The Beautiful Gray — Part 2
Continuation of : https://medium.com/the-2-am-cafe/the-beautiful-grey-part-a-193046bd76fa
He is driving down the two lane road, feeling exhausted, after a long day of work. Yet his mood has been oscillating between subdued road rage and happy laughter. His wife hums songs beside him and time and again alters the lyrics to be extraordinarily naughty. Then he interjects with his own versions. A little game they do to pass the time in crawling traffic.
While they slowly move forward, amidst the small interludes when she searches for the next song, he quietly regards the scenery before him. Rain drops steadily hits the windscreen, the evening seems a bit darker than usual. The lights of the cafes that lie on either side of the road filters in and paints the road in a yellow shine.
He witnesses the sombre crowd slouched under their umbrellas of black and silver, dancing awkwardly around the puddles on the pavement. He being in his cozy car, feels, guiltily, a little bit better. He wonders, briefly; do we tend to displace our own misery by witnessing others? unintentionally even? Or, just realize in a scale, relatively to others, ours might just not as bad? Ahh… what’s the point? he thinks, relatively better or not, something that makes you sad, is something that makes you sad.
As he scans the cafe windows with this sombre realization, he suddenly spots a familiar face. A dear friend and colleague in the field, his black fluffy hair unmistakable, and the sharp features visible a mile away! Ha! What are the odds he thinks! To witness someone he had hardly met up in awhile. He could clearly see the slight happy smile on his face and the intense stare of his. Curious, he follows the friends gaze to the opposite side of the road, only to witness another familiar face plastering her forehead on the glass!! She from another group of friends back from childhood. He tries to remember if the two or even the groups ever met each other. Pretty sure of himself that those two never have met before during childhood he amusingly looks at his wife and shows his friends stare.
“Wait! Isn’t that??…. and Isn’t that!???”.. they both break into laughter.
“Do you think they know each other?” The wife asks in excitement! “I don’t think so” he replies, with a mischievous smile across his face. “My! look at that love struck stare!!”, she can’t nearly contain her excitement.
“I have an idea….” he says.
While she calmly enjoys the warmth spreading both across her palm and on her tongue, sipping the warm chocolate, she meanders into a thought. She wonders with puzzlement about this unbothered solitude she enjoys. A solitude only occasionally stabbed and twisted by utter loneliness. It is something remarkable to not run into people she knows, every time she goes out. As this thought filters through her mind, from the corner of her eye, she sees this lady. A familiar lady. And she can sense her looking at her with a warm smile. Then it hits her, its her! The one who she witnessed a few years ago smiling happily besides her once secret true love as they walked together at their wedding. Her childhood crushes wife, Viki.
As Viki approaches, a bright smile escapes her as she says “Hi”! As if meeting a long unheard of friend! Viki comes and gives a tight hug. “It has been ages!!”, Viki says. “Guess what Mavan is just across the street! He ran into a friend, must be right behind me”.
The warmth of the cup seems to suddenly be replaced by a more exciting feeling for her. Just a fleeting second, as she hears her childhood crushes name. She checks her self unconsciously. Then she stops her self just about time. It’s something she had moved on from. Something that should be silly for her. She still remembers the feeling she had in her throat when he first brought “her” to a gathering. How she excused her self early from the event to go drink alone and be lonely. Eventually she just let it go as she had never did anything to what she held in her heart. She thought the wedding would be the last time she sees them, but here we are.
As of on queue, Mavan in a orange brown shirt and beige pants walks in, slightly put on than what she remembered him back then. Yet, with that jovial step! As she stares past Viki at Mavan, a well trained alarm sets off in her head. That smile, mischievous smile he was so famous for was lighting a small red light at the corner of her mind. It would light so for anyone who knew him since childhood. It seems a rather detached bored but hansom man was following him in. She could feel the awkward shy stare he was giving her. More alarm bells….
