Cafe 24
By: Pretheesh Presannan
Tags: Short Fiction, Fiction Writing, Creative Writing, Fiction, Short Story

Cafe 24

The ripple of disturbances that haunted the writer while in the cafe.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Brian woke up from sleep and had his usual cold shower bath. It was a form of meditation for him to stand in that cold shower unflinchingly, preparing his mind for the next couple of hours while washing away the mental disturbances that usually haunt him.

He dressed up quickly and went to pick up his laptop which he had left for charging the last evening before sleep. As he unplugged the charger, the tube lights went off. It was an unusual power failure. With the help of his mobile phone light, Brian placed his laptop, charger, and a book on to his bag while feeling disturbed at the power failure.

He was a man of routine and a little break in daily routines usually disturbed him, just like the power failure. Having a routine and following it strictly was his way of coping with the unsatisfactoriness in his personal life. The relationship with his wife was not a smooth one but rather a relationship of endurance and compromises leading to a lot of friction and stress.

As he was about to leave the front door, he found his wife walking towards the door. It was unusual for her to wake up at that time. Normally Brian would lock the door and leave without disturbing her or rather disturbing him with her presence.

Maybe it was the power failure that woke her up, Brian thought. Brain left the house in his car while his wife locked the door and went back to her room.

In the car, while driving towards the cafe, he was thinking about his relationship with his wife and that he was suffering it as much as his wife equally. They were not yet ready to sort out the issues between them or even end the relationship for the peace of mind of both.

Brian put his favorite music to get him into the mood to write and ignore the unsolvable thoughts that were haunting him while driving.

It was part of his daily routine to start his novel writing at around 2 AM every day at a cafe where it was quiet and peaceful. It was easier for him to get his writing done in that cafe rather than writing from home. He normally spends 3 hours at that cafe writing.

Within a short time, he reached the cafe, the only cafe in that locality which was open even after midnight, it was the Cafe24. He found another car parked in the cafe and he looked at the car as if he had seen it somewhere else but could not quite figure out.

He stepped into the cafe and found a young man sitting at the far end of the cafe. It was the place where Brian normally sat down to write as it was perfect seating to write while occasionally enjoying the night lights and traffic signals through the glass window near that seat. Also, from that seat, he had access to the plug point in the wall where he could charge his laptop if necessary and still write.

Brian decided to take another seat facing the counter, hoping that the young man would leave in a short while. The waiter walked towards Brian. Brian ordered a coffee and took out his laptop while giving a look to the young man.

The young man was on call and Brian felt that he was probably calling his girlfriend from his body language and also worried that he would not leave sooner. Brian opened the laptop and found that it had run out of charge and realized that he forgot to turn on the switch last evening despite plugging the charger.

He closed the laptop and cursed ‘Oh, F**k’. He shook his head and then put his laptop back on to the bag. He took out a book and began to turn the pages back and forth for sometime restlessly while waiting for the young man to leave so that he could take his seat and charge his laptop and write.

While reading Brian occasionally gave a look at the young man and quickly turned his eyes back to the book. He closed the book and tapped his fingers on the table and then looked at his watch and saw the time 2:20 AM.

The waiter approached Brian with a coffee and a cake. The waiter passed the coffee to Brian and walked towards the young man to serve the cake. Brian shook his head and started to drink the coffee.

The young man noticed the distress being expressed by Brian while on the call.

He soon cut the call sending kisses to the person at the other end of the call and started to eat the cake and remaining coffee while looking out through the window glass as it just started to rain outside.

The young man thought of initiating small talk with Brian as he saw him quite disturbed.

“Hello”

Brian turned his face towards the left to look at the man

“Yes”

The young man smiled and said

“Hi, I am Steve. I was just wondering are you okay?”

”Ahh, yeah…I am Okay. Perfectly Okay”

“It is so nice here. Isn’t it? ”

”Hmm… yes it is”

Brian turned his eyes back to the book

“What is your name?”

“I am Brian.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Yes I do”

“At this time?”

“Yes, at this time”

“Oh, that’s cool. So what do you do?. If you don’t mind me asking”

“Ahh…..I work in a school”

” Oh teaching?… It is a hell of a job. Isn’t it?”

Brian shook his head while avoiding eye contact with the young man and continued reading and checked the time on his watch. It had passed 2:40 AM.

“So when do you sleep usually”

The young man kept bothering. Brian tried to ask him something quietly

“Do you mind…”

But then the young man interfered in the middle and said

“I mean it is already around 3 AM, so then at what time you go for work? And when do you sleep?”

“ I sleep after work after 5 PM in the evening and get up at around 1 AM and…”

“Oh cool. And then you come here to read?”

Brian did not further respond.

“Okay man, I am leaving. Got to reach a place and not much time to waste anymore. Please do have a good time.”

The young man stood up and started walking towards the counter.

And soon, Brian stood up and walked towards the seat where the young man was sitting so far. And took out the laptop and plugged the charger.

The young man paid the bill and stepped out of the cafe and entered his car and looked at Brian and found him engaged with his work. He sat in the car for a couple of minutes to reassure that Brian was fine and drove away.

Brian could sense that the young man was watching him from inside the car. Brian did not look at the young man but instead pretended he was unaware of him and typed, while consumed by thoughts unrelated to the novel he was writing.

The young man drove away, Brian turned his face towards the direction of the car, as it passed the traffic signal and escaped Brian’s field of vision. Brian had a strong intuition to follow the car as it passed.

But he resisted and continued to write ignoring the possibility that this very young man could be the guy whom Brian suspects of having an illicit relationship with his wife and that the young man could be heading towards Brian’s house to meet his wife during his writing hours at the cafe.

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