yellowed tape

written february 2026

there’s a crack in the window.

i noticed it 20 minutes ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it. this cafe is not quite lively but there is no lack of entertainment. and this crack might be the most honest thing i’ve seen this week.

no one fixed it properly. but it’s obvious that someone tried. there’s tape over the crack, yellowed and curling at the edges; seemingly applied in a hurry, thinking ‘i’ll come back and do this right’ but never did. now it’s part of the window, part of the room. i think about all the machines and buildings and systems and lives held together by someone’s temporary solution that turned permanent. the whole world runs on duct tape and precedent and the unexamined assumption that because something has been this way, it should continue to remain this way.

i did not notice when it started raining. it’s such a half-hearted, uncommitted drizzle that gets you uncomfortably wet and doesn’t satisfy any craving. i sip my coffee and go back to observing. there’s a woman across the room who keeps adjusting her gloves. a dad with his kid running around dressed in colorful clothes and wearing boots that make squeaking noises on the wooden floor. the barista calls out a name that isn’t mine, and the man who collects his drink has several tattoos. i spot a ship on his forearm, a majestic vessel with its mast slightly crooked and the sails torn as if it had been through a storm. i wonder if it’s a symbol: of struggle or perseverance or simply, survival. people wear their ruins differently.

there’s this thing that happens in harbors. i think i read about it, or heard about it in a speech, or something of that sort - it doesn’t matter anyway. when a ship comes in damaged, the dock workers don’t ask where it’s been, or what storm it suffered, or whose fault the damage was. they simply repair the ship; plank by plank, rope by rope. a broken ship in a dock is everyone’s problem. fixing it is just what you do when you live by the water. i think the idea that repair doesn’t require reason is quite underrated.

why have we made living so transactional? does every kindness need a motive? does every favor have to turn into debt? every time someone does something without explanation, we dig for the explanation, because the alternative, that it was just done freely, feels suspicious. somehow, patching someone’s hull without asking them to justify the wreck is radical.

i keep hearing that the world is broken, but it’s not shattered or burst into pieces. the world is intact, and functioning, and that is the problem. it’s built on auction blocks and sweatshops and the quiet way we've agreed that some people are worth less. the cruelty is load-bearing. but then someone does something inexplicably, irrationally small. the barista gives the next customer an extra shot for free. not because she knows him. not because he asked. just because she felt like it.

it won’t make the news. it won’t fix the harbor or un-crack the window or re-mast the ship. but that interaction wasn’t transactional. it was human. every moment, we have a choice: to do something, or do nothing. the easier thing is doing nothing. in that moment though, someone chose the harder thing when the easier thing was right there. it warms my heart.

i look outside and the rain seems to have stopped. the cafe is quiet, almost about to close. my notebook is full of things that don't connect except in the way that everything connects when you're sitting still long enough to notice. and that’s my cue to leave.

~nikhil