Cities that Never Sleep

vii

Finn didn't really know how it happened, but late nights in a closed coffee shop sitting across the table from an acquaintance of a girl became a reoccurring thing. It was rather an unspoken agreement, that it was okay for Katherine to stay late after the cafe closed to work on whatever she was working on, and that Finn could accompany her.

The first few nights were filled with awkward silence. Tonight started off as one of those, where Katherine looked too consumed in her laptop, and Finn would either be doodling or getting a considerable amount of his homework done. Then, however, between the sound of the clock that ticked above the coffee shop's counter, and the typing of Katherine's fingers on the keyboard, she decided to break the all-consuming silence.

"You are by far the greatest procrastinator I've met." she said, amusement in her eyes, although they never moved from her laptop screen.

Finn stopped in the middle of a sketch that looked like the moon.

"It's a pretty serious problem I have. On the contrary, though, you're probably the biggest workaholic I've ever met." Finn countered. "You've been practically beating that computer for two hours."

"Well, these essays aren't going to write themselves."

"What's the subject?" Finn casually asked, now completely abandoning his half completed thesis for Contemporary Literature and twirling his pencil in his hand.

"It's a write-up for biochemistry." Katherine sounded worn out, and the way she said biochemistry did not convince Finn at all.

She mentioned to him that she was doing her pre-medical studies at the college they both attended that was a couple blocks down, and that she was planning to continue into medical school hopefully next year.

"Is that what you really want to do? Become a doctor?" Finn questioned.

Katherine stopped typing, finally looking up from her laptop.

"I guess. I mean, I don't really think about it all that much, always busy lost in the studies of it." she shrugged. "What about you? What do you want to do?"

Finn waited to reply. He could just tell her he was an art major. But the truth was, he didn't know what he wanted to do, in the context of what Katherine was asking.

Instead, Finn merely shrugged as she did, except without an answer. He felt that it was silly to tell her that what he really wanted to do was get out of the city. See the world. Discover. Explore.

And as they sat there, in each other's quiet presence, Katherine returned to her essay. But Finn could not focus on his homework anymore. He didn't even push it off to doodle in the margins of his notebook.

Instead, Finn sat, watching Katherine's fingers gracefully and rapidly glide across the keyboard, wondering what he really wanted. Then he wondered what she really wanted.