It is the year 2044 and Christmas is just around the corner. She sits in front of her writing desk facing the nearly-frozen ponds surrendering to the reality that it is about time for her to get lost again. For nearly thirty years now, disappearing in the last weeks of the year has become a habit, although it started as an escape.
She turns to her laptop and logs into the airline website. She selects her desired travel dates and allows the algorithms to point her to her next destination. It works like magic nowadays. She has previously set it so it automatically filters only for places she has never been to and places she has nearly-zero chance of encountering any known acquaintances of hers. In less than a minute, her results show up. She closes her eyes and points her right index finger to a spot on the screen. She opens her eyes and books a trip to the destination her finger is pointing at.
She finds herself in a sleepy town, an hour’s drive from Copenhagen. It is cold in Denmark, this time of year and that lowers the possibility, even more, of meeting other Filipinos whom she might know. She prefers to be a complete stranger in these trips and not a care for how she dresses or how she looks when she ventures out of her hotel room.
In the mornings, she walks about a mile to a tiny cafe overlooking the Kronborg Castle. This place must be teeming with tourists in warmer seasons, but not today. She loves cafes in the Nordics with hygge all over them. With her big cup of oat milk latte with triple shots of espresso warming her hands, she slowly finds an open spot at the very far corner with its tiny table and a window view. Carefully sipping her coffee, she eagerly thinks of what to do next while sitting here. “I am going to write something,” she tells herself. Perhaps, it is a haiku today. No, perhaps a vignette. She looks around and agrees. This place looks like a perfect setting for writing a vignette.
She pulls out her decades-old leather notebook that was handmade from Vienna a long time ago and smells its nostalgic scent mixed with the aroma of fresh brews wafting throughout the cafe. Yes. This is the perfect place and the perfect day for a vignette or two.
Writing, they say, requires patience. So she patiently waits for the right nudge of inspiration to hit her.
Then, she hears a familiar voice.
She will never forget that voice although she has not heard it since 2023. She tries to act nonchalantly, but carefully looks towards the direction where the voice is coming from. She can only see the person from behind but the stature and the manner of movement confirm the possibility that she might know this person.
She is hurriedly finishing her drink to leave the place when the voice speaks once more. This time, it is not just for their order but to have a friendly chatter with the barista up front. Yes, she is eavesdropping. Who cares. She will eavesdrop if it means to save the privacy of this escape. She cannot afford to bump into someone she knows when she still has a month left in this city.
The more her curiosity heightens when the very familiar voice was speaking in both English and Danish, with a distinct Danish accent. “How can that be? That cannot be!,” she tells herself in private. The chatter continues, about the weather, the new grocer at the corner, and about wishing that tourists do not come this way this year. Still, no matter how much she tries to peek from where she sat, she could not see the face of the owner of this weirdly familiar voice.
“Here you go!,” the barista says. Then hands the person their drink. They bid each other goodbye and the girl behind the register dreamily says, “I hope you come here more often this season, Pascal!”
Upon hearing his name, she freezes.
The man called Pascal turns around and smiles at the girl, clearly visible now from where she sits and she can feel her heart pounding so loudly it might escape from her chest.
Several hours pass before she manages to breathe normally again, although her brain would not stop trying to find a rational explanation to what just happened. As a scientist, she does not believe in these things. She never has and never will. Still, it needs to be written because it is fresh in her memories and she is at this perfect place, on a perfect day, and a perfect pen and paper to write something. This one, though, she will tag as fiction. No one has to know it is not fictitious. No one has to know.
And so, she starts writing.
”Many years ago, I lost a child from a miscarriage. I named him Pascal…”
Lesson 2.6 (Living: Building a World) of the Winter Writing Sanctuary 2023-2024 with Beth Kempton
so well written
Wow! Simply amazing 🧡✨