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I hadn't started this website when the affair started, so you'll have to simply remember that these entries are the musings on memory of an intrigued mind.
I am a writer and, as such, I have my little quirks. There are particular pens I have to write with, depending on what sort of writing I'm up to. For every day writing, I'm partial to the chunky Airlift made by Zebra. I'm surprised at my happiness with this ballpoint, considering I usually prefer incredibly slender pens that I am forced to wrap my entire hand about tightly. I suppose I feel like the writing comes out of me quicker and more pure, that way, with such slender instruments. I also have my preferred writing receptacle: a spiral bound notebook (bound on the left, in spite of the fact that I am left-handed).
And then there's where I write. Truth be told, I write everyhwere. I suppose I could even argue that I'm always writing, the words always spinning themselves into sentences of description and declaration in my head: just before breaking themselves down again, of course, and continuing on their merry way. My mind is alway stuffed full or words and ideas, a constant loom of action.
But I digress. I have my habits, my rituals. And I grew quite attached to one of those in particular: my habit of taking coffee daily at a local coffee house and using the hour through which I nursed my coffee to write. (Alright, my coffee never lasts an hour unless it's an endless cup, but it's as good an excuse as any.)
Sometime after I began this habit (a suitable enough time that the habit had gone through chrysalis and properly transformed into ritual), I noticed another regular fixture at my coffee place. He'd been added to the decor after myself, always in on the same days I was, usually a bit before me.
He hunched over his little table, never drinking anything but water. Ocassionally, he'd have a bagel. His clothes were always unremarkable, a little shabby as if he'd yet to escape the youth's habit of rolling from bed into rumpled clothing. Nothing in his appearance or ordering habits made him particularly extraordinary. No, the mystery in him lay in his aura.
He gave off an exceedingly self-knowledgeable, creative, and passionate air. It's like the air about him wavered with the heat images of ideas. He was always writing, hardly ever looking around to ground himself in his surroundings. He was a fellow writer; he was a creator of the world.
I suppose I couldn't disguise my interest. Although seeming so absorbed, he probably could not help but feel my gaze upon him as I wandered through my own creative process. I may never get a straight answer out of him why he decided to share his works with me. It's just that one day he decided to leave behind a napkin.