Nothing you do when you’re in the past will change the present.
Time Travel + Coffee (Book Recommendation)
Time Travel + Coffee (Book Recommendation)
What if you could go back to the past. But anything you do won’t affect the present.
Will you still go?
You might think, what’s the point then?
But 4 different people from ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’ by Toshikazu Kawaguchi thought differently.
The stories in the book revolve around a cafe called Cafe Funiculi Funicula that opened in 1874.
The speciality of the cafe is that if you sit in one particular seat of the cafe and follow a specific set of rules, you can travel in the past.
You can only meet people who have visited the cafe.
Nothing you do when you’re in the past will change the present.
You have to sit in a specific seat to time travel and you must remain seated when you’re in the past.
You have to drink the entire cup of coffee before it gets cold.
This book has 4 stories in it.
1/ The Lovers
The story starts with a very contemporary setting of coffee dates, I didn’t even think that the two people in the story could be called lovers.
Because the girl, Fumiko was aged 28:
She wanted to get married because everyone else around was getting married.
She was just looking for an eligible bachelor whom she could depend upon.
And Goro, who is 3 years younger than her seems to be that dependable guy because he is meticulous with his work.
When everyone else gives up. He doesn’t.
There’s just no magic between them. So when the initial setting is of breakup.
I am like what else did you expect?
Goro calls her for a ‘serious conversation.’
And when a guy calls you for a serious conversation, it’s not going to be a marriage proposal duh. Because those things happen naturally. The conversation flows naturally.
They don’t come under the banner of ‘serious conversation.’
But keeping aside my hopeless romantic side, I can see that marriage is a serious topic so, she wasn’t entirely wrong in her assumption either.
Even her attempt to go back in the past seems to be fueled more by the fascination of ‘that you can go in the past’ rather than that she wants to talk to Goro.
But the intensity kicks in, the book absorbs me and I forget to breathe when she actually goes back into the past.
When instead of being passive-aggressive or begging him to stay (her self-image and ego won’t let her do that, thank you Toshikazu for that)
She talks just like before but also expresses that it hurts that he didn’t think of her when he decided that he will move to America.
However, she always knew that he would leave. The question wasn’t if, it was when. Still, she was hoping he would choose her.
Even if she herself has always chosen her work over love. So it kind of seemed selfish but it goes with the nature of passive-aggressive people.
But no matter what,
It takes courage to say, what has to be said.
The next two stories have an irony of their own,
In one story someone refuses to read a letter and is even ready to put it in the trash and at the same time someone else goes to the past just to receive a letter.
2/ Husband & Wife
A wife sits in that time-travelling seat to get the letter that her husband wanted to give her before he lost his memories.
Going in the past doesn’t bring her husband's memories back. But it gives an assurance to her that he understands if she chooses to leave him. He doesn’t want her to stay with him, just to take care of him.
And then she pulls ‘The Notebook’ on him and starts introducing herself as his wife in every conversation with him. Because he has forgotten, she has not.
3/ The Sisters
This story is about a woman who became bitter over time and started camouflaging her sadness and bitterness with sarcastic remarks and an IDGAF attitude.
Now behaviours like these generally stem from long-standing disagreements with parents. And something similar had happened with her.
Her sister would visit her every month to stay connected and give her a letter. But she would just ignore her every time.
On the last visit, her sister dies in a car accident.
And the feelings that weren’t expressed earlier needed to be expressed after someone’s death. So the woman goes to her past to ask for her sister’s forgiveness.
4/ Mother and Child
In the final story, the rules that we and the characters have internalized are defied and unlike before, the coffee sends a mother into the future to meet her unborn child.
Kei is full of life. But often the real tragedy happens to those who want to live the most.
She was sick and physically weak since childhood. But she never took on the identity of a sick child.
She thought, ‘If I am unable to do vigorous excercise — I won’t do vigorous excercise’
She became a person who would dance slowly and participate in races in a wheelchair.
And she won the crown when she went up to a stranger, bandaged from head to toe like a mummy and said, ‘I think you are the man I want to marry.’
Now when she became pregnant, she was getting sicker day by day. And she wasn’t sure if she would survive to see the baby or not.
If the baby will survive or not.
So when she goes to the future…..
I won’t reveal that spoiler because that’s for you to deal with on your own.
I have already expressed too much.
All these 4 stories are so deliberately curated that you will feel the weight of the intense emotions in only 1 story or at the max 2, based on which life’s stage you are on.
The thought that stuck with is me that every preconceived notion of love is actually stupid. You won’t know it until it happens to you. For some it's all-consuming, for others it's a breathe of fresh air.
For some, it's filled with grand gestures, for others it starts with a simple coffee date.
Some find their soulmate just before dying, others forget their soulmate just before dying.
Every notion of this and that just chalks up to your disappointment.
And that’s why they say, when you least expect it, it happens.
And the nuance of the stories is that.
Nothing you do when you’re in the past will change the present. But what you do in the present can change the future because it hasn’t happened yet.