Dear Third Floor Student Centre Cafe,
It’s been a while. How have you been? I still remember the last time I strolled into your premises, blissfully unaware that it would be a long, long time before I saw you again. God, I can picture it now: your verdant green chairs were basking in the sunlight, glistening like leaves in a summer breeze.
I always enjoyed the anticipation I felt as I proceeded towards you. When I walked, using the three long flights of stairs as my daily exercise, it made me so eager to sit down. Other times, it would be an extensive lift ride which would, more often than not, manage to stop at every floor before the third (my dear: why do you tempt me this way?). Usually, the lift would go down before it went up again – a cruel metaphor for life, or COVID infection rates.
You’ve always been such a beautiful location to sit down, either to unwind with friends or, if alone and sitting near to the right people, to overhear a delightful tale of drama and intrigue. If Coldplay were still at UCL, I’m sure they would have written about you, as they stood in line to get a deeply, deeply, expensive sandwich.
I hope you know that I haven’t been to a UCL cafe since you shut, and totally not at all because they all shut at the same time. I look forward to biting into a flavourless pasty bought at your premises again just to feel something.
See you soon, my love.
A UCL student.