Number 27

I am among those who come rather late to the trend of believing in fate, destiny, or the universe for that matter. And even in my newly adopted revelation of how the uncontrollable force of life can be a game-changer, I still wouldn’t go as far as dismissing the importance of making our own choice.

There has to be a balance, a simultaneous interaction—as when Emerson (lemme be a bit fancy by citing some famous name) speaks of Fate and Power, he actually addresses the same importance of the interplay between vitality and futility.

But I’ve known about this force, power, or vitality for quite a long time. It is futility, this unaccountable force we all refer to as “fate” that I have only come across very recently.

And it all has to do with a number.

So after meeting Selvi for the first time in a poem-reading competition, I paid it no mind. I had no idea we would be in a relationship about a year after that initial meeting. I didn’t seek her out, she didn’t seek me out. Neither of us tried to initiate the next meeting.

It was all . . . rather cliche. I lived in a boarding house not too far from the complex of my campus. And at one fateful night I decided to go out for dinner. And I met her, right in front of the campus gate, she was on her way home. Strangely, I still remembered her. Perhaps because of the deep impression she had imparted me during the competition. So I called out to her, she still remembered me as well, I learned that she had just became a student in my own campus, a freshman. And the rest, from then on, as they said, is history.

But it is important to note that: if I hadn’t met her that night, I wouldn’t have learned that she was already a student in my own campus; if I had decided to go out earlier that night, or later, I wouldn’t have met her as well; or if I was too busy texting on my phone while walking down the street, which I do quite often from time to time, I wouldn’t have noticed her presence across the street. The margin of error of our meeting on that night was really big. It was far more likely that we didn’t meet at all.

It didn’t take long after that meeting before we officially became couple. During the early phase of our relationship we often visited this small coffee-shop inside this ESCO Restaurant. She really loved this coffee-shop. But since I was not that much of a coffee person, my opinion of it was only so-so at that time.

But we eventually became attached to the place, it just kinda grew on us. When I started to really take freelance-translation job seriously, I found myself working there most of the time. I loved the arrangement of the table, the dim lighting, the quiet atmosphere. I also loved the fact that the coffee-shop always updates its bookshelf, which is filled with editions of Monocle, Kinfolk, or other local magazines.

It was also in this cafe that the idea of starting a blog came to me. I just thought that, this place somehow allowed to me put my vision to practice: that working and spending quality time may as well happen in one spot. So we worked on the idea, I wrote the content while Selvi designed everything else, and that was how this blog came to being.

When Selvi had to go back to Jakarta, I still visit the coffee-shop. At this point the baristas and the owner already started teasing me on the fact that I have to commit to a long distance relationship. ~~No really, teasing would be too soft an expression, bullying me for having no companion would be more accurate.~~ Somehow their way of teasing me has helped me to cope with the fact that I miss Selvi so much. The place just become much more friendly.

One day after another long day of work, while stationing myself by the entrance of the cafe so to rest my mind, Selvi asked me via text “do you remember what day is it? We are officially 3 months being couple today.”

Now I have really been bad at remembering dates, like my mother or my father’s birthday. I always seem to forget. It’s like I always miss the point of why dates are so special to most people. But that night I somehow learned a lesson about it. As I minimized the messenger app, I looked up at the date and realized it was the twenty-seventh of that month—the date we became a couple, 27.

I raised my head and peered through the glass into the interior of the coffee-shop. Then, as if getting a nice twist and surprise for all of the moments I’ve spent there. I read what’s imprinted on the glass, for the hundredth time, though it was the first time it actually made sense. . . I gazed smiling at the name of that coffee-shop.