Rainbow After Coffee: Notes from 35,000 Feet and a Toasted Bun
I was sitting in a second-floor café, sipping a jet-black kopi-o and munching on a slab of charcoal-grilled kaya toast. The toast? Crispy like it had ambitions of becoming a cracker. The kaya? Thick, fragrant, made of coconut milk, eggs, and sweet dreams. There was also a cold slab of butter sandwiched in there, just because life should have some drama.
The kopi-o—no condensed milk, just dark roasted beans flirting with caramel and a whisper of burn—cut through the sweetness like a grumpy uncle at a wedding. That’s balance, right? Bitter and sweet, just like life. Or like durians in peak season，Musang King and Black Thorn，if it doesn’t have a little bitterness, it’s basically just a spiky banana.
As I casually flipped through a draft contract from a partner (publisher problems, you know), I kept asking myself: Did I agree to something totally reckless back in that meeting? Chasing long-term dreams and short-term wins at the same time is a good way to sprain your moral compass. While I replayed every word I’d said like a neurotic podcaster, I noticed the noise in the café had dimmed.
People were gathering around the second-floor balcony. Something was happening downstairs in the atrium；ah, a flash mob concert. A girl was singing Coldplay’s “Yellow,” but with a twist: acoustic guitar, G key, pick-strummed, and a voice like mist in a dream. The music floated up like hot air balloons made of sound and longing, drifting lazily through the building. People started humming along. Even I snapped my fingers like I knew how rhythm worked. For a few minutes, the world felt soft, gentle, and beautifully out of office.
The meeting? What meeting.
First principles? Oh right，strip things down to what really matters, rebuild from there. I guess I found my answer. It’s all music and toast, in the end.
Two weeks ago, I heard the same song while flying to Frankfurt. Same song. Same headphones. Different continent. And somehow, same vibe. Two moments syncing up like twins who finish each other's Spotify queues.
It’s 6,516 miles from Singapore to Frankfurt. 10,484 kilometers. 13 hours and 5 minutes, give or take turbulence and tomato juice. Thanks to a note from my doctor (and an email she sent to the airline, possibly titled “She’s Fine But Just in Case”), I got seated in what I now call the “Special Snowflake Section.” It was basically a cabin subsection for folks with requests—one needed water every hour, one wanted meds reminders, another required no neighbor, and me? Apparently, I was the high-maintenance one.
Flight attendants checked in on my inhaler location more times than I check my phone battery. The pilot even stopped by to say hi. I kept insisting I was healthy, that it was all precautionary，but still, I felt oddly cared for, floating over time zones with strangers who actually seemed to give a damn.
Later, curious, I read the doctor's note. A few lines. Clinical, simple. But somehow, it hit me right in the feels. I remembered her saying, "Spaces and thoughts that once triggered panic will pass. Fear doesn’t forget，but you don’t have to either. Just wait it out. Time fixes things." That felt like she knew she was writing dialogue for my internal game. Honestly, she might have co-written the manual.
I slept 10 glorious hours. Maybe it was the cozy three-row section. Maybe the heavy curtains. Or maybe the feeling of being gently quarantined from chaos. The only real constant? That song.
Waking up well-rested turns your brain into a satellite dish. Over airplane eggs, I started gaming—beating everyone at Sudoku like a villain with too much time. Then I got nerdy: I calculated the plane's descent rate by watching the nav screen and doing math. (Yes, math. It happens.) It was surprisingly fun—little mysteries in the sky.
As we approached Frankfurt, the plane dropped to about 4,000 meters, lined up over the final approach, and descended to 1,000. After clearance from the tower, I counted: One, two, three—VROOOOM. Gear and flaps deployed. That sound? Always dramatic, like the plane’s putting on armor.
Final approach began at 400 meters. The pilot, now hands-on, steered us into a perfect glide. At 10 meters, he pulled up gently to level the plane before touchdown. All of it，descent, flare, float, touchdown was textbook aviation ballet. And somehow, it reminded me of descending from the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Both feel like gravity playing nice for once.
We landed in Terminal Z. Everyone heading into the EU had to migrate over to Terminal A. I waited on a bench for my colleagues to catch up. They texted: “Where are you?”
Just then, sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and hit me square in the eyes. I replied: Just keep walking straight. I’m sitting right where the light is.
Then I put my headphones back on. Still Yellow. And in that moment, with Chris Martin whispering through the buds, I let all the tiredness go. Spring in Germany was waking up. Light was stretching. Life was moving again.
Across island chains, over the Indian Ocean, past deserts and cities—I’d flown through the night.
And now?
Now I was the rainbow.
黑夜里的彩虹
我在大厦二层的咖啡店吃着炭烤咖椰酱面包，喝着不加炼乳的咖啡乌。面包酥脆，冻牛油搭配厚厚一层咖椰酱，一口咬下去，满是椰香。咖椰酱是由椰浆椰果加鸡蛋调制的，咖啡乌是咖啡豆加焦糖经过高温炭烤的产物。兼具了焦苦、酸、焦糖和碳化味道的咖啡乌，刚好平衡横亘在嘴里的香甜滋味。甜和苦，是个平衡的过程，就像这个季节的黑刺和猫山王，没有苦味的榴莲少了很多灵魂。
随手翻看合作方送来的合同草稿，我一直在问自己一个问题，刚才的会议上，有没有什么条件，是我答应的太冒昧的？当长期利益和短期效益都想要时，人往往容易失去平衡。正当我复盘自己说的每一句话，周遭人群也开始渐渐安静下来，人们朝着二层中空玻璃围栏聚集。彼时，在大厦B1的中庭，一场快闪的演出正在发生。吉他声音一出，便知是Coldplay乐队的《Yellow》，原曲是B调，演奏者把它改成了G调，用拨片扫弦的方式演奏，配上女歌者空灵的嗓音，空气瞬间摇滚又温柔，音符就像黑暗里缓缓升腾起的彩色热气球，飘过大厦的通道，慵懒地去向遥远的自由。随着副歌迭起，人们轻轻合唱，空间里满是飞蛾扑火，一往无前的浪漫。我微笑着打着响指，享受这个片刻。至于刚才会上说了什么，已经不重要了。所谓第一性原则，无非是回归到事物最基本的条件，拆分其要素进行分析，找到实现目标的最优解。我想，我已经找到了。
让我放弃复盘，沉浸在音乐中，还有另外一个原因。两周前我在飞往法兰克福的飞机上，耳机里也一直在循环这首歌。此时此刻，在我的音乐世界里，两个时空同频共振了。
新加坡飞往德国的法兰克福，航线距离6516英里，10484公里，耗时13小时5分钟。凭借本地医生开具的乘机医嘱，和医生写给航空公司的邮件，我一登机便被分配到了一个非常可爱的区域。入座后我恍然大悟，这个区域，一定是为了方便管理特殊客人预备的，看来每个人都各有故事。机组人员特别耐心，记好了每个人的诉求，有需要按时送水的、提醒服药的、要求躺平的，还有不能让身边坐人的。我显然是这九个人里最不让人省心的——先后有不同的人来和我确认inhaler的位置，空姐都很美，机长也来打了招呼。这些关心让我在深夜登机后，还保持了一段时间的活泼和礼貌，即便我一直在说，我的医嘱只是以防万一，我目前非常健康，并不需要任何帮助。但这种感受依然非常温暖，在万里高空之上，还有那么多陌生人如此关照着自己。这也不免让我在心生好奇，医生在给航司的邮件里写了什么？应该内容和我手上的纸质医嘱差不多吧，于是我在飞行平稳后，打开了阅读灯。这份医嘱我自己没有读过，短短几行字，只是事实陈述。原来世上真有纸短情长的事情，我想起他上一次见我时笑着说的话，一切能够引发哮喘的空间和想象都会过去，人的应激反应也不过是时间问题，恐惧不会遗忘，也不要试图遗忘，等待就好，时间够长，就ok。我开始好奇，在我的游戏设定里，我的主治医是不是参与了我的游戏说明书编写？飞行全程，相安无事，我睡足了十个小时。也许是因为这个独立的区域只有三排，前后都有隔断帘，略显局促的空间让醒着的旅程显得格外漫长，唯有耳机里的音乐，给了我置身其中的自由。
人睡饱了，天线就会很灵敏。吃蛋饼的时间我开始打游戏，把数独游戏的赢家都改成了我的名字，之后我开始研究飞机的降落。先打开屏幕上的导航，自己计算速度，高度，降落的准确时间，再和飞行导航的数据对比答案，这个过程非常有趣，也可以消耗一点时间。飞机距法兰克福机场还有半小时，开始进入下降阶段。它从航路上下降到4000米左右的高空，根据雷达的引导，来到距离跑道20公里左右的指定点上空，这段飞行让它的高度处在1000米以下。在获得塔台着陆同意后，我在心里默数1,2,3，随即，客舱内响起很大的噪音，这是襟翼和起落架放出的声音。此时飞机加大油门，到达400米左右时，便进入最后的着陆流程，并开始由机长亲自操纵。他要对准跑道中心线，让飞机保持着最佳的下滑角度。当飞机离地高度l0米左右时，机长操纵机头抬起，使飞机机身改平，由下滑状态变为机头微仰的水平飞行。至此，飞机完成了下滑、拉平、平飞减速、飘落触地、着陆滑跑的全部操作。从400米高空开始降落时，我忽然想到了迪拜的哈利法塔，塔高828米，共163层，从124层的观景台电梯下到一层，每秒10米，这个速度和飞机降落速度带来的感受是一致的。这是不是另一种的同频？
飞机停靠在法兰克福机场的Z区域，所有需要出欧盟海关的乘客都要需要转去A区。我在途中的长椅上坐等同事们和我汇合。他们发来短信，问我在哪里。那一刻，一书阳光刚好穿过落地窗，照亮我的眼睛。于是我答，一直朝前走，在你们能看到的第一面落地窗前，我就坐在阳光里。
之后，我又带起耳机，还是Yellow，我在Chris Martin的嗓音中，放下了所有疲惫，感受着德国春天晨光的温暖和勃勃生机。穿过马来群岛，飞跃印度，路过中东，来到地中海的另一边。飞过黑夜，我便是晨光和彩虹。
