. “How do I think what?” I ask them back. “How do you think?” They stress on the last word. A knee to my stomach. I fall down in pain. “Who do you write for?” They scream in my ear. I look at the floor—silent.

Outside, the kid walks further, astonished at the chaos and destruction. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand anything. He looks at a white flag stained red. He looks at people arguing, even killing each other, left and right. He stops by an old house. He looks inside.

I hear the deafening question, “Who do you write for? How do you think?” They continue asking me. A question follows a knee, a knee follows a question. “Why won’t you agree? Why won’t you disagree? Why won’t you take a side? Everyone has to. Everyone does.” I stay silent, my body aching. I feel the life running out of me.

I look outside my door. A kid looks straight at me. I look at his forlorn face. His expression turns pale and just, sad. He looks inside the house, and with it, my heart. I know how he feels. I have felt the same way too — caught forever in battles with which I have nothing to do.

Another knee in my back, “Who do you write for?” They ask again. Barely breathing, I struggle to speak. “I write… for the kid,” I answer, “I have always written for the kid.” Unable to understand, they shoot the both of us. We stop breathing.

Perhaps, they didn’t get it—what a tragedy.

Sometimes, I couldn’t fall asleep because of all the possibilities. I’d lay in my bed, looking out at the dark sky from between the curtains in my bedroom. I’d look at it with an odd sort of excitement.

I was so genuinely excited for another day that sleep just wouldn’t come. I’d be giddy, thinking about all that I could do in life. There was so much to do!

It was overwhelming — the possibility of life. The possibility that exists as long as we’re here, breathing. The possibility of the human potential, that remains there until tapped into.

I’d think about all the things that remained undone. I would look at the plant by the window sill and remember how one day, after four months of consistent watering without any visible results, it decided to grow out on its own.

I remarked, “”How did you do that in a day?”” It made me wonder with almost childlike awe: how amazing it is that even when something isn’t visible, a change, some growth, is always afoot? As long as we kept doing what we needed to do, we kept growing.

One day, it would all start to show just like the plant. Then, a bystander, looking at you for the first time, would remark, “”How did you do that in a day?”” And you’d reply, “”Oh, very easily. You see, I stared by staring out my window every night.”” You’d chuckle, remembering all those nights you couldn’t sleep.

All of that would come later though if it ever does, and I couldn’t care less. All I could care about was the next day, and the possibility of all that I could do in this life, all that I could leave behind. The human potential was so vast and inspiring that to think of anything less was an insult to everyone that came before.

There was, frankly, so much to do!

They sat at the edge of the lake in the evenings after the day was done. There was nothing beyond the lake it seemed, and if there was, they couldn’t have known it. For a couple of weeks, every evening, they’d come to the lake. They’d sit on a small cemented platform, large enough to fit the six of them if they sat shoulder to shoulder, and they’d stare. They’d stare at the landscape. They watched as a lone man rowed his boat every evening, making the scenery appear as if it was straight out of a painting. It was surreal. That was all they cared about. They talked about life as they got drunk out of their wits. He liked that. He liked that a lot. It was then that he learned that happiness wasn’t something you felt throughout life but in memories, spread over like polaroids. It was the moments that counted. It was about how many polaroids you could collect. He learned that he was happy at that moment, looking at the sunset over the sparkling, golden water, laughing, and just being stupid for a change. On one of those evenings, he learned something. It was something he’d learn forever that day. He learned that one could be crumbling inside, and still manage to find an ounce of happiness. His heart was broken, but he was happy, and that was all that mattered.

They often say life is a journey but they never tell you what kind. I seem to have found the answer. Life is like travelling in trains. You take one, then another, and often you miss stations. How did I come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, one tends to fall asleep on a train, only to wake up to a different scenery in a different city, and having missed most of what went on during the time they had dozed off. It is quite similar in life, at least, that’s how it played out for me.

I slept, looking out the window, in a certain winter a couple of years ago, and while I felt the wind on my face and faintly heard people say things as one might do during a journey on the rail, I was barely conscious of where I was going or what was happening or where I was in the first place! The co-passengers changed. I reckon the lot must’ve changed entirely more than once for I woke up only recently. I had been asleep all this time, going where the train took me. I woke up this summer. I woke up in a different city at two in the night.

Just like someone who wakes up on a train, not knowing where they are, shocked, and in the most urgent panic, I walked to the door and looked out. I had missed my station a ways back. In a sudden rush of adrenaline, I decided to get off at whatever station came next, and to correct the course from there on. I splashed some water on my face and I decided to hold my bag and stand near the door.

The good thing about trains is, you can always go from anywhere to anywhere as long as there is a track laid out. I reckon that’s true of life too. The journey seldom has one fixed destination. One can hope they pick their stations right. They’re both very similar in that respect: trains and life. They’re very similar indeed for both tend to work out, eventually, even if you doze off every now and then. As long as you woke up in time for your station or not too far away from it, both worked out just fine.

It’s too bad that tables don’t talk. If they did, you’d have had the chance to meet a rather interesting one, tucked away in the corner of a cosy café in the city where nothing ever happens. It is the storyteller of the highest order for it has seen them happen across its life. They say once it begins, it doesn’t stop talking.

It would tell you a story it watched unfold over the years. It would narrate it as if it was some epic saga of love and heartbreak and of all things petty humans cannot control. It would go on and on because there was so much to tell. It would tell you about the two of them.

It would tell you of the most amazing events from the most random of days, and it would tell you of smiles exchanged. It would narrate and never get tired of how it felt that love transpire. It would tell you of all it saw and sometimes, it’d add its own touch to it. It has, of course, seen thousands of these.

It would tell you how they met once a year, then every day, and then never again. The table would talk, and talk, and talk about how he saw them grow up and saw them grow closer, and of course, apart. It would start from the first, awkward sips of coffee to the last silence as they sat with tears in their eyes.

It would tell you how both of them kept visiting for some time, alone, right before they stopped. It would tell you of when they finally came back to the café, after years and not together, of course. It would talk of its excitement when it saw them, and the disappointment it felt when they both walked up to it, but never chose it again.

If you chose it, though, and if it could talk, it would never stop talking. It would have so much to tell you about them — about us. Alas, it’s a story I won’t tell because, perhaps, it’s a story they’ve long forgotten. It makes me think of how it’s too bad that tables don’t talk. It makes me wonder if that is how stories are lost through time.