“The three storm days compressed the café's social life into something denser than normal. With nowhere else to go, the regulars stayed longer. Rajan the postmaster played chess with Dr. Sunitha, who won every game because chess was a diagnostic skill and Dr. Sunitha diagnosed Rajan's strategies the way she diagnosed patients: quickly, accurately, and without sentiment. Arun the college student, freed from the tyranny of wifi, read an actual book — a paperback, dog-eared, the kind of book that existed because trees had died and that was therefore, in Arun's generation, practically an artefact. Merrin experimented with cold brew using the last of the ice from the broken freezer, and the cold brew was terrible but the experimentation was beautiful because experimentation was Merrin's love language and love languages did not require success to be valid.”