“A collapsing young adult, solitary and bedazzled—quite the oddity on this rather mundane evening if not for the undulating pressure seeping through every other passerby—pushes open the door of a bourgeois corner cafe minutes away from one of the nation’s top private educational institution, having just thinly escaped the fleeting flashes of a traumatic recent past haunting her as she flounders in (a nightmare that was evoked solely by the turquoise glimpses of this particular restaurant), now profusely types with only the vague intuition of a hectic subconscious. Just moments ago, she orders half-heartedly, the second language of English gushing out so naturally it has ceased to require intentional effort; stumbles on a seat with the unconscious sensorimotor capability graciously embedded in her relatively normative genetic codes. Her empty stomach now vocally heralds for energy—whose possibility of presence eludes her—so with silent brewing indignation it resorts back to desperately churning into the slow-release stimulant, one that was prescribed a decade or so too late, which now only transforms futility into frenzy.

 

There is no war. There is no bloodshed. There is only the mild humming of the vast city penetrating into the psyche of every individual on that street. A past-century soldier would be amazed by the lack of a disturbing externality that nonetheless yields this level of intensity in a contemporary alleged place of rest. But here, no one glances up to notice an abnormality. Amidst the crowded tables and chairs, contemporary Satres and Hurstons clump and cluster, a searing fear that a crucial trail of thought is left unexplored, a novel new idea that could perhaps raise millions on just the seed run. Half-drank lattes only become obstacles in the cloisters. The rather loud thud of the metal device banging on to the acrylic surface blends into the cacophony of digital gadgets mindlessly fumbled by users who cannot legally consume alcohol until two winters following.”