Priorities...

It was a Friday evening and she was heading home, while the rest of the office was going out for drinks. She knew he’d be waiting and to him there was no difference between a Friday and any other day. A once strapping and dashing man, he was now no more than just a vegetable, a lean one at that. His skin barely stretched enough to cover his bones, frail, weak and pleasantly unaware. Yet she knew he understood things and still had feelings, so the last thing she wanted was to disappoint him.

When she reached home, he was waiting for her in the balcony with his slippers on and ready to go. While he could barely lift himself up from the chair, he still insisted on wearing slippers whenever he had to go out of the house. She rushed upstairs to leave her things and gave him a quick hug before wheeling him out of the house. It was a gorgeous summer evening with more people than usual at the park nearby. As she carted him around the park there were friendly faces that said hello to him, faces who knew him for decades, knew the man he used to be and knew him as he was now. Yet to him, they were all strangers. He would ask each time about them  and she would tell him every time about who they were and of how he knew each one of them.

She wheeled him over to their usual park bench and as she sat there, gently took his hands in hers and massaged his fingers and arms. She did the same thing ever since she was a child and it was something he came to expect whenever he was with her, a small service for a man who taught her everything she knew. With no parents to raise her, he was pretty much everything she had. At eighty five, he knew his time would come soon, and so did she. But until then, every moment that she could spend with him was all she ever wanted. She knew she could be out making friends, finding love and living it up. But nothing made her happier than just sitting by his side, knowing how much he looked forward to this time, everyday. 

Waiting...

She stood there, her gaze fallen as she answered her next customer, almost as if he didn't exist to her. She was just doing her job, pouring out the next cuppa as she waited, seventh day in a row. She was fast losing hope now. It had been seven days since that day at the movies.

They were two very different people leading two very different lives. He was over forty, a History professor who was married for fifteen years with a twelve year old son. She was twenty two, a Literature grad, who worked at her aunt's coffee shop. She had been doing this for the last seven years and began doing it to earn some extra cash. Soon it became her way of earning her tuition and now she just continued to support her aging aunt with the coffee business. In all her seven years, she never once went without a chirpy hello or a vibrant, 'have a great day!' to every single customer she served. This past week though, she could barely get by with a 'what can I get you?' as she sniffed back tears.

She thought back to the first day they'd met just about a month ago. He walked into the coffee shop, soaking wet, with a broken umbrella and dripped all over her grandmother's carpet. 'Excuse me...umbrella bags are outside. Please don't bring dripping umbrellas into the store', she yelled out sternly across the crowd, yet with a polite fake smile. He took no notice and seemed pre-occupied with dusting off the leaves from his coat. This angered her even more, and she went straight to him to pick a quarrel right there in front of everyone. The minute he looked up at her though, he apologised in the nicest way for messing up her little joint. Her gaze softened and she could tell he meant it and for some strange reason she found his apology endearing. Her intention to forge a battle that day was put to rest and eventually they got chatting so much that she ended up having coffee with him, while her aunt took care of the customers. 

It began then and he came to the coffee shop every day after that, some days he even had breakfast with her before he headed to the university. After two weeks of this, they decided to go to the movies one day together. It was their first appearance together outside of the coffee shop. Little did he know though, that his son was going to be there as well with his friends, on the same night at the same cinema. Somehow being seen by his son this way made him realise that this was probably going where it shouldn’t. He apologised to her and left abruptly that night, and she hadn’t seen him since. She considered going to the university to find him, but somehow thought it would be best to wait for him, when he’s ready, if ever he will be...