The Coffee Shop Symphony

Not the absentminded kind of humming people do when they’re alone—this was a full-bodied, unapologetic melody that made the air around her shimmer. Her voice tangled with the hiss of the espresso machine, the clink of porcelain, the murmur of strangers. For a moment, the entire coffee shop became a concert hall.

I was trapped between wanting to capture the moment forever and fearing she’d notice me staring. Then she turned—not toward me, but to the rain-streaked window—and pressed her palm against the glass like she was trying to touch the storm itself. A barista called her name: "Lila."

That’s when I spilled my coffee.

The scalding liquid raced across the table, over my notebook, onto the floor. A gasp, a scramble for napkins—and suddenly, she was there, kneeling beside me with a wad of tissues in her hand.

"Your words are drowning," she said, rescuing my ink-smeared pages.

I stared at her fingers, ink-stained now too. "They weren’t very good words."

She grinned. "Then let’s rewrite them together."

And just like that, the symphony began.