SPILLED COFFEE AND THE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION OF LINEARITY
- Jan Writer
- Oct 3, 2024
- 4 min read
There are only a few real gods. One of them is the airport. Not the metaphorical bullshit of flight or freedom or ascension — I mean the cold deity of transit: of nowhere. The airport is the universe’s way of reminding you that everything is temporary, fleeting, and nobody’s going to remember your name unless you die in a fiery crash that shuts down the runway for twelve hours.
Even then, it's a footnote.
I met him at the gate. Or did he meet me? It’s already blurry, like the bottom of a whisky glass. I was sitting there, minding my own fuckin’ business, probably scrolling through some useless feed, when he appeared — looking just as lost as everyone else but pretending like he had somewhere important to be. He probably did. We all do, don't we?
But let me backtrack because the present is never linear and this moment’s already exhausting. I’m thinking about lines and how we’re constantly told that time is one, but I can’t stop wondering: who the fuck decided that? Who decided that time is a line, that we’re supposed to meet people only to cross paths and then never see them again? It’s cruel, really.
Time’s more like this long, stretched-out piece of gum, the kind that gets stuck to your shoe, dirt clinging to it, and every time you try to get rid of it, you just make a bigger mess.
He had these eyes, which is stupid because who doesn’t have eyes? But his were those you don’t forget — the kind that look at you like they’re peeling you open, but with a surgeon’s precision.
I wondered, in that exact moment, how much we can take from someone in an hour. Can you steal a memory? Absorb someone’s time like a mosquito bite, leaving an annoying welt that never really goes away?
Fucking poetic, huh?
It was small talk. Small talk like it’s meant to be: insignificant, forgettable. And yet, there’s nothing more dangerous than it. “Where you headed?” “What flight?” “Coffee?” (Always coffee. It’s as if caffeine is the one thread pulling humans together, as fragile as spider silk, but we trust it. We trust it because what else do we have?) No one’s asking the big questions at a departure gate. There’s no time for philosophy when you're waiting to hear the boarding call.
Still, there was this thing hanging in the air between us, and I’m not just talking about the usual airport funk of sweat and overpriced perfume. It was that sick feeling of knowing — knowing that this conversation, this moment, was all it would ever be. He was headed somewhere, and I was headed nowhere, and isn’t that just the fucking point of life? We think we’re going places, but we’re all just stuck in transit.
I don’t remember his name, but I do remember this: he smiled when he spilled his coffee. Yeah, that’s it. He spilled his shitty, overpriced, airport coffee right onto his lap, and I laughed because what else are you supposed to do? His face was one of those rare, genuine expressions — not annoyed, not frustrated, just accepting. He wiped himself down with a napkin, shrugged like it was no big deal, and I sat there thinking: that’s it. That’s life. You spill your coffee, laugh it off, and then you board your fucking plane.
Planes. There’s another god for you. The engine’s hum is like a hymn, promising you that you’ll get from point A to point B. But what if B isn’t what you want? What if you miss point C, D, or whatever other letters come next? Who cares. None of this matters in the long run. You’re not going to remember the way the engines roared when you finally touched down…
…but you’ll remember the guy who made you feel something for five minutes at gate 23.
There’s a quote by Nietzsche, but I won’t insult your intelligence by putting it here like a goddamn bumper sticker. You don’t need some philosopher’s insight to know that life’s a joke and you’re the punchline. Meeting someone like him — yeah, temporary — is just the universe's way of jacking off into your emotional consciousness and saying, “That’s all you get.”
The boarding call came. He stood up, said something like, “Nice meeting you,” like we were ever going to meet again. And just like that, he was gone.
You know that feeling in your chest? That tight, burning, angry feeling that feels like a punch but with no fist? Yeah, that’s it. It wasn’t heartbreak. It wasn’t even bittersweet. It was just... nothing. A void you can't name. Maybe it was more like indigestion.
He probably sat next to some poor bastard on that plane and didn’t think about me once. And I won’t pretend I thought about him after either — well, maybe I did, but not in a “fate” kind of way. Not in a “we’ll meet again” kind of way. No, more like a random passing thought while jerking off to something else — like “Oh, yeah, remember that guy?”
But you know what? I think the universe loves this kind of shit. It gets off on these meaningless encounters, just like we do. All these fucking lines that cross but never meet again.
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