I’m starting a new series on my blog featuring exercises from this Coursera Specialization I started a year ago and haven’t finished yet from Wesleyan University. Maybe this will get me to go back and complete that Specialization. We’ll have to see about that.
We were supposed to construct a character sketch based on the things a person interacts with in their daily lives. Here’s my attempt.
We were closing in a couple of minutes. There was an unattended laptop across by the window. What else could be expected in a coffee shop, a bunch of freeloaders sipping free wifi and the coffee they paid for would leave things every now and then. We were pouring the last orders. Still the laptop owner hadn’t returned for his abandoned laptop. The clock spun out the minutes to eight. The shop emptied out, and I went around the tables, sliding trash off the tables and into the trash can in my hand.
That computer. Two chilled coffee drinks with the straws bit down. I made my way around the room to it, stopping everywhere else on the way. The screen was on a blank page with that blinking line, waiting for something to be typed.
I put down the trashcan to study the book by the compute, Story Genius. Standing there, I could imagine him, sitting in the corner of a busy coffee shop.
I found his phone on the table and unlocked it. There was a picture of him, a thick head of hair and sharp square plastic frames for his glass. There was a woman. They were holding hands and so happy.
I called the first two numbers in the address book. Cold calling in the middle of the night? I was curious. Not desperate to return the laptop or anything like that. After a few rings each, I got an opportunity to leave messages. For all I knew, I was calling the phone in my hand.
The laptop bag occupied the opposite end of the table with the chair pushed in. I traced the power cord coming from the laptop under the table to plug-in on the opposite side. Picking up the dated computer with the weight to match, I put it behind the counter with everything else he’d left.
The things we carried said a lot. My life was the pieces I left behind.
GK
Girish Karthikeyan 