A Choice (First Fiction Story)
It was one of those beautiful early summer mornings where the sun was sitting precisely at eye-level height, rendering one completely unsighted and transforming a street crossing into a pure leap of faith. Alex sauntered into Coffee Angel on Nassau Street. 7:47am, like clockwork. Morning routines were the craze these days. Americano or latte? the barista queried. It was, on its face, a completely innocuous question.
An americano might be too strong, but then a latte means choosing between oat or almond milk and Alex remembered reading that almond milk uses up a lot of water. Although I got an americano yesterday, Alex’s monologue interjected. Americano would probably be better for my carbon footprint but worse for my teeth. A latte would be a nicer, slower caffeine hit but slightly pricier. You see Alex was also trying to be more frugal, what with rent being so extortionately high in Dublin these days.
It was a banal choice. Yet and still, how could these sensations be manifesting themselves once again? The sweaty palms, the shortness of breath, the increased heart rate, that distinct feeling of faintness without the possibility of ever fainting. “It’s just physical sensations, nothing else”. Was this Alex’s inner monologue or the therapist talking? Don’t mention the therapist. You don’t want that label. Only Americans go to therapists. They have everything in America: freedom, opportunity, fame, drones, prisons, guns, lots of guns, poverty, racism, oh and opportunity. Or did I say that already? I can’t remember. Anxiety shuts down cognition. Alex always wondered how serene and calm all the people walking the streets of Dublin looked. Why can’t I be like them? Yet deep down, in that curious abyss of the soul, Alex knew that he was buying into the social façade. Everybody is equally as fucked. They just are too afraid to admit to it.
So many choices. Lawyer or writer? To be with person X or person Y? Was this an existential crisis or just a crisis? Alex sighed, was there even a difference? The image of Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir solemnly contemplating the meaning — or apparent meaninglessness — of life in the Parisian streets of Saint-Germain seemed so Romantic. I want to be that torn artist espousing esoteric nonsense, Alex thought. No, he didn’t. Alex liked the thought but not the reality. How can a privileged bourgeois individual like myself be so indulgent as to suffer from this consuming turmoil of the psyche? Money and material success were meant to solve it all. Yet this angst appeared blind to class or race or gender or whatever else it was that people discriminated against. Is there comfort in that? Alex thought. Hmmm, I guess so. But the problem, he once told the therapist, was that the only barometer we have to measure against is our own subjective experience and the intensity of these feelings. My pain is not the same as your pain, Alex said as he observed how peculiar physically pointing one’s finger was. At least If I use big words, people might think that I’m smart. Alex reminisced about a time before he liked being considered smart, a time of bliss and self-acceptance.
Perhaps the answer lay in Proust: career, love or art? Alex was trying to dabble toes in all three pursuits. The career seemed a doomed pursuit. Too much corporate speak; an environment full of euphemisms. How can there be divine existence when the world is full of so much of these self-fulfilling, self-reinforcing games? Alex thought. No money could be worth this.
The jury was still out on artistry. But love…
She was perfect. Graceful. A composite of all the best elements of past romances. Alex nostalgically replayed their initial interaction. The connection was immediate, almost disconcertingly so. It was as if they had known each other in another life. Maybe they had. Hi, she said. Her eyes smiled. It was one of those glances that conveyed a million and one things; so much being said without any words piercing the aperture of their consciousness. The eyes were a portal to the soul of the occupant, a glimpse of the divine in motion, an insight beyond the veil of linguistic pretence. For the emotional experience of looking into a lover’s eyes was beyond the capacity of human language, or at least beyond the articulation and vocabulary which Alex possessed.
She became a friend at first. When they did meet, the connection was pure and unique. It scared him. Romance was not a prerequisite to deep connection. Perhaps, if anything, romance merely complicated the pureness of those wonderful friendships, connections which occupied a hazy space on the spectrum of romance and often flirted with transgressing into something more complicated which no label could accurately categorise, for labels are far too reductionist.
Excuse me sir, americano or latte? Alex awoke from his seconds long neurotic daydream. The barista looked at him as if Alex compelling him to do his job was the greatest inconvenience against humanity on that particular Tuesday morning. Americano or latte, sir? he repeated irritably.
A choice. Always a choice.
