13th March felt very normal.
The sky was its usual blue and the world?
It seemed rather ugly.
I was waiting for my coffee at CCD while pretending to work on my laptop, as expected from all CCDians.
What wasn’t expected however was her walking in a few minutes later. Now, I should tell you, I have faced the wrath of love once before to even think about it in the optimistic sense ever again, let alone love at first sight. Why must you fall in love when it only leads to everything falling apart? What even is the point? It is because of this little insight that my heart’s reaction to her presence was something I simply did not see coming. Kid you not, when our eyes met and she marched in my direction, I was at a loss of words and my thoughts were fumbled but perhaps I was able to mask these conflicting emotions.
Listen closely now, she wasn’t supposed to stop at my table and sit down in front of me. I wasn’t supposed to forget the art of speaking for a good 10 seconds. She wasn’t supposed to laugh the way she did because oh my god. Turns out, she was the stranger I was meeting that day with my dearest friend who had forgotten to mention that little detail to me (what a punk).
She also wasn’t supposed to leave so soon.
We could only talk for 5 minutes. 300 seconds. The person who said time is relative was a genius because in ‘just’ those 5 minutes, everything in my life started to fall back together. Talking to her was like, if I am to get poetic, sitting on one of the sandy beaches of Mumbai while sipping chai and simply looking at the sunset. It was refreshing, new and everything I had ever wanted. She swept over me like poetry- lightly at first but so deeply later that I forgot my name for a while. Though she left the café soon after, she had clearly forgotten to leave my thoughts. me.
I haven’t seen her since.
My mom often wonders out loud why CCD has suddenly become my favorite spot. On a few occasions, she even comments on my improved fashion sense- “Now now, aren’t you dressed too nicely for someone who’s going to the neighbourhood cafe just to type random words on their laptop and drink coffee?”.
Me? I sigh and wish I could go back to the 13th day of March because it was anything but normal.
The sky was such a lovely shade of blue and the world?
She was absolutely breathtaking.
