He grabbed a cold pitcher of milk. To any other barista, frothing milk was a chore; to Rex, it was a sequence of frequencies. He tilted the pitcher, listening to the hiss of the air entering the liquid. He wasn't looking at the thermometer; he was listening to the pitch of the steam. When it hit a perfect G-sharp, he stopped.
Then, the performance began.
Rex didn't just pour. He began to move the pitcher in a rhythmic, undulating pattern—a technique he had adapted from his 18 years of music theory. The milk hit the crema with a specific velocity, diving deep before resurfacing in a burst of white. But he didn't stop at a heart. Using a thin metal etching needle, Rex began to "paint."
In less than twenty seconds, a three-dimensional swan emerged from the foam. Its neck was arched with regal grace, and its wings were composed of dozens of microscopic, overlapping feathers etched with such precision that they looked like a woodcut engraving.
