in a place with a bunch of strangers..

I'm sipping my oreo coffee blend in this little coffee shop near my grandma's house. This little place that always caught my glance every time I pass it on my way home. Now, I finally made it to be here, enjoying my precious evening coffee-time while working on my college assignment. This place is so homy with dull lighting and old-style decorations. Big sofas near the door and in the back corner, other are wooden chairs with round tables. I choose to sit in one of the wooden table in the middle of the room, where I can clearly see other customers in this coffee shop.

I'm in the place with a bunch of strangers. Two ladies sit across, having conversation enjoying their cigarettes more than the cups of coffee on their table. I can't hear their conversation. They just talk and talk until the cigarette box is empty. A couple sit next to my table, looks so problematic. They had a serious conversation and holding hand sometimes. The lady had a couple of cigs while the man deliver his convincing speech, try to calming down the lady in her (maybe) confusion or doubt. A group of gentlemen have their rough discussion, cigars in between their fingers, smoke on their head. Another problem, another life sharing. I can't understand what kind of problem they're having. Life's is a problem. And every living creature had their own problem, right? This is what I like to be in a new place and be a total stranger. We share the same air, the same atmosphere, but we just cannot share the same thought. Just like they cannot understand mine.

I hate this smoky air. The combination of suffocating air, my sniffling and running nose, this assignment are making me dizzy. I hate this indoor-smokeable-place. I don't hate smokers, I just had the condition I cannot breath fresh air while I'm around them. Maybe just as these people hate their life problems. But I just have no right to complain. Yet, I started to enjoy this, watching around these strangers.

I'm breathing in this suffocating smoky air, try to catch some oxygen from it. Forgetting my assignment, forgetting my smoke problem. Not all people capable to understand other, but trying to have empathy on others is all I can do. There is no way I can deny or confront with this condition, somehow we just have to enjoy problems, and maybe others' as well. And as the smoke spread over this room's air, these stranger may hope that their life problems also go away with. Me? I hope breathing the smoke they produce could make me understand life better. I'm not the only one that have problem, I'm not the only one that live and breath. And by this I hope, I can increase my empathy toward others and be wiser. I don't expect empathy from others, not all people have a good empathy, I just hope I could have one.