“One braised pork pho and one Vietnamese coffee, please.”
It’s Tuesday and I had a counseling appointment. I chose the seat nearest the exit to feel the haunting closeness of a corner; I wanted to sense my back not quite reaching the boundary two walls would meet. The minute crevices and gaps that both provide and claw at your sense of space. I needed that feeling of a corner, as well as the breadth of empty tables to remind me that my lungs could carry the breath of an entire room. My back felt secure and my view felt expansive, even if I was in one of three restaurants on the market’s upper floor.
It wasn’t unusual to sit with myself and the quiet I hungered to linger around me, but after ordering my meal I felt a docile heartbeat in my chest. My counseling appointment was little to no different in camaraderie, but skimming through the layers of scum that built up in my core was a more challenging task after such a difficult week; from holding back tears in a taxi to letting the gentle steam from warm pho bowls stroke the goosebumps away, it was a notable before and after.
The Vietnamese coffee was a strong drip coffee that sits on top of a bed of condensed milk once completely filtered. The contrast between the two ingredients reminds me of a well-poured pint of Guinness, simply reversed.
Caressing the edges of the conical coffee glasses was meditative, like I was continuously circling back to how unsafe I felt walking to work on Monday morning – a day when everyone was expecting riots to happen in the city centre. I worked my morning shift, walked home, and remained horizontal in my bed for most of the day, waiting for the world to exhale at once before the clock changed from 23:59 to 00:00. I didn’t bother checking the news about the riots until the following day.
Soaking in the warm spiced soup, the braised pork had a pleasant chew, like softened elastic. The unctuous broth mass replaced the air pockets between every piece of meat, vegetable and carbohydrate. It added to the all-consuming feeling I felt when a serving of noodles slithered in parallel to my spine, or the way I wrapped the bowl with my hands to elude the hug I desperately needed, but would rather initiate with a piece of steaming crockery than a stranger.
I work Sundays. On the Sunday before my appointment, I heard the lowered voices between my co-workers, attempting to avoid customers from hearing about the rioters planning to group up on Monday in the same area of our building’s location – the same Monday I was scheduled to work.
It was eerie to catch half-spoken sentences from co-workers' voices that charmed their way into making me more social, the way they discussed the news like gossip. Like the weather forecast with hints of concern for what coat to choose, rather than if anyone working the following day felt safe to show up. If I felt safe to show up. I didn’t.
After our shift, my only other BIPOC co-worker and I were light-heartedly discussing the way terrorists are and are not labeled depending on their skin tone; this was the banter between us as two young women digesting racism discourse after a long day of work.
Meanwhile, if any of our white co-workers were concerned for our well-being in any capacity, I was not made aware of it. I waited for the bus with my co-worker and allowed my imagination to stew in the worst possible outcomes and scenarios for the following day on the walk home – letting them linger and entangle like noodles in half-consumed pho.
The Vietnamese coffee tasted like a low-octave piano or jazz cello. Any bitter tones of rich steeped caffeine hummed in the back of my tongue, and sweeter notes sprang off the rim of the glass like the way cigarette smoke curled against dim lighting.
Stirring the dairy into the coffee left like plucking strings or scooping the weight of a panna cotta onto a spoon, like it was sinful to disturb something seemingly immobile. It lacked grace or finesse from my hesitation but once the brown and cream colors were slowly homogenizing, it was as mesmerizing as a cello being spun at an axis by their skilled companion.
Although I do miss the beauty and stature of the layer of milk, it was a fragile boundary between dairy and coffee that was both enticing and risky to disrupt. It enriched the coffee with a depth similar to adding salt to caramel or cherries to dark chocolate. It was an almost-solid form on the surface that was grounded by glass, similar to how I needed grounding from the weight of the blanket above me when I poured the tension in my body onto my bed after the Monday shift at work. The drip coffee that haunted above the milk was the same darkness I needed to fill my space when I turned the lights off in the middle of the day. I wanted my room to carry the entire breath of my lungs for me.
Lying in my bed in the dark at noon was not the first time I thought desperately about the counseling appointments I anticipated. It was also not the first time I looked forward to having a soul-fulfilling meal after plucking vulnerability out of my head like someone learning to use chopsticks for noodles in broth. In my bed, I thought about the meal I would buy after my appointment, something I could pretend to hug – like a bowl of pho and a mug of coffee.
I think about the oxygen I carried in the room whilst I had my meal, the distance between myself and the row of windows. I imagine it could have been a breath-taking view. The group of men sitting at the window had their own plates and glasses of drip coffee, and I sincerely wish they enjoyed it as much as I have.
Heavy in my pocket are the delayed texts laced with the tender ‘take your time, no rush’ sentimentalities that at one point would have made me feel more guilty than reassured. I think about the fraction of fear I simmered in for over 24 hours in the greater topic of threatening South Asians and Muslims in their own home. So much weight – and as I imagine the view through the window and the next time I’d have the same meal, I imagine the rooms that carry my breath becoming briefly lighter, safer. I wish we all had full bellies and safe homes for more than 24 hours... Always.
I wish our safety never had closing hours.
Editors: Alisha B., Blenda Y.
Image source: Unsplash, Jennifer Latuperisa-Andresen