Un café, por favor

I woke up with that fucking song playing in my head again.

It had been four days.

At first, I didn't really mind it. It was actually a nice song, even if it was in a language I barely understood. You'd think that would make it easier to ignore, but for some stupid reason, it did the opposite. I wanted to understand it.

So I started learning it.

Not entirely because of the song, or at least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Learning Spanish had been somewhere on my imaginary list of things I'd eventually do anyway.

Learn another language.

Travel more.

Run consistently.

Become one of those people who folds their clothes immediately after doing laundry.

You know, impossible things.

But then I heard the song, and suddenly Spanish moved much higher on the list.

I started with a few words, then sentences, then questions. I could understand little pieces, though I still had to translate most of them first. There was something satisfying about hearing something that would've sounded like noise a few weeks earlier and suddenly realizing that I knew what it meant, or at least maybe parts of it.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, I became a little too fond of the song itself.

And then, for reasons that are probably better left unexplained, I decided I needed to learn how to stop listening to it.

Friday

I tried working that morning, but I couldn't really concentrate. I tried watching something, ate something, scrolled through whatever was on my phone, and basically did everything except the things I was actually supposed to be doing.

Eventually, I opened Spotify.

There it was. The song.

I stared at it for a few seconds and told myself not to play it. Then I played it anyway.

Fuckin hell.

I listened for a while before stopping it somewhere in the middle. That had become one of my strange little rules. If I couldn't stop myself from playing the song, at least I wouldn't finish it.

I'm not sure what exactly that was supposed to accomplish.

Maybe stopping halfway somehow counted as progress. Maybe I was trying to prove to myself that I still had some control over it.

Either way, a few minutes after closing Spotify, the song started playing in my head again.

Fuckin hell.

So at around 11:00 AM, I grabbed my bike.

I didn't have a destination, which is generally a terrible way to begin what would eventually become a ten-hour bike ride. I just knew I wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere, really.

There's something useful about cycling when your brain refuses to shut up. Your body eventually becomes too occupied with keeping you alive to entertain whatever nonsense is happening inside your head.

Watch the road.

Avoid the car.

Change gears.

Drink water.

Don't hit the old man.

Why is this guy even walking in the bicycle lane?

For a while, it worked.

The song disappeared.

So I kept going.

I wasn't really keeping track of where I was headed. I followed familiar cycling paths at first, then roads I'd only ridden a few times, and eventually places where I had to keep checking the map because I wasn't completely sure where I'd end up.

It was hot. Really hot. Like searing hot.

This was Singapore, around noon, and for some reason I'd decided that this was the perfect time to conduct whatever psychological experiment I was apparently conducting on myself.

I stopped somewhere along the way to drink some water and checked my phone. Spotify was still sitting there, obviously, and for a second I considered opening it.

Nope.

I knew exactly what would happen.

Pandora's box could stay closed for another hour.

I put the phone back in my pocket and got on the bike.

That one counted as a win.

By early afternoon, I had made it somewhere along the coast. The sea was ridiculously blue that day, and there were families everywhere.

Kids running around.

Cyclists passing each other

People sitting on benches underneath the trees.

Normal human beings who apparently understood that you're supposed to relax when you go to the beach.

At one point, I passed a kid building a big sandcastle. It was actually impressive. The kid had built walls around it, a few pointed towers, and one taller tower sticking out in the middle. I don't know how long he'd been working on it, but against the blue water behind it, the whole thing looked almost too perfect for a random afternoon at the beach.

For a few seconds, it might've been the happiest place on Earth.

I kept cycling, still looking around more than I probably should have been, when some kid in a Mickey Mouse shirt wandered into the cycling lane. His father pulled him back just before I reached them.

Even Mickey was apparently trying to kill me that afternoon.

I laughed at the idea and rode on.

That's basically how the afternoon went. Every now and then, something completely ordinary would remind me of the song.

A word on a sign.

Something somebody was wearing.

A stupid joke I'd remembered.

Sometimes absolutely nothing at all.

There didn't even need to be a reason.

The song would simply decide it was time to play again inside my head.

And every time it did, I pedaled a little farther.

Somewhere along the coast, I passed a couple of workers unloading crates of bottled water from a truck. There were dozens of them stacked beside the road.

For some reason, I looked at all those bottles and thought, that's a lot of things to keep sealed.

Hopefully nobody planned on dumping them into the Pacific.

Anyway.

I kept cycling.

At some point, probably after crossing into the second town, I started wondering what exactly I was doing.

There is a word people like to use when you can't stop thinking about something.

Obsession.

I've never liked that word.

Maybe because it sounds like you've surrendered control. Maybe because it makes affection sound like a disease. Or maybe because there isn't really a clean word for that strange distance between liking something and realizing you've become far more attached to it than you ever intended.

I don't know.

Maybe that's why I was out there in the first place. A little distance couldn't hurt.

I preferred detachment.

That sounded healthier.

More mature.

Very psychological.

Apparently the way to achieve that was by cycling across the island under the midday sun until my skin started cooking.

Extremely healthy behavior.

So I kept going.

By late afternoon, I had crossed two towns and was well into another. I don't remember exactly when my legs started complaining. Probably several hours before I actually decided to listen to them.

At around 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM, I finally stopped at a coffee shop.

I needed caffeine. Or sugar. Or intravenous fluids.

Anything, really.

I parked the bike outside and walked in. The place was busy, but not packed. There were people working on laptops, a few groups talking over coffee, and some people sitting outside at the al fresco tables despite the fact that air-conditioning existed approximately ten feet behind them.

I ordered one coffee.

While waiting, I moved toward the other end of the counter where drinks were being handed out. I glanced around mostly because I had nothing else to do, and that's when I noticed this giant board hanging on one of the walls.

It was covered in photographs and handwritten notes.

I walked closer.

Some of them looked like reviews. Others were random messages people had left behind. There were birthday greetings, thank-yous, jokes, little drawings, and notes obviously written for people who weren't there.

Some were messages for friends.

Some were for family.

Some were clearly for people they loved.

There were inside jokes that probably meant absolutely nothing to anyone except two people somewhere in the world.

I spent a few minutes reading them.

Near one corner of the board was a small holder with blank pieces of paper in different colors and sizes. There was a marker beside it.

And the song started playing inside my head again.

Fuckin hell.

“One coffee for Chiz.”

Right. Reality.

I collected my coffee and went outside. There were a few empty tables in the al fresco area, so I picked one and sat down.

In front of me was a cup of coffee.

And a marker.

And a small piece of paper.

---

I sat there for a while.

The song was still playing, although it wasn't as loud anymore. Maybe the cycling had worked. Or maybe my brain was simply too tired to keep the volume up.

And for reasons that made perfect sense to me at that particular moment, I started wondering how far a cup of coffee could travel before it gets cold.

Across a city?

Across a country?

Across the Pacific?

Eleven time zones, perhaps.

That would be a pretty stupid journey for a cup of coffee.

It would definitely be cold by the time it arrived.

I laughed at the thought.

Then I drank it myself.

Roads Ran Out

I could have gone home after that.

Actually, I probably should have.

It was already late afternoon, I'd been cycling for hours, and whatever energy the coffee gave me was mostly being spent convincing my legs that we weren't done yet.

But going home meant stopping. And stopping meant silence.

And silence had been dangerous lately because silence was usually when the song became loudest.

So I got back on the bike.

The afternoon slowly turned into evening. The heat became a little more tolerable, buildings started lighting up, and the crowds changed. People were heading home from work while I was apparently trying to determine how many kilometers were required to achieve emotional enlightenment.

I still didn't have an answer.

At one point, I stopped somewhere I hadn't planned to stop and bought something to eat. I remember looking at the menu for longer than necessary.

One of the sandwiches was from a brand called Andes.

I stared at it for a few seconds longer than anybody reasonably should.

Then I ordered something else.

No particular reason.

And continued cycling.

Then I continued.

There were moments when I actually forgot about the song completely.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Maybe longer.

Those were the good parts.

I'd notice the road, the wind, the lights, whatever was playing around me. I'd start thinking about work or something I needed to do the next day.

Then I'd realize I hadn't thought about the song.

Which, naturally, made me think about the song.

Brilliant.

I crossed another town.

Then another stretch of road.

By then, my legs had stopped negotiating with me. My calves had been complaining for a while, and I was doing my best to ignore them.

Still, I kept going.

I think part of me believed there had to be some magical distance where memory stopped having jurisdiction.

Ten kilometers.

Twenty.

Fifty.

A hundred.

Across an ocean, perhaps.

But apparently the human brain doesn't give a shit about geography.

By around 9:00 PM, the road finally ran out.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

There was nowhere useful left for me to go.

I stood there with the bike for a while, staring ahead.

Well, Fuck.

If that road had continued, I honestly think I would've continued too.

Maybe until midnight.

Maybe until Saturday.

Maybe until Sunday.

Maybe until I accidentally found my way to the Pacific.

I don't know.

Eventually, I turned around.

Bus Stops

When I finally got home, everything hurt.

My legs hurt. My back hurt. My shoulders hurt. My face hurt. My head hurt. Even parts of my body I wasn't aware participated in cycling had apparently filed complaints.

I showered, changed clothes, and eventually ended up lying flat on the floor of my room.

Not the bed.

The floor.

Don't ask.

For a while, I just stared at the ceiling.

The room was quiet.

And strangely, so was my head.

I remember thinking that maybe I'd done it. Maybe it had actually worked.

For several hours during the ride, the song had become quieter. There had even been stretches when I didn't hear it at all.

Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe the next day would be better still.

Maybe eventually it would just become one of those songs I knew by heart but didn't feel the need to play anymore.

I closed my eyes.

Then the song started playing again.

Loud.

Much louder than before.

Fuckin hell.

It felt like it was coming from everywhere.

The walls, the ceiling, the air-conditioner, underneath the door.

Every stupid little corner of the room seemed to know the melody.

I rolled over.

Still there.

I picked up my phone.

Spotify. Don't.

I put it down.

A few minutes later, I picked it up again.

Spotify. Please don't.

Eventually, I couldn't stand being in the room anymore.

So I left.

I decided I'd sleep somewhere else that night.

I packed a few things into a bag, walked outside, and got on a bus. I sat beside the window and watched the city pass by in streaks of white and yellow light.

But the song followed me.

Of course it did.

Somewhere between one bus stop and another, the song became so loud in my head that I finally stopped fighting it.

I was tired. Really fucking tired.

I just want to let go. Please.

So I just sat there and listened.

There are things you can run from, and apparently there are things you can cycle from too. But there are also things that will happily cross several towns with you, sit beside you on the bus, and follow you into whatever room you choose to sleep in that night.

Somewhere on that bus, I started wondering whether I had misunderstood what I was trying to do.

Maybe I didn't need to outrun the song.

Maybe I just needed to accept that I might never hear it again.

Four Days Later

I got sick. Of course I did.

Ten hours cycling under the sun apparently has consequences.

Who knew?

My arms were badly sunburned, my face looked ridiculous, and then came the cough and the flu. For several days, I mostly stayed inside feeling sorry for myself and reconsidering every decision I'd made since approximately birth.

But something strange happened while I was sick.

The song became quieter.

It was still there when I woke up. Mornings were usually the worst.

There would be those few seconds after opening my eyes when my brain hadn't fully woken up yet. Everything would be quiet.

Then I'd remember.

And there it was. The song.

Sometimes I'd reach for my phone, open Spotify, find that song , and play it.

At first, I'd listen to almost all of it before stopping.

Then half.

Then less.

There were still days when I'd lose the argument with myself and let the whole thing play.

Fine. Start again tomorrow.

Eventually, stopping halfway didn't feel like some enormous act of self-control anymore. I could hear the beginning and decide I didn't need the rest.

Then there was one morning when I didn't play it at all.

And one afternoon, sometime around lunch, I suddenly realized something.

The song hadn't played in my head that day either.

Not once.

I actually laughed.

Because naturally, noticing that I hadn't thought about the song immediately made me think about the song.

Brilliant.

But something had changed.

It felt farther away, like music coming from another apartment. You can still hear it if you stop everything and concentrate, but you don't have to.

For the first time, I understood that maybe forgetting had never been the point.

There are songs you forget because they weren't particularly important.

And then there are songs you remember perfectly but eventually stop needing to play.

Maybe detachment wasn't deleting something from your head.

Still Playing

I got back on the bike a few days later.

Not another ten-hour ride.

I'm stupid, but apparently capable of limited learning.

My skin was still recovering, so I waited until later in the day. The weather was better, and this time I actually had some idea where I was going.

I put my earphones on and opened Spotify.

For a second, I saw the song sitting there.

I ignored it.

Instead, I picked something else.

Something familiar.

Something safe.

Then I started cycling.

A few songs passed while I rode. Then another. Then another.

I wasn't really paying attention to what Spotify was choosing anymore. I was thinking about the road, watching people pass, wondering what I'd eat later.

Normal things.

And eventually Spotify did what Spotify does.

The song came on.

That song.

For a second, my fingers instinctively moved to skip.

Then I stopped.

I let it play.

The road stretched ahead of me. Trees on one side, glimpses of the sea through them, cyclists occasionally passing in the opposite direction.

And there it was again.

The same song I'd spent days trying not to hear. The same one I'd carried across several towns. The same one that had followed me into a coffee shop, onto a bus, into another room, and somehow across an ocean it had never actually crossed.

It sounded different.

Or maybe I did.

I thought about skipping it, but I didn't.

So I just kept cycling and let it play.

I still didn't understand every word.

But I understood more than I did before.