Not Noticed

She appeared to everyone else as smart and capable. That’s what even drawn me to her those years ago. She has a sophisticated air with a hint of toughness. It seems intimidating from afar, like from where I am, watching her. And in a subtle way, you can see there is vulnerability but she’s very good at masking it. She walks confidently, head up, looking straight but kind of basic; no flair, just for purpose, not for show. I see her everyday, by the coffee shop, always alone, with a cup of regular cappuccino in front of her and always with a little piece of paper or napkin. She scribbles tiny notes, erasing and rewriting lines, but this is the only time I see her genuinely smiling. I know that she’s not drawing at first because her hand strokes always suggest a carefully paced script. She writes only very short pieces of personal literature like poems or limericks. She drinks her coffee always after the literature, when it’s cold enough to finish the whole cup in one attempt and this always before she leaves, not later. She would stand up hurriedly and out the door with a stern look on her face, leaving her smiles on that coffee tabletop on a piece of paper. It’s this little pieces of literature that I knew the real her. I make an effort to collect these writings after she left, just buying a piece of almond cookie as an excuse to enter the café. Her writings are always in the same mood, light and sunny, like she’s describing nature or utopia, like her generic life in the real world doesn’t exist. My favorite poem is:
“And she sang to the heavens her song,
Full of love for where she belonged,
Her eyes sparkled with every prose,
And softened the hearts of her foes.

Til’ then that the world did realize,
That Isabel is the answer to the lies,
That she would give to them beauty and hope,
And there will again be love to show.”

Is she Isabel? Or does she want to be? Her works are the exact opposite of her life. She’s in a pseudo-life, very dreary and bland, like spinach soup on a daily basis. She is surrounded by people who try to love their lives ‘coz their started their careers with passion and fury. But there’s more to it than just a career to her. She doesn’t love it but she needs it and only SHE knows why. I don’t think that she doesn’t have a choice on what goes on in her life. Not like the rest that needs to struggle to get ahead, she has been dealt a good hand by fate and it’s hard to tell why she is doing this. She could’ve been whatever she wanted.
Sometimes, I couldn’t resist and I would try to walk up to her, with my almond cookie, looking for ways on how to ask her if I could ask for her poems this time instead of “stealing” them. But I’m always stuck frozen where I’m standing, behind her chair, just a few inches away. I would extend my free hand, trying to reach her but before I could even touch the surface of her long black hair, I recoil. I step back, turn around and retreat out the door, hurry back into the alleyway across the street where I sink back watching her and hating myself for my stupidity and cowardice. But as I look at her, she’s just oblivious to what happened, scribbling away on her piece of paper. But for her, nothing did happen. I’m the only one who saw the turmoil, the excitement, and then the disdain for the chance to even just have the chance to utter simple introductions. But my brief moments of heaven, of seeing her, lasts only about an hour in the morning everyday, and then the rest of my boring life goes on. I would go inside, as soon as she left and out of my sight, into the store where I worked for. My boss always assumed I was having my breakfast before work out on that little crack of an alleyway at the side of the building. It’s half true anyway. My work entails stacking the shelves with merchandise and clean up messes in the aisles. In this low cost Chinese grocery store that is my livelihood, everything is here, from cartons of orange juice to beef jerky and blueberry licorice. Except for a can of wishes that would make my dreams come true.