[Original post here.]

Today, I succumbed to the lure of Starbucks.

I’m not actually that fond of their decaf Americano mistos. I just wanted to stand in line. The Starbucks line was the closest one.

I’m at the UBC Student Union Building. When I look around, I begin to remember all those times I had come here alone. And here I am, alone again.

There’s something about doing something, even if it’s nothing, by yourself. It’s almost like walking in an alternate reality. For a few moments, when you step out of your circle friends, out of your department, away from your professors, and even away from your family, you become part of the several realities standing around you.

You’re standing behind them in line. They’re standing in front of you in line. You wonder how they can survive a full day of classes with just a tiny purse. They wonder what the hell is making your heavy duty shoulder bag burst at the seams.

The barista calls out a decaf Americano. I think she has forgotten to make it a misto and make a motion to ask.

“Did you order a decaf Americano?”

It isn’t the barista asking me, but the girl standing to my left. Her eyebrows are furrowed more deeply than I ever thought finely plucked brows could furrow, and she’s staring more intently at the decaf Americano in my hands than my face.

I ask her if her order is a misto, but she just keeps staring at the drink. The barista finally calls out a decaf Americano misto, and I realize that the drink in my hands is the girl’s after all. I happily hand it over, smiling and trying to make a joke of it. But without a word, she snatches it up and stalks away, nose held high.

At first, I think she’s a little bit rude and mostly socially inept, but as I start to wander away with my own drink, I realize that she probably thinks I’m the rude one.

I must have burst into her world suddenly and unannounced the moment I laid hands on her drink. She was supposed to have simply ordered and picked up her drink with no interruptions. I was the interruption. Therefore, I must be wrong.

To her, I probably was nothing more than five strange fingers on her drink.  But all the same, my reality and her reality were confused and, consequently, fused for a few fleeting seconds. We both lived the same confused reality for one moment. But, just as quickly as our realities had fused, our realities diverged. Two lines intersecting at one point.

I sit down at my usual spot again. Barstool in the corner, facing the window, earphones on, wireless network secured. I spill some coffee near my laptop and rummage in my bag for a pack of tissue. The girl next to me glances over. Her nose is turned up a little in disdain at my clumsiness.

There, again. I’ve interrupted someone else’s reality because I couldn’t sit still.

She does a funny twist with her neck and continues surfing away on Facebook, and I realize that she’s trying to hide that glance that she couldn’t help just seconds ago. She’s failing miserably.

Even when I’m alone, I can’t help running into other people’s realities. But maybe that’s not the right word. It’s not “running into”; it’s “running through”.

I’m charging straight through people’s lives like a battering ram. I’m walking through walls I never knew existed.

I’m a line intersecting many other lines, one point per line.

Only for a moment.