It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m too slow. I had thought of going to some café, eat a light lunch, while I could people watch and change the scenery without too much effort.

Surprisingly I wasn’t the only one with that brilliant idea.

I’d been too slow.

First I’d gone to the café/restaurant that is beautifully situated in the big park behind the castle (which now is filled with that simple flower, Yellow star of Bethlehem, and budding willows). I’ve wanted to visit it for a while, because it’s in the same building as a local art museum. When I braved the doors, though, I realized I should have been there at least a couple of hours earlier. As soon as I looked inside, several of the patrons looked up, frowned at me, then looked back at their companions. It was cramped and the bustling waitresses looked like I had already managed to get in the way. Softly and almost humbly I closed the door after me. No, I didn’t manage to go there today either. Maybe next week. Or the week after. Or never.

Now I was hungry. There’s a café just across the street from there. I’ve been there once before, when I was the only patron, the only one to hold the attention of an over-zealous and over-social waiter. I had been completely exhausted afterwards. I almost hoped he wouldn’t be there. As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered because he would have been busy. As soon as I opened the door, a wall of sound greeted me and the people who was the source of the murmur were everywhere. I looked hesitantly at the waitress behind the counter.

“It looks like you’re full…”
- No, we still have a couple of tables left, it depends on how many people you’re going to be. “It’s just me.” Duh. - Well, in that case…

I got a table just infront of the door. I thought I was lucky until about the fifth time someone opened and closed the door and the cold draft hit me again. Meanwhile, I was eating a ridiculously expensive little excuse for a sandwich and an even more expensive, but apparently very healthy and very green (not a metaphor this time) smoothie, while I was trying to curb my own fight or flight instinct. But after a while I acclimatized. I got used to sitting alone by that table for four, and soon even the elderly couple next to me stopped looking worriedly in my direction. I brought out my note book, and felt how I melted into the surroundings, how I disappeared from view of the other patrons, how the murmur of their private lives and matters just blanked me out.

I love to people watch. I like hearing voices in the background. I like watching people deep in conversation with others. I like how they use their hands, their body language to express their point, maybe unknowingly, facial expressions far from what they see in the bathroom mirror. Far from the face they maybe think that they show the world. I like how in this way, there’s an aspect of themselves that they don’t know much about. The middle aged women by the window don’t look like they mind. One of them talks with her hands a lot, in big movements. The face of her friend breaks out in a smile, she leans her head on her hand. I wonder what they talk about. Must be something funny. To my left, there are four or five women in their late thirties. They are quite loud, and they laugh a lot. I think they had some white wine to their salads. They sound like a group of old girlfriends. Like they have met up like this ever since they finished school. I can imagine that they sound the same like they have done forever, only the subjects have changed some. But in this constellation they don’t really age. Wrinkles and worries and work matters little here.

I look up from my notebook. The café isn’t as crowded anymore. People are finishing up their meals and start to leave in a steady trickle. I’ve drawn a simple sketch of a middle-aged woman who’s waving her hands about as she is talking about something. It’s not good, but it’s a little amusing, and you can sort of see that it’s her. I almost jump as the real middle-aged woman walks over to get a cup of coffee after her lunch. As I discretely cover the drawing with my hand, I catch my own reflection in the glass counter, a faded figure in a black turtle neck. I better leave before the magic disappears and I become completely visible again.