Terrarium

Terrarium

There were days when nobody seemed to notice her at all. Natalia could walk into work, apron in hand, and move through the packed lobby into the back room without anyone registering her existence. Her coworkers were too busy getting coffees, teas, and pastries out at superhuman speed, and the customers standing around the lobby were about as detached from reality as you could get.  

Nobody really acknowledged her presence until she stood in front of the shift lead, who would look up at her from the clipboard with an exasperated sigh and ask, “Hey, Nat- how about going on the front register for me?”     

Most patrons of the small cafe were sunburnt tourists in the summer and slackeyed college students in the fall. The rest was made up of city natives and people who worked nearby; office workers and delivery people, construction workers and dog walkers. Nurses, cops, professors, and bus drivers; the heart of downtown brought in every type of person you could think of. What they all had in common is they all became instantly unaware of the world around them as soon as they walked through the door. Like a spell, the threshold turned them into spatially unaware zombies. The first thing customers did was always lock eyes with their phone, dig in their purse, anything to avoid making eye contact with any other human that may exist in the lobby. They were bound to knock over some display or drop anything they picked up, floating and bumping around like tranquilized bumblebees.  

Any cheery “Hello, welcome in!” that came from an employee went unheard. They approached the counter with no recognition of the person working, but with an open-mouth fascination of the menu board. Or they would walk up, head bent over their phone, and mumble their order before meandering away. Most of the time, Nat saw more of the tops of people's heads (and their double-chins) than their face. 

“Hi there! How are you today?” she’d ask. 

“Uhh, double white mocha, no foam, extra whip.”

They weren’t very good conversationalists, either. 

Eventually she learned that being ignored was the better of two options; if she was ever noticed by a customer at all, it was because they were mad at her. She never understood people who screamed at service workers over simple mistakes, even less so after she started at the cafe. Usually it was something that could be solved quickly, and it took more time to wait for the agitated customer to stop yelling than to actually fix the problem. Like most baristas, bartenders and food workers, she’d had things thrown at her enough times to know when to anticipate it. She could become dead-eyed as a shark when an angry man thrusted his finger or phone in her face; she could wait, slack and serene, as an irate woman called her hateful names and bigoted slurs. She knew all the tricks to detach herself from the frustration and anger they projected onto her every day. 

It wasn’t all bad. Her coworkers were nice, for the most part. But once she worked the same day part a hundred times there wasn’t much need for communication, and other than the usual workplace chit chat they did their job in silence as the daylight faded. They all worked two jobs or came to work straight from school like Nat, so the staff was permanently exhausted. There were a few coworkers that she avoided, especially certain shift leads who always had something nasty to say. Or one unbearingly disingenuous barista whose sole driving force in life was getting promoted, no matter who they had to put down to get there. By the grace of God, none of them worked the full closing shift with her, so she only had to tolerate them in passing. She preferred the night crew’s more mellow demeanors to the high-strung, over-caffeinated morning people. The quiet evenings were nice, especially compared to the noisiness of the day. At least nobody bothered her. 

She liked the quiet time before close when business started to lag the most. The cafe had huge glass windows up to the ceiling, and being on a corner was perfect for people-watching. As the evening settled in, the people outside looked much more leisurely, walking together in groups of three or four. Friends laughed and chatted in preparation for the night of bar hopping ahead. As much as she liked to watch the crowd pass by, Nat couldn't help but admire their going-out clothes and companionship. The city was crawling with groups of excited people on their way to have a good time while she was stuck cleaning the floors. She sighed at her own reflection and wished for the millionth time that she’d been born into money. Or someone that could help pay for college, at least. Sometimes she’d forget herself and pause for a moment in the empty lobby, her head tilted and her mind far away. She wished she could fly off on her broom as she watched the world go by, trapped in her solitary glass box. She wondered if this is what her plants felt like at home in their terrarium. 

She’d spend her time mopping by imagining where she would go and what she would wear if she were going out that night. Or she’d think about the homework she had to do and errands she had to run, if she were feeling more realistic. She didn’t know many people in the city yet since she’d just moved, but how hard could it be? She didn’t feel like she looked the part, but that was easy to fix. She resolved to take herself shopping for new clothes, once she had the money. 

Who invented money, anyway? It’s all made up, it’s just paper. It shouldn’t determine so much in a person’s life. She thought, dumping the bucket of filthy water down the drain. 

Still, it must be nice to have enough of it. 

With the working day over at 8:30 PM, the caffeine mongers filed out of the cafe and the door was locked behind them. They all waved goodbye and walked in seperate directions, vanishing into the crowds that filled the sidewalk. The air was filled with the smell of Indian food, cigarettes, and old piss. She wove through people somehow already drunk, swaying and stumbling, holding onto each other. She passed open patios of people, cars full of people, a park full of people, and tried to push down the loneliness rising in her chest. Her apartment wasn’t far. She turned the key to her building and closed the door behind her with a sigh. She stood for a second outside of her own door, knowing that there was only darkness on the other side. 

She flung it open and turned on the light. Throwing her backpack on the ground, she collapsed on her couch and finally relaxed. She knew she had to be up early to do it all again tomorrow. The plants that filled her apartment cheered her up as always; they hung from the ceilings and crowded the windowsills, with the coffee table pushed up against the far wall to get the most sunlight possible. She rose, stretched, and scooped up a succulent to carry into her bedroom, petting its leaves absentmindedly. She set it on top of her dresser and grabbed her pajamas; she needed a long shower to wash off the day. In the bathroom lived her tropical, humidity-loving plants. Laughter rose up from the street as she turned the water on, swiftly followed by the sound of someone violently throwing up in an alley nearby. Natalia shook her head as she fussed over her monstera and waited for the water to get hot. As she eased her sore muscles into the water, she listened to the noisy street below and thought back to the hundreds of people she’d seen that day. She wondered if any of them had seen her.