There’s a coffee shop just across the glass doors of the library on campus. It’s called the Middle Ground for some unknown reason. I got my first mocha there one September morning, because an 8am music theory class had drained my brain. The fall sunlight gleamed through the stained-glass windows to shine on the jars of wooden stir sticks and sugar and cream packet-filled jars. Worn golden cream and speckled brown squares were checkering the stone floor. I saw the young baristas wearing black aprons with straps that crossed behind their backs. As I waited for my drink, I gazed at an abandoned chess set that stood up on four chiseled wooden legs with gleaming square-cut edges on the base.
I took my light caramel drink, with dark clear notes of ice showing through. I shook the plastic cup to listen to the ice and to see the cubic corners disappear and reappear in different locations of the iced mocha. I also lifted my left hand and rehearsed a nonchalant wave in case a certain person walked into the sunlit coffee shop, but then it came upon me as a revelation that I was waving at a ghost. So I stopped and took another sip instead.
“Not bad,” I said, stabbing my straw further in, hoping to get my next sip from the sweet spot between the icy diluted upper layer and the warmer murkier lower layer of my mocha.
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I walked to the library to study that evening. There would probably be tired students asleep on the couch, patient laptops waiting on their laps with the screens remaining brightly lit. Ceiling lamps that shine quietly above them like a fond grandparent not wanting to wake a tired grandchild. I wonder how many students have fallen asleep under the library lamps.
And outside, the lampposts twinkled to life, one by one, a glowing pink arched sky high above, down the stone road.
