Photo @rezi_illustration

“They are on a Tinder date 2 or 3,” says my companion. Her dark and bright eyes
are sparkling with confidence as she is sipping her oat cappuccino.
“How could you know that for sure?” I ask. 
We are speaking in our mother tongues, sneaking glances at a couple sitting at the table
placed nearby. They are talking in some North European language. Or
Hungarian. Who knows? Brussels buzzes with so many tongues. 
Lin shrugs her shoulders. “I sense it. Intuition.”
I steal another glance at the couple. They are middle aged, a woman and a man, over a cup of tea and a lungo, smiling at each other, an aura of appreciation and trust around
them. 
“Stop looking at them,” hisses Lin. “It is rude and inappropriate.”
Soon, we are done with our coffees and step out into the Avenue Louise to run a few errands.

Lin´s remark and the situation has burned a deeper groove in my mind than one would think, and I blame it for what happened then.

The idea of intuition and seeing into people has become a new obsession of mine.
Spring weather helped me a little – street life has become vibrant, and many passers-by were
wearing dark sunglasses, not just me. Dark glasses hid my staring at strangers to
some extent. And Lin left the town, so there was no one to judge my new passion. 
Are they lovers or friends of partners? Are they happy together? Do they cheat on
each other? Are they rich? What is his/her profession? Is that a man or a woman? 
These questions were running on a background channel of my mind, sometimes
answers shot out of the unknown, or hypothetical answers, because how would I
know? 
How? How? How?
I am a lawyer. I work for a European institution as a part of a team supervising legal
translations. I check translated documents in three languages: French, Dutch and
Spanish.
How does the European law react to the term “sure?” Nothing is sure, unless it is proved
by facts, verified. 
How do I verify my hypotheses about the unknown citizens and visitors of the town? 
At that point, I could have seriously opted for a therapy and have the motivation for my
obsession unveiled. But I must admit, there was too much fun and satisfaction in
pursuing the plan. And as I am quite a method loving person, I have dedicated
exactly ¼ of the weekends to the quest. I started to alternate specialty coffee places,
taking strategic spots from where I could observe others. The game had one rule:

Observing the person who caught my interest and then stealing an item from them that
would give me a hint of who they are.  I would slide my hand into their coat or jacket
pocket, even their purse, and hope to find an object that would identify their preferences,
give away their secrets and such. A cinema or theatre ticket. A receipt from a
pharmacy or other shop.  A train ticket. A few times I got hold of a note paper-book. I
know this means committing several crimes, and privacy has become more and more
a serious issue. In an era when people invested so much energy into connecting
everything and anything, people started to fiercely defend their data. Even though
information is such a big and valuable commodity and, as I already said, companies
and individuals bend in all directions to find ways and develop technologies to get it.
And to prevent getting it. Sheer paradox. 
Has my intuition grown better? Perhaps yes, only, as it was bound to happen, all
came to an expected climax.

One gloomy Sunday afternoon, I am sitting in the corner of a Starbucks located in the
underground of the metro Louise station when a tall blond woman pulling a large
silver suitcase enters. She is dressed in black leather pants and a leather coat,
you know immediately this was somebody with expensive tastes. She goes to the
counter, and I stand up and place myself behind her, even though I already had my
cup of coffee with the name Raul written on it. (My name is not Raul, I am
using different names for security reasons.)
Standing behind the tall blond, I am eavesdropping her order:  
‘A large cappuccino with extra hazelnut cream.’
‘Name?’ A young barista with a stunning Afro hairdo asks. 
‘Desirée.’ 
Desirée. What a name!
I have to act swiftly; she is clearly taking her coffee out. I extend my arm to reach
into her coat pocket when she pushes suddenly on the suitcase handle and thus the whole
silver thing changes its position, hits my knees and before I know it, I am spread on top of
it. 
He got what he was asking for, you would say expecting that the lady scold me or
give me a cold look or…. Only…The suitcase starts to move and finds its way out
of the coffee place, towards the tourniquets leading to the platforms, down the
escalator and onto the rails where it smoothly lands into Metro train line and speeds
up into the tunnel. We are moving fast, me clutching the silver bastard by two
corners, passing the stations, followed by stunned looks on passengers ‘faces, into
another tunnel, this one very long. Still, there is an end to every tunnel, and we are
out again in a fancy station, all grey, elegant, with many announcement boards in several
languages. Oh, I knew this station so well, hopping off Metro 1 here almost daily. It had to
stop somewhere, perhaps the suitcase knows where I work, I manage to summon this thought, when we leave the rails abruptly, heading up the escalators and
through the glass doors onto the ground. People there are walking in smart suits,
many with phones, carrying suitcases that obey them and stay in their hold. I spot a few familiar faces, but I do not have time to observe much because the silver devil is already hoovering in the air, aiming upwards, above the squares and four-lane streets surrounded by glass office
buildings, higher and higher. I hear the suitcase requesting Zaventem airport
navigation tower to give us a corridor. My fear is slowly changing into excitement
and curiosity when I hear the suitcase say in navigation English: ‘We will be leaving
the Earth orbit soon, aiming into the Universe. ‘
‘Where are we going?’ I shout into the silver thing´s ear. 
To where the intuition comes from, Raul.