February 2024
Safiyy entered the café and found her instantly. Walking up to the counter, he noticed Mildi’s twirling hair and the owl-like eyes he had imbibed so many times before. He could swear there was a strange maturity in her manner even when all she did was move around in her seat while staring into her laptop screen. Moments later, her eyes would witness the grand spectacle of a bucket of fried chicken and a plate of Chicken Adobo swoop into view and materialize next to her laptop before finding Safiyy sitting face to face with a strange searching look in his eyes.
Her eyes at first only grasped the strangeness of her favorite meals materializing before her; it took Mildi a few seconds before her eyes slid up, slowly taking in the contours of the man sitting before her. The sight unnerved her. Her jaw fell loose as she tried to understand the rush of strange relief coarsing through her body. She tried producing words of deserved reproach and indignation, but her mouth refused to obey. Her eyes promptly allied with her mouth, watering up at the sight of this stranger, a stranger whose behavior didn’t match that of a stranger at all. Her eyelids began flapping fast, attempting to vaporize her inconvenient tears out of existence; she couldn’t let this rude stranger witness these strange tears.
“Why are you sitting there?”
“I am here to meet a loved one of mine.”
“So sit next to any of these empty tables around us. This is incredibly rude.”
“She’s already here, and my heart is leaping out of my chest, Would I be terribly inconveniencing you if I asked you for help?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s here. She doesn’t recognize me yet.”
“Ahh… what about all this chicken then? Do you have such an appetite?”
Safiyy smiled. “This is for you.”
“I don’t like chicken. Take it away or you eat it.”
“Liar!” Safiyy whispered with a chuckle. “Chicken is your world. Your first heartbreak.”
Mildi’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“I mean the woman I am here to meet loves chicken. She’s a chicken fanatic. She’s so stubborn that she ate her way out of a chicken allergy.”
“How could she not recognize you when you know so much about her?”
“Indeed. How could she not? I’ve asked myself that question endless times.”
With her interest piqued, Mildi asked, “You really like her, right?”
“I am at a perpetual disadvantage because I’m crazy about her.”
“Then how would she feel about you sitting next to me like this?”
“Well, if she recognized me, she’d be delighted. Tears would well up in her eye and she would find it hard to speak for a few seconds.”
“Have we met before?”
“I’ve met her countless times. She loves her coffee and pairs it up with great talks–that’s why we’re in a cafe right now. She loves fried chicken–that’s why there’s a bucket of chicken before you. She is stubborn, stubborn for something beautiful.”
“Why would you like someone who doesn’t even recognize you?”
“Because she envies the weeds when there are roses in the garden, and because she is foolish enough to think that I love her because roses are to be loved,” Safiyy said. “Most importantly, I love her because she wants to exist not because she is beautiful but because she is stubborn. Happy birthday, Mildi. Enjoy the chicken.”
Mildi sat stunned for a moment before Safiyy promptly got out of his seat, shot her a look of affectionate longing, held her paralyzed hand for a second, and walked out of the cafe.
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