A Script for A Glitch in the Cold Brew

The heat is a physical presence in the city today. A suffocating blanket that makes the air shimmer above the pavement. Inside the cool, air-conditioned sanctuary of Thom Bargen on Sherbrook, the world feels sane again. I’m thinking about the digital and the physical, the way a photograph of a mural is both a copy and a new thing entirely. My laptop screen is covered in my own photos—the half-erased bison, the clockwork hummingbird—and I'm trying to catalogue them, to impose some order on the beautiful chaos.

"You coming to the show tonight?" Leo asks, slurping the last of his iced latte. The sound is like a rock being pulled from mud.

"What show?" I murmur, not looking up. I’m trying to adjust the contrast on a photo of the circuit board fox, making the lines pop against the grimy concrete.

"The Weakerthans cover band? At the Times Change(d)? I told you about this like three times."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, maybe. Depends on how this goes." 'This' is my obsessive spiral into the world of the artist we've nicknamed Vector. Every photo feels like a clue, but I have no idea what crime I'm trying to solve.

I glance up, scanning the cafe. It’s the usual afternoon crowd: freelancers, students, people on awkward first dates. And then I see her. She’s in the corner, by the window, headphones on. Her laptop is facing away from me, but the back of it is a mosaic of stickers. And I recognize them.

My heart does a little stutter-step. There, right in the centre, is a vinyl sticker of the clockwork hummingbird. Next to it, a smaller one of the circuit board fox. It's Vector's art. It has to be her.

"Leo. Leo, look," I hiss, nudging him under the table. "The girl in the corner. Her laptop."

He follows my gaze. "Okay... she likes stickers. So what? You can probably buy those online."

"No, man. Not these. And look." I lean forward, trying to see her screen. She's typing rapidly, lines of code scrolling past. It’s not a Word document or a website. It’s a coding interface, all dark background and brightly coloured text. And on the right side of her screen, a preview window is rendering abstract shapes that shift and change with every few lines of code she types. She's not just a fan of the art. She's making it. Or something like it.

She has dark, choppy hair and is wearing a paint-splattered tank top. She could be the person from the rooftop. The person who sketched us. My palms start to sweat.

"Go talk to her," Leo says, with the simple, infuriating confidence of someone who has never been paralyzed by social anxiety.

"And say what? 'Hi, I’m the guy you secretly draw from rooftops, I love your work'?"

"Well, maybe leave out the second part. Just go ask her about the stickers. Say you like them. Ask where she got them. It's not hard."

It is hard. It feels impossible. My brain is running a thousand disastrous scenarios. She thinks I’m a creep. She denies everything. She calls security. I stay rooted to my chair, a helpless observer.

A Dropped Connection

For the next hour, I pretend to work on my photos, while actually just watching her. She never looks up, completely absorbed in her world of code and shifting patterns. The art she's generating on her screen is hypnotic, geometric and fluid at the same time. It feels related to the stencils, like their digital ancestor.

Leo gets bored and starts showing me videos of dogs on skateboards. I try to pay attention, but my focus is shot. My gaze keeps drifting back to the girl in the corner. This is it. This is the closest I've been to an answer. And I'm just sitting here.

Finally, she stops typing. She closes her laptop, packs it into a worn messenger bag, and stands up. She's leaving. It's now or never. My muscles tense. I’m going to do it. I’m going to stand up and say something.

But I don’t. I just watch as she walks towards the door. She has to pass our table to get there. My heart is pounding against my ribs.

She draws level with us. Her eyes, I notice, are a very bright, intelligent grey. She doesn't look at me. Her focus is on the door. But as she passes, her hand, holding a crumpled napkin, dips slightly. Her fingers open.

A small, folded piece of paper flutters down, landing silently on the table right beside my laptop. It's a deft, almost invisible movement. She doesn't break her stride, doesn't look back, and pushes the door open, disappearing into the wall of summer heat outside.

I stare at the piece of paper. Leo didn't even notice. He's still watching a video of a bulldog trying to ride a scooter.

My hand trembles as I reach for it. It's a ripped piece of receipt paper, folded into a tight square. What could it possibly say? Is it a warning? An invitation? My mind is reeling. She knew. The entire time, she knew I was watching her.