The thought echoed in his mind, timed to the rhythm of a song he had heard a thousand times on his father’s old vinyl records: Ce bine că ești. It is so good that you exist.
A woman walked in, shaking a translucent umbrella. She didn't do anything extraordinary. She simply took off her coat, brushed a stray lock of wet hair from her forehead, and ordered a tea. But as she sat three tables away and opened a sketchbook, the entire geometry of the room seemed to shift.
Mihai sat by the window, watching the rain blur the world outside into a watercolor painting. He wasn't waiting for anyone—or at least, that’s what he told himself. He had spent most of his life feeling like a draft of a poem that hadn't quite found its rhythm. He moved through the city like a ghost, unnoticed and unnoticing. Then, the door creaked open. Nicu Alifantis- Ce bine ca eЕџti!
Mihai found himself staring, not with lust or even curiosity, but with a sudden, sharp clarity. It was as if he had been looking at a black-and-white map his whole life and someone had just pointed to the actual ocean.
He realized then that the world wasn't a cold, mechanical place. It was a place where this person lived. Her existence was a victory over the void. Even if they never spoke, even if she left in ten minutes and he never saw her again, the universe was objectively better because her heart was beating in that moment. The thought echoed in his mind, timed to
The café was small, tucked away in a corner of Bucharest where the streetlights hummed with a tired, yellow glow. Inside, the air smelled of roasted beans and old paperback books.
He didn't know her name. He didn't know if she liked the rain or if she was kind. But watching her hand move across the paper, seeing the way her breath caught slightly when she sharpened a pencil, he felt a profound sense of relief. She didn't do anything extraordinary
She looked up then, her eyes meeting his for a fleeting second. She didn't smile, but she nodded—a small, human acknowledgment of a shared space.