A PREMISE TO SOMETHING
I'VE BEEN WRITING.
Spotlight. Blooming emerald leaves and the buzzing of taxis amidst a busy New York, a chaotic Manhattan or a quiet London. That's how most romantic films start – how the camerawork pans to focus on a face either frowning, gazing around them or running. The protagonist.
We as an audience learn that character; we learn their flaws, their redeemable qualities and what sets them as who they are. Whether that's appearance, intelligence or even stupidity, it becomes clear to us from the moment they speak. Some are believers, hopeless dreamers. Some are just office workers tediously pondering in their seat, waiting for their shift to end.
Yet this character seeks a happy ending most of the time. Throughout the span of the film, they discover someone, their heart brims with joy and exuberance, a montage of heartache slips in three quarters in, all to be resolved at the end anyway.
Either way, this character and their significant other discover love and contentment with their way of living at the endpoint of this collection of montages. Films like to appeal to us with a manuscript of delight, of hope for young adults, of nostalgia for married couples, and of curiosity of this certain topic that's always in the films mama watches for toddlers.
I, too, have loved romanticism all of my life. Countless of classics reside on the shelf beneath the television in my living room, gathered up to hold a dust of memories collected over the years, a dust so prettily magnified on these CD cases that it doesn't dissolve no matter how much you try to scrub at it.
Boys on television are always written as dreamy and ethereal as possible for teenage girls to ponder about, to imagine their future partner behave in an identical sort of way. It makes sense, of course, to imagine so because these tropes are pushed into our eyes for most of our life. It's a prolonged cliché never to end – books do it, films do it, even we do it as real humans.
During my adolescence, I wandered around the school corridors, longingly gazing at figures matching to my ideal type. My heart was blooming with an enthusiasm unfamiliar to me – something all those films rendered as attraction – and I was appealed to harvest those emotions for someone without them knowing. It was an emotional experiment to have a crush, to stare at someone wishing they were yours, to desire someone to be your friend, or perhaps even more.
That's how I met Apollo Wright.
Our encounter was peculiar to me; it was perhaps two or three months after my seventeenth, and London was surrounded with hundreds of silhouettes entering and leaving high street stores, hands full of bags of pink and grey hues. May was a month of warmth in England, cherry blossoms barely evident at the top of emerald trees, a transition into the temperate June, also the summertime. An aroma of cherry lingered in the air, all the way from the café down the street, and it fragranced the air faintly.
I remember being enchanted by the scent, following it until it lead me to that same café I had been visiting for years – was it seven already? It looked similar to my previous visits, but the interior had been modified to a slightly more modern décor from three years ago. New staff strolled around taking orders, however my eyes flickered from left to right to find a familiar face.
"Looking for someone?" The cashier asked when I approached the till, and I stared at him with confusion. First thing to notice about someone is their appearance, anything ranging from their features, to their outfit, to the nametag on their employee shirt. Which is exactly what I first discovered about Apollo.
His name was written in cursive handwriting, letters prettily tied in a string of noir ink and emphasised. An art student, most likely, I had thought.
"Yes," I replied softly, my eyes meeting his almost immediately. Apollo's gaze was gentle, delicate pools of honey meeting my own and appearing as if he wanted to help. Amidst the busy café, we were silent, and a flitting thought as to whether I was interrupting a queue popped into my head. Appalled, I looked behind me only to find no one.
Apollo laughed. "I would have told you if there was someone behind you. It's my responsibility as an employee here."
Meeting people was not so easy to me in the past. I was shy, timid and flushed roseate whenever someone introduced themselves, and that's what happened with Apollo. When he stared at me and responded with his name, my cheeks coloured – a sign of my intimidated nature.
"You're quite shy, aren't you?" He also questioned, and I nodded with an embarrassed grin. The question as to where Paula was lingered on my tongue but never escaped my lips. The middle-aged woman was not patrolling the café as I reminisced her doing, so she must have been absent.
Our conversation was brief, flitting even. He asked me what I wanted to order, and I simply replied an iced mocha, my usual order. I didn't visit London as much as I used to when my father lived here; now that he and my mother had reconciled once more, there was no point in me coming here every month.
My regular table by the window was vacant, so I sat myself down with a small beam on my face. The sunlight was evident here, yet not so obnoxious that it hurt your vision every few moments. The seat was warm, cushion gone, so it was recently abandoned. In my moments of silence, my irises gazed over the city surrounding me, it being as wonderful as it was in my memoirs.
Being a capital, London had an appeal about it. Star dust seemed to yearn on people's shoulders, dusting over their clothes and giving them an ounce of confidence in their step. Movies were like that too, filmed in a location of high class and every street occupied by parked cars, tall buildings and people rushing to their work.
Being in London meant I was discovering new places, new people. Apollo was approaching my table with an exuberant grin and honeyed cheeks, carrying a cup of coffee which was altered from my order. Normally, I would have complained, but his sentence prevented me from doing so.
"You seemed a bit ill, so I thought ice wouldn't do you too well."
And in the midst of London, in a café that once belonged to a woman I adored, a boy was nudging his way into my heart, a star finding its galaxy amidst the busy Andromeda.
