I was oblivious to his presence in the coffee shop
that afternoon, oblivious to him entering with his trademark quizzical
expression and those carefully measured steps up to the counter. I even missed
him standing rooted to the spot, thoughtfully scanning the menu on the wall
before ordering the exact same thing as always – a café latte with a triple
shot of espresso. I didn’t notice him until he pulled up a chair from the next
table and sat down across me. I didn’t look up from my notebook and continued
scribbling in green ink between the ash grey lines. But I could tell it was him
from his signature perfume – the lingering traces of musk and citrus mixed with
the tobacco that he had probably inhaled just seconds before entering the air-conditioned
environment. Then, in the same brazen and nonchalant manner that he’d invited
himself into my radar, he began speaking. At first all I could hear was white
noise, which then slowly transformed into words that actually began to make
sense.
I can’t recount the things he said here, mostly
because I don’t remember them all but also because they are things I’d rather
not repeat to another living soul. It can take decades for people to make it
into your inner circle and even then, they first begin at the periphery before entering
each of your outer rings. Rarely does anyone make it straight through in the
first instant, rendering your existence threadbare and leaving you questioning
your carefully constructed defenses. From the day we first met, he was exactly
like that - a calamity of disastrous proportions, one that would make you wish
you’d vaporized into nothingness before witnessing its unsettling performance.
After he left, the vacant chair began to taunt me with
all the things he hadn’t said – “You coward! There isn’t a single insult in the
world that you haven’t swallowed. Look at you! Your paper thin skin is
perforated with every single moment you’ve let pass you by. There is no escape
from the stitches of time, the needle punctures you at the very points you’d
like to avoid. If you don’t stop writing now, you never will but I can tell you
for sure, no matter how much ink and paper you waste with your vacuous
outpourings, this is one hell you will never be able to write your way out of.”
What else could I expect after what I’d done… His
version of the story would probably mean what I’d done to him. My version would point to what I’d
done to her. A third version, quite possibly
the truest one, would simply just state what I’d done… At any rate, it was all
about what I had done. I had done something
that I find hard to believe even now but strangely enough, I know that it’s probably
what came naturally to me at the time. I don’t know myself too well and have
fumbled through life and relationships for a large part of my existence,
but if I had to apply my limited understanding it would be clear that it was,
in fact, something that only I would have done.
So there I sat on that late afternoon, at the dark
coloured faux wood table against a glass front in a coffee shop with orange
walls. I cracked my knuckles as I watched the specks of dust dance wildly in
the steady stream of sunlight filtering in. They moved recklessly about yet
remained contained within that space, as though bound by a magnetic force
field. It struck me how much it mirrored our lives… His, mine, hers, and what
could have been ours. We moved around aimlessly and without rhythm, only to merge
at intervals and then retreat but never ever leaving our shared orbit. I
wondered if the fallout of what I had done meant that we no longer existed like
we used to. Or were we all still frozen in time? There was only one way to find
out, and that was the road that would never see the soles of my feet. I picked
up my pen and continued writing. This time, the coffee cup beside me lay empty
with just the dark brown stains against its walls and the remnants of a once
strong brew squatting at the bottom.
Unfinished
Post script: Never
recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places.
– From the movie Inception.
2 comments:
I read it a number of times before I thought I was qualified to comment on it. This one flows seamlessly and I could see myself sitting on another table in that coffee shop with orange walls.
Loved the imagery and the single chain within.. Waiting for more on this.
Just a question though - why were you writing in green ink and not blue or red or black?
Himanshu, I'm glad you like it but truth be told, I'm actually terrified of finishing this story.
Btw, this one is 100% fiction and the narrator is not me (though I can understand why you would think it is). Not sure why I have her writing in green ink... I guess I was just reminded of a time long ago when I used green ink to write in a diary simply because I'd run out of black and it was the only one at hand :)
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