Absolute Ramen

The universe has a way of putting things in their right place with such nonchalance and calm, most of them go unnoticed. On a rainy, stupidly wet night in which you've worn the wrong jacket, your hands cold and wet, you make your way stubbornly and shiveringly down the road on which you've accepted to go out for dinner with your new friends. They said it's the best ramen in town. The place is called absolute ramen so clearly they have their ideas straight.

You get there 30 minutes earlier because you're stubborn, your hands are cold and you've worn the wrong jacket and you're stupidly wet. Although you're not sure if it's the wetness to be stupid or just yourself. So you'd rather look like a loner, repeating to the waiter "no no, they ARE coming" every 5 minutes instead than wait outside in your stupidly short and light jacket and your cold and wet hands. Now, is it the jacket that is stupid or still just yourself?

You look at the menu and it's all ramen in different shapes and colours and words you don't know the meaning of, and one dish of fried rice. You start feeling like that one dish of fried rice. The only dry option, no broth, wearing a light jacket when outside is one big damp cold soup of a weather. You lonely? Maybe, yes I guess that's how you feel in this very moment. Right there with your menu and the waiter staring suspiciously from across the room. They are actually coming, they're on their way just now you know that, the waiter will know that soon enough and you are not alone. But you feel a bit stupid and wet and fried like the rice. And this is when it happens. You spot it from the corner of your eye. A colourful rectangular patch with lettering on it  held by two hands and hiding an attentive set of eyes quietly focused on its content. You read the title and in a blink you are not alone any more. Yes, YES he is reading that book, no other. No, not the billions, gazillions, infinite possibilities of books of the world. No, he's reading your book. The one you love. The one your father quoted when you felt like shit, worse than the fried rice of before and it felt like he had read your heart and for the first time you understood why after all he was your father. The one book whose first page you want to pass to history as the summary of your life. Your favourite book. Ok, maybe a favourite, let's not be categorical.

Still, it's right there, just a table away from you and he's reading it, in Absolute Ramen on a rainy, stupidly wet night in which you've worn the wrong jacket. Wonder if he's read that part. You know which one right? That one, or if he's gotten to that moment when the main character meets that guy, or the story of that school! Wonder what he thought of that part. All of them: of the guy, of the school and that one part that speaks to you and OF you and that your father quoted to you once when you felt like absolute shit and you understood why it was your father, afterall.

Once I read somewhere: when you see someone reading your favourite book, that's just the book recommending you a person.

There's your person. He's reading it right now, right here in Absolute Ramen just a table away from you. All you need to do is say "hi, I love the book you're reading" and see what happens.

You put down the menu, you forget about the fried rice and all of the ramens and you lean forward.

And then the door opens and your new friends walk in smiling and waving and taking off their wisely waterproof jackets and sit next to you and start chatting.

So you leave the stranger to his reading. Your person to your favourite book. And you realise that with all the billions possibilities in the world he sat right next to you in your wrong jacket on this stupidly wet night and started reading the one book that once gave back sense to the world when you were feeling your worst. And the world gained sense again tonight in Absolute Ramen and after all it's not that rainy, it's not that cold, your jacket is not that short nor stupid, nor are you neither stupid or alone. That book exists and people read it and maybe feel even just a tenth of how well you felt when you read it. The universe made sure that you knew that. That you knew these possibilities exist and happen. Even at Absolute Ramen on a stupidly wet night when you feel like a single dish of fried rice among colourful ramens.

After all, you chuckle in your mind, what if he said he thought it was absolute shite?