Sunday, March 7, 2010

A Taipei tale over coffee

What would you do, if it happened to you?


Imagine you sit in a café somewhere in Taipei. You just bought your latte and you're sitting at a small table for two, sipping your coffee, waiting for your girlfriend. She's late and you're alone, so you take a good look around. The place is nice, has a certain small town charm. The smell of freshly made coffee makes you day dream..., but not for long. Your thoughts are interrupted by the two noisy Japanese girls behind you, who chat so loudly, that everyone seems to be a bit annoyed by them. But then the noise slowly fades away again, you lose yourself in your thoughts. And suddenly you notice something you haven't noticed before. A girl, most likely in her mid twenties, sits across, on other side of the café near the main window. Her hair is long, falling. She's totally immersed in a note book, where she's earnestly writing something. You realize that she's laid eyes on you. She's carefully ogling you, her looks are brief and hard to notice. Most of the time she seems to be lost in her notes. You think: What is she writing so eagerly? Is she a student? A writer? A poet? She glances over again, then corrects her hair and returns to her notes. Time seems to stand still for few moments, you think about what can she possibly be noting and why is she looking at you so often. Do I look weird? Is it, because I am not a local? All kinds of things run through your mind and you look at her again and think: She's not bad, but she's not the kind of woman I would notice in the pool of beautiful women of Taipei. But the way she corrects her long falling hair fascinates you... and then you notice, that she's getting ready to leave. She's standing up and grabbing her things, putting her notebook and pen in her bag. Then she stops for a while and you don't know what's on her mind. But the to your surprise, she starts approaching you. You take a sip of your nearly finished latte, your pulse increases and you think: OMG, is she coming to me? Was I that obvious? What is she... and then she's already there at your table, too shy too look into your eyes, but still brave enough to leave a small folded piece of paper on your table. She leaves without a glance and without a word. You unfold the paper and you see something like this:

給我打電話*
0921097634

What would you do?
[*the Chinese says "give me a call"]

No comments:

Post a Comment