The end of the road, the coffee shop, so inviting, somebody opened the doors of the shop to get out, the smell of coffee gets mixed with the air. She turns her head slowly, looks at the shop, blinks, the wordings on the glass door says, “A lot can happen over coffee.” smiling to herself, she enters the shop.
At the further end of the shop, there is a guy who is immersed in a book he is reading, in two chairs away from him there is a boy and girl lost in their world, apart from them the shop is empty. A cafe attendant in the shop walks up to her and asks her, “Maam, would you like to sit here [pointing to a small table with couches in one corner hid by the pillar structure]?”
She looks at her and nods her head, takes her seat along with the menu card. The attendant leaves her alone and walks away, she gives a sigh of relief, as the girl did not bother to stand there and pester her for an order. Settling down on the couch, she wonders why she turned up there. She had no intention of drinking coffee, looking at the menu card, reluctantly opens the card to look in, and the menu card items dance in front of her eyes and they try to tell her something of that she has almost forgotten in years.
She is just looking at them and she is being transported to the days of her life, when she was carefree and just a college girl surrounded by her friends and she used to spend sometime during weekends with her friends in such a coffee shop, though in her times it wasn’t such a big posh looking shop, but a small bakery extended with a few chairs and tables spread on the pavement and it used to be heaven.
“Maam ….” “Maam, are you ready to order?”
“Maam…” Her thoughts are disturbed by this third call of the attendant who is standing beside her to take her order. Coming back she orders for a black coffee or espresso these days, and a glass of water.
To which, the girl looks up to the end of the shop which holds water dispensing unit, which is empty right now, and Shymala’s eyes follow this girls and she too is looking at the empty dispenser, at the same time, the pair of eyes from the book, catches a glance at them both. Her eyes meet the guys and it stays there for more than a half a minute then necessary.
Both of them turn away, and she replies, “Yes, maam will get you, put you got to wait a few seconds more, as you see our dispenser is empty and we are waiting for it to be changed. Will some plain water, do?”
Oh, don’t bother get the water and coffee together.” Saying thus, she gets back to the menu on her hands. But, the pair of eyes tells her something else. I have seen these eyes before. “Oh yeah, you have lady, just now. You don’t remember [her mind speaks slowly]” “No, I have seen them from close quarters.” These are the same, eyes that belong to Sameer, the guy who secretly stole her heart and made had feel a soft corner for him whenever he looked at her fondly.
Ah, that is ages before, no it can’t be him. I haven’t seen him after the day of graduation. God, knows where he is right now?
“Excuse me…can I share a cup of coffee with you?”
“Sorry, I don’t entertain strangers. Leave me alone.”
“Yeah, I would. If you take a look at me [He stood there smiling, waiting for her to look at him]”
She lifts her head to find an average looking middle-aged man, with a well built and managed body, looking at her with the same slop sided smile, with the sharp dark brown eyes piercing her.
She instantly breaks into a cheer and extends her hand to greet, the man who got lost into this world and long forgotten in the warfare of life. She never remembered him for a second, till the day she sat in this very coffee shop looking at the menu card. And Lo! He is here standing and offering her a chance to share her coffee with him.
“Hey, man decades now, How come you here?” “My god, please do join. You don’t need invitation sent out, right.”
“Huh, I thought I almost needed one till you looked up at me.”
“What do you mean? What I am doing here? Do you own this city? No, I guess, you don’t. If you do, I would have come to know, coz, now I am a small Real Estate Investor and Constructor, in the city. My company is named; Eden Alliances and Constructions.”
“Wow, that’s a name. You into constructions, Hmm…It’s been a long time, Sam (this is how she used to address him, during college days), how did I remember that??!!”
They look at each other for quite a while letting the silence engulf them and the song, playing the background, “Tu hi re….Tu hi re, an ARR musical duet.”
He face has taken the effects of middle-age. His moustache has traces of gray hair, his sideburns have traces of grey hair, and hair is graying near the temples were adding beauty to his face. His clean shaven cheeks show marks of laugh lines, his eyes has taken a reading glass to it, aging inconveniences, his neatly ironed pale blue shirt, the neatly folded sleeves, the steel colored watch with his favorite black dial with roman numbers, his sleek artistic fingers, so on and on…Hmm, does the fingers still draw amazing portraits, landscapes, and beauties.
He wasn’t like this when in college, he was smart and quick witted, young vibrant. How is he, now? The same, where do I start, what do I ask him? If only, he had confessed his mind, that day?
Hello, madam, what lost in thoughts? I am still the same guy you know from college, only difference is now, I am entrepreneur and has responsibilities. I am married, have two kids, one is in 3rd standard and another is in 1st standard, in the same city. My wife’s, a darling, [pauses, he looks at her] then continues, she put up with me during my struggling years and saved me the disgrace of losing. She also contributes to my success.
Our college days were real fun, isn’t it. No worries, no constraints, no hassles, enjoyable period. What fun we had? But, you know, Shami [this is how he used to call her] life teaches you a lot of things. I struggled after finishing college for a job, started working as small time consultant and slowly built my own from scratch and during those days, got married, had kids, managed the home and the business and had been days, when I longed for a friend to share my feelings, to tell them what I went through, what trouble it is, to share a joke, to lighten a moment, to live life, and in all those moments, I thought of you.
She thinks, “Oh, my god, he thought of me, and I not even for an instant till this time, did not even think he existed. What, a smart mug I am.”
I thought of you, I thought you would bring me comfort by listening to me, I thought you would give me suggestions; I thought you would say, it will get over….Hmm…but you weren’t there? Isn’t it? Where had you been, Shami? Where were you all these days?
She was getting uncomfortable, in his gaze; she was feeling small, in front of him, she wanted to ask sorry, she wanted to tell him a lot of things, and she wanted to comfort him. But, then she thought, why all of sudden, why is he doing this now, when he should have expressed his feelings long back. Now, it is out of place and does not fit the bill.
She just controlled herself and said, “What do you mean by, where I had been. I am here, in the city for almost 10 years now, form finishing college, and been working in the Excel Marketing Corporation, as Sr. Marketing Manager.”
You see me here, in this coffee shop, today because I was disturbed and came to refresh my mind with a coffee. All of all, a surprise package, I see you here.
They are seen talking to each other in an animated conversation from the bill desk and the cafe attendant is thinking, this lady, I thought, she came alone. Huh, whatever you want happens in the city. Who cares, what, when and how….??!!! What’s in store for me? Let me take the bill out to her.
Short Stories by Kavitha Kumaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
At the further end of the shop, there is a guy who is immersed in a book he is reading, in two chairs away from him there is a boy and girl lost in their world, apart from them the shop is empty. A cafe attendant in the shop walks up to her and asks her, “Maam, would you like to sit here [pointing to a small table with couches in one corner hid by the pillar structure]?”
She looks at her and nods her head, takes her seat along with the menu card. The attendant leaves her alone and walks away, she gives a sigh of relief, as the girl did not bother to stand there and pester her for an order. Settling down on the couch, she wonders why she turned up there. She had no intention of drinking coffee, looking at the menu card, reluctantly opens the card to look in, and the menu card items dance in front of her eyes and they try to tell her something of that she has almost forgotten in years.
She is just looking at them and she is being transported to the days of her life, when she was carefree and just a college girl surrounded by her friends and she used to spend sometime during weekends with her friends in such a coffee shop, though in her times it wasn’t such a big posh looking shop, but a small bakery extended with a few chairs and tables spread on the pavement and it used to be heaven.
“Maam ….” “Maam, are you ready to order?”
“Maam…” Her thoughts are disturbed by this third call of the attendant who is standing beside her to take her order. Coming back she orders for a black coffee or espresso these days, and a glass of water.
To which, the girl looks up to the end of the shop which holds water dispensing unit, which is empty right now, and Shymala’s eyes follow this girls and she too is looking at the empty dispenser, at the same time, the pair of eyes from the book, catches a glance at them both. Her eyes meet the guys and it stays there for more than a half a minute then necessary.
Both of them turn away, and she replies, “Yes, maam will get you, put you got to wait a few seconds more, as you see our dispenser is empty and we are waiting for it to be changed. Will some plain water, do?”
Oh, don’t bother get the water and coffee together.” Saying thus, she gets back to the menu on her hands. But, the pair of eyes tells her something else. I have seen these eyes before. “Oh yeah, you have lady, just now. You don’t remember [her mind speaks slowly]” “No, I have seen them from close quarters.” These are the same, eyes that belong to Sameer, the guy who secretly stole her heart and made had feel a soft corner for him whenever he looked at her fondly.
Ah, that is ages before, no it can’t be him. I haven’t seen him after the day of graduation. God, knows where he is right now?
“Excuse me…can I share a cup of coffee with you?”
“Sorry, I don’t entertain strangers. Leave me alone.”
“Yeah, I would. If you take a look at me [He stood there smiling, waiting for her to look at him]”
She lifts her head to find an average looking middle-aged man, with a well built and managed body, looking at her with the same slop sided smile, with the sharp dark brown eyes piercing her.
She instantly breaks into a cheer and extends her hand to greet, the man who got lost into this world and long forgotten in the warfare of life. She never remembered him for a second, till the day she sat in this very coffee shop looking at the menu card. And Lo! He is here standing and offering her a chance to share her coffee with him.
“Hey, man decades now, How come you here?” “My god, please do join. You don’t need invitation sent out, right.”
“Huh, I thought I almost needed one till you looked up at me.”
“What do you mean? What I am doing here? Do you own this city? No, I guess, you don’t. If you do, I would have come to know, coz, now I am a small Real Estate Investor and Constructor, in the city. My company is named; Eden Alliances and Constructions.”
“Wow, that’s a name. You into constructions, Hmm…It’s been a long time, Sam (this is how she used to address him, during college days), how did I remember that??!!”
They look at each other for quite a while letting the silence engulf them and the song, playing the background, “Tu hi re….Tu hi re, an ARR musical duet.”
He face has taken the effects of middle-age. His moustache has traces of gray hair, his sideburns have traces of grey hair, and hair is graying near the temples were adding beauty to his face. His clean shaven cheeks show marks of laugh lines, his eyes has taken a reading glass to it, aging inconveniences, his neatly ironed pale blue shirt, the neatly folded sleeves, the steel colored watch with his favorite black dial with roman numbers, his sleek artistic fingers, so on and on…Hmm, does the fingers still draw amazing portraits, landscapes, and beauties.
He wasn’t like this when in college, he was smart and quick witted, young vibrant. How is he, now? The same, where do I start, what do I ask him? If only, he had confessed his mind, that day?
Hello, madam, what lost in thoughts? I am still the same guy you know from college, only difference is now, I am entrepreneur and has responsibilities. I am married, have two kids, one is in 3rd standard and another is in 1st standard, in the same city. My wife’s, a darling, [pauses, he looks at her] then continues, she put up with me during my struggling years and saved me the disgrace of losing. She also contributes to my success.
Our college days were real fun, isn’t it. No worries, no constraints, no hassles, enjoyable period. What fun we had? But, you know, Shami [this is how he used to call her] life teaches you a lot of things. I struggled after finishing college for a job, started working as small time consultant and slowly built my own from scratch and during those days, got married, had kids, managed the home and the business and had been days, when I longed for a friend to share my feelings, to tell them what I went through, what trouble it is, to share a joke, to lighten a moment, to live life, and in all those moments, I thought of you.
She thinks, “Oh, my god, he thought of me, and I not even for an instant till this time, did not even think he existed. What, a smart mug I am.”
I thought of you, I thought you would bring me comfort by listening to me, I thought you would give me suggestions; I thought you would say, it will get over….Hmm…but you weren’t there? Isn’t it? Where had you been, Shami? Where were you all these days?
She was getting uncomfortable, in his gaze; she was feeling small, in front of him, she wanted to ask sorry, she wanted to tell him a lot of things, and she wanted to comfort him. But, then she thought, why all of sudden, why is he doing this now, when he should have expressed his feelings long back. Now, it is out of place and does not fit the bill.
She just controlled herself and said, “What do you mean by, where I had been. I am here, in the city for almost 10 years now, form finishing college, and been working in the Excel Marketing Corporation, as Sr. Marketing Manager.”
You see me here, in this coffee shop, today because I was disturbed and came to refresh my mind with a coffee. All of all, a surprise package, I see you here.
They are seen talking to each other in an animated conversation from the bill desk and the cafe attendant is thinking, this lady, I thought, she came alone. Huh, whatever you want happens in the city. Who cares, what, when and how….??!!! What’s in store for me? Let me take the bill out to her.
Short Stories by Kavitha Kumaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
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