Six thirty and the bar is already loud with spoons. Zinc counter, worn to a dull shine where a thousand elbows have leaned before mine. The barista doesn’t ask what I want. He just starts. That’s Milan for you: efficient, a little vain about it.
The espresso arrives before I’ve finished unwrapping my scarf. No saucer ceremony, no small talk, just the cup set down hard enough to rattle. Steam off the top smells like something between burnt toast and dark chocolate. I drink it in three sips, standing, the way everyone else does. Sitting is for tourists and people with time to waste. Nobody here has either.
Behind me, two men argue about football scores like it’s a moral failing. A woman in heels checks her lipstick in the espresso machine’s chrome, unbothered by the queue building behind her. My camera stays in the bag. Some mornings the moment is only for the body, not the film. My hand remembers the weight of the cup before my mind catches up to the fact that I’m home, or what passes for it. Milan doesn’t wait for sentiment.
There’s a particular sound to this place: porcelain against zinc, the hiss of the machine, someone’s motorino idling just outside the door. It’s not music, but it has rhythm. I think of my father, who taught me that a real espresso should be drunk in under a minute, standing, no fuss. He’d be pleased to see I still remember, even when I forget which country I woke up in.
The bar smells like burnt sugar and wet umbrellas, rain outside just starting, that grey Milan light pressing against the window like it’s trying to get in too. Nobody looks up. Nobody photographs their coffee here. That’s a habit for elsewhere, for places that need to prove they’re charming. Milan already knows.
I pay in coins, exact change, because the barista’s face tells me he expects nothing less. Outside, the rain has committed to itself. I pull my collar up, sling the duffel higher on my shoulder, and let the caffeine do what caffeine does: convince me, briefly, that I have somewhere important to be.
*Andiamo.* The city is already moving. My body, apparently, remembered that too.
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