Coin Toss
“You’re so quiet, it's hard to know what you think,” Alex remarked.
“I suppose I don’t know what to think.”
The sting of admitting my indecisiveness was one that lingered. I felt like a ghost, flitting through life with minimal impact. But on the other hand, it granted me the freedom to be a silent observer, a witness to the world unfolding in front of my eyes. There was a certain romance to being unseen, to observing the world as a secret play just for me.
I was spending the weekend, alone, in Rome. This weekend was the result of a last-minute plan in a desperate attempt to travel. Since I started my PhD, I don’t have as much free time to travel as I used to before.
“You have to make the most of the weekends,” Alex interrupted my train of thought. Had I been talking this whole time?
Alex was a mountaineer from the southern French countryside, and was about to start another one of his expeditions in Tuscany. He also happened to be my roommate for the weekend. That is how I met him. I felt a sense of relief when I learnt that he spoke French—it felt reassuring to have a French speaker around me in Italy. I had promised myself to not speak any English while in Italy so that I’d be forced to practise the little Italian I knew, but the second part of that promise was implicit. So finding a francophone there made me bypass the need to speak Italian whilst maintaining my promise to myself. In my defence, though, I was alone for most of the weekend, so I did have to rely on my rusty Italian from time to time. The Romans were patient enough to help me where I fumbled.
“Francese, Italiano, stressa cosa,” I remember a shopkeeper shouting at me with exaggerated hand-gestures, perhaps compensating for my comprehension; smiling when he observed that I was clearly “calculating” the Italian pronunciations of words in my head from their French counterparts.
I recall nodding in agreement, “oui...uh…si.”
“So why Rome?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
I didn’t know.
It was a fling at a dream I couldn’t quite articulate. Sure I had been to the bordering towns in the previous years. In the past, a little trip from Nice would get me to Ventimiglia or Sanremo where I would spend my birthdays solo hiking and discovering villages. But a city, an Italian city, was uncharted territory.
The truth was, I missed travelling. It used to be a constant in my life until last year. It had now become a luxury I could barely afford. Rome, specifically, was indeed a hazy choice, I’ll admit. Sure, the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain were ingrained in my pop-culture memory, but I didn’t have a burning desire to see them. It was more like… a feeling.
I missed being unknown to a city. Travelling alone was like sitting at night in a lighted house—those who would peek from the outside could observe you, but you didn’t necessarily have to see them. You simply said, "There are boundaries to my awareness. If you persist in hovering until the night falls silent, I shall retreat. To endure your veiled inquisitiveness, you will have to make it undetectable." It was this deal with the world that lonely travellers like me coveted.
This is perhaps why Alex’s inquisitiveness was on the verge of being irksome. You may have noticed that people on the metro, or those on the bus, or those in any mode of public transport, if they notice that you are also alone, will glance at you sidelong. They have a look that is intimate. If you let them sit beside you, they will ask you numerous questions. They have quick eyes and a passion for meticulous elaboration. And you, being the people-pleaser that you have been ingrained to become, mirror their behaviours. Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery. And I was discovering that in Rome.
That evening we were sitting on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna and Alex asked me what my PhD life was like.
“Do you ever feel like you’re searching for something, but you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for? That’s what a PhD feels like. At least that’s how I have been feeling.”
Alex looked thoughtful, taking a sip of his beer. “I think that’s why I climb mountains. Up there, it’s just me and the peak. It’s a kind of clarity you can’t find anywhere else.”
I nodded, pretending to understand what he meant.
As night fell, we wandered through the city, ending up at the Trevi Fountain. The tradition, as I had heard, was to throw a coin into the fountain to ensure a return to Rome. I stood there, coin in hand, contemplating the act. Was it really about returning to Rome, or was it about hope? Hope for what the future held, hope for answers.
I tossed the coin and watched it disappear into the water. Alex smiled beside me. “What did you wish for?”
“I don’t know.”
On my last day, I found myself in a quiet church off the beaten path. It was cool inside, a respite from the heat. I sat there, letting the silence envelop me. There was something sacred about the space, not just in a religious sense, but in the way it invited introspection.
I met Alex one last time before leaving. We exchanged numbers, promising to keep in touch, knowing that our paths will likely never cross again.