Emma's Story. Part 2. Chapter 5.

 I pulled a chair and positioned it  between the chairs of Emma and Charles as we all sat around the table. Emma now sat down and looked at me as I fumbled for words and  simultaneously tried to guess her mood. I made a feeble attempt not to look grim.. 

Emma understood. "Will you be leaving for India?" She asked, not suddenly but unceremoniously.

I said," Yes.. "  And I glanced at Charles. His eyes dilated. He was not ready to reconcile with the idea of parting so soon.. In the meantime Emma got up quietly and went to the counter. I saw her coming back with the tray of coffee and sandwiches. 

While she was at the counter I asked Charles, "Any new quiz for me today?" He fished out a sketchbook from his schoolbag. He had drawn three figures, a tall man, and the other two, a skinny girl holding a book aloft, and a boy , his mouth wide open, in a laughter perhaps, dancing, throwing his hands up. Behind them were drawn horizontal, wavy lines which was most likely the sea, and vertical lines which were like the tall masts of boats. 

"What is this? I mean who are they?" I asked. "Guess",  he said, looking minutely at his own creation.  You have to answer", he said, giving me a challenging look. I pretended not to have understood. He said, "This is Emma and this is me." 

"And who is the third figure?" I asked. And I was really puzzled. "This is the quiz. You have to answer", he said.

 I pulled a blank face and said, " I give up!!!" I knew very well that was what he wanted to hear. He pouted his mouth and nodded his head up and down. Then looked at me and giggled. Then said triumphantly, " That is you!". 

  

 Emma's Story Part 2. Chapter 4. 

The girl at the counter was watching me as I started walking towards the counter and gave me a cordial smile as I was about to pay the bill. She said politely, "I buy the coffee and the toast for you sir. The bill is on me." I looked at her with a question mark. She said, " Emma and her aunt have been my friends . I have known them for a long time. They went to school rather early today. You just missed them>" To avoid any further embarrassment to me she clarified, "I was there at the counter when you last met them. Can I help sir?"

This filled me with confidence and I said, "It was a chance meeting. And I liked them. My stay in Vancouver will end shortly and I will go back to India where I come from. I would like to say hello to them before I go."

She said, " You will definitely see them if you come here again around five in the evening. That's the time when they drop by every evening."

When I reached the coffee shop Emma and Charles were waiting. Emma was sitting with her back towards the door. I found Charles looking fixedly at the road . He wasn't fidgety but rather calm which was unlike Charles.He nudged Emma but she did not look in my direction. I approached their table and she got up rather deferentially. That too was unlike Emma. Both had been silently brooding over the last meeting when Emma had suddenly withdrawn and walked away with Charles in tow. I could see the sense of misgiving writ large on Charles's face. He suddenly seemed to have changed over the last two days. A misgiving crossed my mind too. Did they regret that they had let me know them more intimately than they should have. 

Emma broke the ice." I am sorry you waited long expecting to see us in the morning." She said tentatively to start the conversation.

Emma's Story Part2. Chapter3

 The next day, after quickly transacting the business at the bank I looked at the watch. It was rather early to expect Emma and Charles as yet. But not to leave it to chance I decided to wait at the coffee shop. The sky was bright; it wasn't likely to rain. I took a seat close to the entrance . I ordered stuff that would keep me engaged at least for the next half an hour. 

I was looking attentively at the road outside until the first batch of school children appeared on the scene.. Their laughter drifted towards me on the breeze but Emma and Charles weren't among them. The sky that was bright some time ago was now cloudy and gray. As the time passed slowly I was getting restless with anxiety. I was feeling a bit awkward also sitting alone and having no idea as to how long I would be able to stay there idling away perhaps hours at a stretch. And I could not bury my head in a book pretending t read because My guests might pass that way and we would both miss each other. Everything seemed to be in danger of going wrong, the weather, the time, the day and my unreasonable longing to see them as if my life depended on that meeting. A chance acquaintance that happened to take place in some vacant hours, and if someone were to foresee the effect so deep I would not have given credence to it. 

Another group of children was coming and the augury was made by their playful kidding and laughter. I eagerly scanned their faces but could find Emma and Charles. I began to feel lost on the high sea now with nothing to see on the horizon. Where was I going to look for them except for this road and this coffee shop as my radar. Everything was perhaps to end as hastily and abruptly as it had begun. The flow of children walking to their school had stopped by now. I looked at the watch. I had spent half an hour already. It was not justifiable to prolong my presence at the coffee-shop beyond the next ten minutes.And if at all I chanced to meet them as I started walking back home they would be found in a tearing hurry to reach school. And did I wait here for them just to have a glimpse of them ? Honestly not. 

I decided to end the waiting and looked up finally giving up my long and steady vigilant watch over the road that was to bring Emma and Charles within my sight. As I stood up feeling into my pocket for the wallet I saw the lady at the shop counter watching me with curious eyes. It seemed she had noted my two earlier meetings with Emma and Charles earlier. and perhaps had guessed that I was waiting for them.

To be continued

A Day In The Life of a Rose

 THE HEART OF THE ROSE

Nothing is forever

and the rose

in the heart of it knows.

God then smiles upon

the knowing heart of the Rose.

And that's the reason why

the Rose smiles back at the God in his sky.

A day in the life of a Rose

is a lifetime that comes and goes.

Sushama Karnik.

 Faces behind the glass panels

staring at the snow or rain.
Children sticking their nose , snubbed against the glass,
and in their eyes the reflections
of sounds, the vistas of the world they imagine out of the reach,
and the longing that says "when shall I break out
into the world out there/"
At such moments the are just about to break the shell.
The growing pains when the body wants to know
the strange being inside, who is calling forth,
and they do not know who it is that was housed in the body,
waking up to the wonders of the miracles which the body is.

fawzi hejazi

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