Patience

“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

On no account brood over your wrongdoing.

Easy for you to say, Mr. Huxley. It’s a lot easier to forget about your mistakes when you can hardly see them.

Ah, that was low of me… I’m sorry. I don’t know exactly who is listening, but I’m sure someone is… at least, that’s what mum and dad always said.

It’s been a long night. Actually, it’s been a long couple of months. Between moving and working and “chasing my dreams” and… other things… it feels like I haven’t paused to relax or sleep or breathe in weeks. It’s hard to give yourself a break when Regret and Uncertainty(™) are always waiting for you to stop and think just a little too much.

I opened my shop for the first time a week ago. It’s a bit of an experiment. I’ve always loved literature and I have a fondness for reptiles… so I decided to combine the two. For a year and a half now, I’d had this vivid picture in my head of exactly what I wanted it to look like. It’s not quite finished yet, but it has its bones all in place… the front room, with floor to ceiling bookshelves, laden with leather bound tomes, vintage and new, one-of-a-kind and mass produced, and populated with comfy reading chairs; the back room, with similar shelves and a coffee bar staffed with a barista and lots of little tables for reading, drinking, and socializing with the reptiles kept in the tanks in the cubbies around the walls; and the tunnel of books that bridged the gap between them.

I only have two reptiles right now. They aren’t cheap to acquire or house, so I started with a sweet little bearded dragon and a stunning ball python with pearly white scales. They’ve gotten a lot of attention the last few days. I didn’t expect to be so busy so quickly, but I guess my idea was a real success, which is good. I’m a little afraid of the thoughts and feelings I’ll have to deal with when things eventually slow down…

...which seemed to be the case today.

I’d had four customers since I opened, and everything had been quiet for about an hour and a half. It was just the humming of the heat lamps over the reptile enclosures, the smell of coffee brewing in the machines, and me. Thinking. Worrying.

I could hear the friendly tink-tink-tink of the windchimes greeting one another outside.

I tried to take my mind off of it by reading. I was bonding with the ball python - who I’d named Emily - and indulging in Brave New World, the serpent coiled around my neck and shoulders, comfortably resting and basking in my warmth. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really… helping.

Don’t get me wrong, Emily made excellent company, and I’d always adored Brave New World, but… well, it just wasn’t enough.

Luckily, I didn’t have to distract myself for long.

The bell, hung over the front door, chimed to alert me to a customer’s entrance. I closed my book and rose to my feet, careful to ensure that Emily stayed comfortably and securely around my shoulders. I wasn’t quite ready to return her to her enclosure; her companionship was comforting. Safe.

“Hello, welcome to Wise Thieves’ Vintage Books and Imbibements,” I plastered on my bright, customer service voice and smile as I stepped through the tunnel to greet the newcomer. Standing by the shelves and running a finger over the spines of the books was a teen girl, wearing a very cozy-looking sweater in a teal that complimented her unusually aquamarine irises. A pair of high-quality lab goggles sat on her peachy ginger hair, which was cut short around her head. An interesting statement piece.

She turned to me, wearing a gap-toothed grin, her eyes positively shimmering with wonder and curiosity, “Hi! This place is new, right?”

I tried to mirror her energy and optimism, but before I could make it through my response of “Yea, just opened this week!” I was interrupted by her letting out an excited gasp, and she bounced - legitimately bounced - over to me, her gaze fixed firmly on Emily’s little face peeking out over my shoulder.

“What a beautiful animal!” She exclaimed, “Little boy, or little girl?”

I suppose I could relate to this. This is always how I felt when I met a new reptile.

“Girl,” I answered, shifting my shoulders to coax the snake to slip further up and towards the young woman, “Her name is Emily, like Emily B-”

“Bronte!” The young girl finished for me, “Emily Bronte… a lovely name for a lovely little lady.”

I hadn’t expected her to guess that… certainly not so quickly. I was impressed, actually. Maybe she wasn’t quite as airheaded as she seemed to be.

“May I touch her…?” She asked, tentatively.

“Oh- yea, yes, absolutely, here,” I rushed to overcome my surprise, reaching around to allow Emily to coil around my hand so I could hold her out to the girl. She extended her hand in front of the serpent’s face to allow the snake to decide if she trusted her or not, and Emily puffed with intrigue before slithering into the stranger’s palm and around her wrist.

Oddly, in this moment, I should have been shocked that the python had made this decision - she had never shown this kind of trust to a stranger before - but I found myself unable to be concerned about that. In fact, I felt completely calm and comfortable for the first time in… longer than I can recall. As Emily drew her long, slender body into the odd woman’s safe grasp, I felt the strange sensation fade and the anxiety and restlessness return, and only then was I able to consider the confusing nature of Emily’s choice.

“Hey there, lovely…” The woman cooed, cradling Emily against her chest and stroking the top of her head, before introducing herself, flicking her gaze up to meet mine every once in a while, “My name’s Eden. My friend Collin came by here a few days ago, she - well, actually he, today - heard that you had opened a reptile cafe. He has a little chameleon at home, just got him a month or so ago, thought maybe you’d have pointers for his care. Did you talk to him?”

“Collin… uh, mint-green hair?” I asked, trying to remember, with all the customers I’d had in the past week.

“That’s him!” Eden replies, triumphantly, “He said he liked this place, but that I’d like it more, so I thought I’d stop by. It really is a wonderful little shop… did you design everything yourself?”

“I sure did,” I replied, unable to hide the pride in my expression.

I glanced over my shoulder at the tunnel, and then back at Eden, “Here, why don’t you take Emily and come back for a coffee? I’ll give you the first one on the house, since you’ve made her so happy.”

Emily was tangling herself around Eden’s arm, almost possessively. She really liked the young woman…

“Oh, that sounds great,” Eden agrees, heading through the archway into the back room, “but I shouldn’t have that much caffeine… do you have tea?”

“I do, actually. Not many different kinds right now, though… how does chamomile sound?”

“Perfect, thank you so much… are you sure you don’t want me to pay? I can imagine it must not be easy getting a new business off the ground, I’d hate to deprive you of a profit,” She responds, selecting a table near the window and sinking into the seat, slow to keep Emily steady.

“I’m sure,” I reply, without fully thinking it through. It was weird; I knew I shouldn’t be offering these types of charities to customers so early on, and I’d only known this girl for about fifteen minutes, but after that strange experience, that unexpected calm, it felt more like I’d known her for years, maybe even my whole life. It felt like I was having tea with a friend, not a stranger, and you don’t charge your friends for tea.

“Well, in that case, thank you, that’s so kind. I owe you, though… I’m sure this won’t be the last time I come by for a visit, I’ll bring you a snack or something special the next time I come around,” she chuckles warmly, while I set about with the kettle, back behind the coffee bar.

“You don’t have to do that!”

“And you don’t have to make me any tea, either. You want to show me a little kindness, can’t I do the same for you?”

I feel myself smiling, like actually smiling, not just pretending to be friendly and open for the sake of my customers.

“Well, if you’d like to do that,” I reply, gently, “I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you, Miss Eden. Oh… my name is Lincoln, by the way - Lincoln Al-Ahdal. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Al-Ahdal,” she echoes, turning her eyes down to watch Emily, flicking her tongue in and out to taste the air, “What a pretty family name…”

I paused, glancing in her direction, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, she saved me the trouble and continued speaking, her voice quiet so she wouldn’t upset the snake friend.

“I love your accent, by the way. Did you move here recently?”

“Oh,” I liked the change of subject, “About six months ago. I grew up near London. Immigration has been stressful, but I like it here. Or, well, I like the weather, and I like that I finally got to open my shop, and I like that I don’t have to-”

I halted.

Why had I started to say that…? What had inspired me to bring that up?

“Don’t have to what?” Eden asks, innocently, revealing that my fumble wasn’t going to go unnoticed.

I chewed my lower lip.

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure what to tell her. What was I supposed to say? That I was relieved that I no longer had to see my family’s faces every day? That I don’t have to live up to their expectations anymore? That I didn’t have to keep pretending to be someone I wasn’t to meet their demands?

That even if I wanted to do any of those things, I no longer could…?

Eden took heed of my extended silence, and she raised her eyes to mine, evidently mildly concerned.

“Hey… it’s okay if you don’t want to finish that sentence,” She says, tenderly, “I got some sentences I don’t wanna finish either.”

Somehow, that reassurance instilled an excellent sense of security in my heart.

“Ah… thanks,” I reply, feeling my professional facade melt away. It was almost impossible to pretend to build a wall when this girl was so talented at tearing them down. She had a truly disarming personality.

“The tea’s ready, might want to let it steep a bit,” I say, trying to change the subject once more, and I carried the two cups of chamomile over to Eden’s table, joining her in the little wrought iron cafe chairs I’d picked out. They were aesthetically pleasing, but not particularly comfortable. I might replace them. Eden didn’t seem to mind, though. I noticed that she had this way of appearing perfectly at-home, no matter where she stood or sat.

She smiled, gratefully, and pulled the teacup closer to her, “This smells great, thank you… you don’t seem particularly busy today, Collin said it was swamped when he came by.”

“I guess everyone’s got better things to do today,” I posited with a shrug.

“I doubt it. I think it’s just empty right now so you and I get to talk.”

I adjusted my glasses, knitting my eyebrows together, “What, you mean like… fate or something?”

“Or something. Divine intervention, maybe,” She chuckled, and despite the heavy nature of her words, her tone and her visage were light and airy, like the breeze that tickled the windchimes out front.

I wasn’t fully convinced, but I had a feeling she was mostly joking, anyway, so I replied, “Maybe. Well, whatever it is, I’m grateful to have made a new friend today.”

Eden beamed at me, “Me too! Here’s to the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” She raised her teacup, and I tapped mine against hers, unable to hide a bemused smile at her refreshing innocence, watching her go in for a sip and then let out a gasp and withdraw, flushing.

“You alright?” I laughed - and then immediately felt bad about laughing.

“Yeth,” she mumbled, optimistically, despite the fact that she had definitely just burned her tongue, “Ith hot.”

“I gathered that,” I set my own cup on the table and rise to get her some ice water, “I’ll get you something to help. I should have warned you, I apologize…”

“No, no-” She corrects me, once her tongue had cooled enough for her to speak clearly again, “I should be smarter than that… it tastes really good, though. Even though all I can taste right now is pain…”

“You’re fantastic company, Miss Eden,” I comment, offering her a concerned smile, wondering if she got herself into situations like this often, “Please be a little bit more careful, I enjoy talking to you and I wouldn’t want to lose that so soon after meeting you because my tea claimed your ability to speak.”

Face screwed up with determination, she sat up straight and saluted me, disturbing the dozing Emily, who shifted to coil around Eden’s neck, “Aye aye, captain!”

I finished off my own cup and then stood to get back to work, tidying up around the back room, and I left Eden alone with the python and her tea for a few minutes. When I came back, I noticed she was looking at the whiteboard by the menu on the wall, on which I had written, What’s on your mind today? I’d gotten a few interesting responses, my favorite so far being one young gentleman’s fascination with the Kids Bop version of Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee). He said the song was performed by an adult man with a chorus of children singing behind him, and during the lyric, blue are the feelings that live inside me, it sounds and feels truly personal - like you can hear the performer’s soul dying as he questions where his life went after graduating college with an expensive music degree.

“So?” I asked Eden, tossing the washcloth I’d been using to dust shelves over my shoulder, and she turned towards me, attentively, “What are you thinking about today?”

Taking a beat and glancing curiously back at the board again, she replied, “Regrets.”

Struck, I found that I was unable to press for clarification. What were the odds…?

She continued without prompting.

“And lost time, I guess.”

Finding my voice again, I asked, “What do you mean?”

Her face scrunched up, thoughtfully, and she explained, “Well, I just entered my senior year of high school, so I’ve been thinking about growing up and stuff... I’ve spent most of my life trying all these random things, trying to figure out what I was good at, and the answer was - spoiler alert - absolutely none of them. And I don’t just mean that… I picked up a new skill and quit right at the beginning. I mean that I was dangerously bad at things. I’ve had broken bones, bruises, burns - you might be surprised at how often I manage to catch myself on fire.”

She took a break to let out a laugh at that last one, while I wondered how someone could ‘catch themselves on fire’ more than once or twice in their life.

“Anyway, I had kinda just resigned myself to a life of mediocrity, of not really having any special talents like my friends. And I guess I was okay with that, but I recently started taking a robotics class, and it’s like… I don’t know, it’s like something just connected in my brain, for the first time ever. I’m not just passing or understanding, I’m excelling, and it’s so strange to feel like I belong for once. Not that I ever felt too out-of-place, I suppose… the people I love always made space for me. But it’s nice to go somewhere and feel like… that space for me was always there. Nobody had to ‘make’ it for me - or, better yet, I made it myself. Isn’t that cool? And something as interesting as robotics - I’m really excited, you know?”

I lean against the coffee counter, watching her and assenting, quietly, “Yea, I think I can imagine what that’s like… honestly, I could not have pegged you for the kid genius type. Oh - I hope that’s not offensive, I just mean that- well-”

Eden laughed and cut in, “Oh, no, it’s alright. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘kid genius’ anyway. More like… idiot savant. I mean… I was really, really bad at all the other stuff. I could burn down a kitchen just boiling water for rice.”

I made a mental note to keep Eden away from fire.

“Anyway… I guess what I’m trying to say is,” She pressed onward, “I wasted a lot of time on all those other things. If I’d only known how much I loved this, I… could have been building things from the beginning.”

I related to that feeling on a level that I didn’t expect.

The two of us were quiet for a second, and I watched Eden shift her gaze from me to her hands, fiddling with the teacup on the table.

“But then I realize…” She murmurs, smiling faintly, “...that thinking that way is the real waste of time.”

My brows creep up on my forehead.

“Our memories make us who we are. The good ones… the less good ones. How we react to them, how we fought our way out of tough spots, how we bounced back from mistakes. They shape us. So all of those failures were just more memories, more pieces to my puzzle. In a way, I kinda have always been building things. I’ve been building me. And it took me a long time to draw up this blueprint, you know? And it’s going to take even longer to gather up the parts and put the pieces together. I’ll always be drafting, re-drafting, building and tearing apart, revising and revisiting - building a person is a lot more complex than building a robot. I’ll have to be patient. It’s going to take a long time. And that’s not only okay, but it’s also… normal.

Everyone is building themselves. And some people have a plan, and other people are winging it - and that’s okay, it’s all okay, because every person is different, and every design, every scientific method, is going to be a little different, too. Some people might never finish building, and some may find they feel complete much earlier on. It’s… all okay. And besides… I don’t think I could bring myself to really regret trying something new, even if I wasn’t good at it. I get to experience so much more, and now that I’m finding, like, my thing, it feels so much more satisfying. People don’t like a puzzle that’s too easy, anyway.”

Finishing her speech, Eden contemplatively stroked the top of Emily’s head with her knuckles. I was silent for a solid minute after Eden stopped talking - long enough for her to slowly turn her eyes towards me, seeming alarmed.

“Did I… say something wrong?” She sounded nervous. That felt wrong, like this girl and the word ‘nervous’ should never occupy the same sentence.

I exhaled, studying the floorboards.

“No… no, Miss Eden. I think you said exactly the right thing.”

Outside, the world passed. Cars flew by. Birds sang from the powerlines.

I heard windchimes.

“Oh... Okay. ...I’m glad then.”