A Chance Encounter
Part 1
It was a beautiful evening. But Mitali was in no mood to appreciate it. She had a very long and stressful day at work. She wanted to rush home, take a nice warm bath, order some pizza, and settle down on her couch with one of her favorite romantic movies. This was her thought of the perfect ending to a day. The traffic was unforgiving, and the weather pleasant, so instead of taking a cab, she started walking towards her apartment. It would take her almost an hour to reach home this way, but she needed some time for herself, to clear her mind. The setting sun made the city look lovely. The cool breeze had already started relaxing her, and she started thinking of the day she first came to the city, as a tourist. It was 10 years ago, and she would have never imagined one day she would be living in this city, which everyone called the city of dreams. One her way was a famous and expensive bakery, which she now frequented. But when she first came to the city, she only stood outside and gazed. She did not have enough money to buy even the cheapest product. This was her first solo trip, and she fell in love with the liveliness of the city.
She decided to grab some muffins from the bakery, they would complement the already unhealthy pizza. I had a bad day, she thought to herself, as an excuse for all the calories she was planning to put in. While she was paying the bill, she stared out of the window, with thoughts that don’t have any shape, but they are still there. A young girl stopped outside the store. Her backpack gave her the distinctive tourist look. She was wearing a jeans that was clearly not from the women’s section, and was a little too long for her, with a checkers shirt, that again, was not from the women’s section. She had a cap on her head, although the sun was almost down. Mitali looked at her in a glimpse and turned back to finish her payment. She started walking out of the store, but could not resist herself from taking one more look at the manly clothed tourist girl. Something about her intrigued Mitali. She felt similar, in a very distinctive way. That was weird, because that girl looked way younger than Mitali, and Mitali could not think of one situation where she would have met a girl like her. Although Mitali had to proceed the other way, she started walking towards the girl. She wanted to take a closer look. Something in her clicked, and she tapped the girl’s shoulder.
“Excuse me”, she called the girl. “Hi, do I know you by any chance?”
The girl, Maggie, removed her cap, which looked like a gesture of paying respect to the well dressed corporate looking lady in front of her, but was only to get a clearer view.
“Umm, I don’t think so”, said Maggie, utterly confused. She took a long look at the women who had asked the question. She was wearing a grey high waist pencil skirt and a white blouse with frills in the middle. Her straight hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail that added extra elegance to her look. With her black heels, she was just a little taller than Maggie.
A few seconds went by while both kept staring at each other.
“Oh my god, Maggie?”, she exclaimed.
“Umm, yeah, but how do you know my name?” Now Maggie was a bit scared. She was all alone, for the first time, and she had no idea who this lady was.
“Oh my god, oh my god this is not possible. This is just not possible. How could this be possible. No no, this is just a dream, that’s all”, Mitali kept saying to herself.
“Hey, hey lady, calm down a bit, will you? It looks like you are having a panic attack or something. Are you alright? What’s the big deal?”
“Maggie, it’s me. Mitali. This sounds so crazy. I don’t know how this is possible.” Mitali was still short of breath.
“Let’s sit down, Mitali”, Maggie said.
They sat down at the chairs outside the bakery.
This is the first part of a two part series. Stay tuned for the next part.
