Lonely Dinner Stories — 1 — The Distant Encounter

The first part of some very short episodic stories.

The Distant Encounter

While swirling a wine glass aimlessly, my mind was fixated on the wallpaper in front of me. Not that my attention was devoured by the wallpaper it self, but it was the most comfortable place to rest my eyes. The lights were dim in the restaurant. A candle in a glass flickered and warmly illuminated the table. While the taste of the wine lingered on my tongue, my thoughts were in appreciation for the quiet night. Apart from a few people outside on the patio there were no other customers inside. The discreetly hovering waiter in the corner did not bother me. I had the dim, and quiet interior all for myself.

My mind was stilled by taking everything in, devoid of analysis. Just a numb observer. As my mind registered the small photos of Paris hung across the wall, it momentarily broke the stillness. I was amused at just how faraway we are from that city.

Like a flash of lightning can jolt your attention to the sky, my mind suddenly wandered it self to an old memory of an evening, to a similarly lit restaurant, in the actual city of Paris.

At the time, two friends and I were touring Paris. On our first evening there, we walked into that restaurant. Simply because it was the closest to the hotel. While having dinner with the two wonderful ladies I was touring with, a gentlemen, a generation senior to us, excitedly walked up to our table from behind the counter. He had heard our tongue, which is not his, that excited him enough to come and introduce himself . He was not only the owner of the establishment, but also a fellow native of our land. He graciously gave us a free glass of wine each, happy to meet people from the land he had escaped long time ago.

The irony!! I wanted to laugh out loud! Realised the wallpaper of the restaurant I am staring is owned by a Frenchman living miles away from Paris, in my native land. I briefly wondered if the Frenchman also was trying to escape something or someone in his native land?

I remembered, with a smile, how baffled the gentleman from our land was, when finding that the ladies were not only single, but, traveling foreign lands with a single man who was not related to them. He could not fathom the social changes our generation and land had gone through since his flight so many decades ago. Guns had been fired with the nudge and manipulation by political leaders that spoke many tongues. Caused him to flee his home that had turned to a war zone.

Maybe he resented for awhile people who spoke my tongue, or, even those who spoke his own. Wars are very complicated. Battle lines are drawn no longer only on maps and communities, but also on an individuals’ perspectives, and values. The inevitable truth, however, was exemplified that evening. Simply, there was nothing, no matter how hard we tried, as individuals to hold a grudge against each other. We simply only had language and culture as differences that anyways are not meant to be gapped, nor, become a chasm between people. We spoke with the gentleman merrily , albeit, in the neutral language that is native for the queen across the channel.

My seat at an angle enjoyed a view unto the street with a slow moving crowd filtering in and out of the different restaurants and shops. Tourists and locals looking undecided at the choices on offer slowly walk up and down the street. In another few hours as it gets closer and closer to midnight, this lazy crowd would transform to a far more larger and vociferous one.

It occurred to me that this scene was unfathomable a few years back, as the threat of violence loomed across the island. I wondered if that gentleman visited his native home now? If he did, would he had felt like a foreigner? I wondered how far off they all saw it coming? Would we recognise the warning signs?

I wonder, how distant our encounters are with anyone.