A Cafeteria Fairytale!

Before I begin….

Sometimes in life we come across strange experiences. Ordinary things assume extraordinary proportions touched by the magic wand of love. Let us share such  a short and sweet fairytale…

A Cafeteria Fairytale.



I looked at the white lettering on the dark blue signboard _ C  A  F  E  T  E  R  I  A.
From hereon the task was simple. All I had to do was to look for an empty seat at some dark corner of this worn out place, unpack my lunch and have it in one go.

When I was six years old, I had an attack of jaundice. Ever since then my mother had imposed a curfew on any foreign food. I am not allowed to have anything but home-cooked nutritious dishes. I shouldn’t complain though, my mother is a real good cook. Still when I was in middle school it was o.k. to bring lunch from home. But here in high school, sometimes you feel like an outsider. You share a table with some of your classmates and they eat burgers and French-fries and you eat rice. Everyday. You can’t even have a coke. Beside I’m really an introvert. My life is restricted in a triangle with home, school and television forming the three vertices. I really am not good at talking with people. So this was the only way out. While the rest of my classmates know that this nerdy weird girl spends her lunch at the library, she finds herself at the old canteen, hiding from the thing she fears most_ talking to people.

The school has a new canteen. This “ C A F E T E R I A.” is its predecessor. It’s an old place. The walls with its damp and worn out distemper, the old wooden furniture, the wooden windows with almost opaque glass panes, the dim lights, the constantly crackling fan overhead, it’s a perfect blend of sights and sounds to make anyone yawn.

Its one o clock, the new canteen is bustling with traffic, but this old place is empty but for two or three old teachers sitting scattered, head burried in newspaper, a very gruesome looking man managing the counter, an old butler shuttling from customer to customer and me sitting at the corner of the room staring at the wall. . Who know why they have still kept this place open. Good thing for me, at least I have some solitude. I am not good at socializing. I unpacked my lunch and only put a spoon full of rice in my mouth when I heard a voice from behind,

“Hi, mind if I sit down?”

Before I could even look behind, I found a boy sitting in front of me and smiling.

“Sure”. I gave a clumsy reply.

He unpacked the burger on his plate and took a bite, without once taking his eyes of me.
I looked at him hesitatingly and immediately looking down at the table started having my
Lunch. It’s weird, how can you just stare at a stranger like that, and that to a girl.

“I won’t eat you up if you look at me you know”

Great! Now he is giving me suggestions! Still I looked up at him. He was smiling.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Nothing. Guess I am jealous”

“Jealous! Of what?”

He smiled a bit more and took his eyes of me.

“I see you’re lucky to have home made lunch .I have been forging on these junk food  for I don’t know how long. No one cooks for me.”

“Why not?”

“Who will? I live with my mom and she’s too busy working and looking after herself. Its either bread or pizza or Chinese or the take away center for me…”

This time I smiled.
“You should be the one complaining? I’ve never tasted anything but for my mom’s cooking. And she cant cook Chinese, or Pizza, or French fries or…”

The list would be endless; finally after all these years I had found someone to listen to my tragic story. But my audience interrupted.

“Can I have some of that?”

He said pointing at my lunch.

“Sure, why not.”


And thus began…something. A strange kind of friendship with a complete stranger. Everyday at lunch for fifteen minutes we would meet at the same corner table and we would both share my lunch. My mother was really impressed with my improved appetite, her conclusion from the bigger lunch box I now took with me to school. He was the same grade as me, but from a different section. The school was really big; his class was in a separate building. We were total opposites of one another. He was popular in his class, had a lot of friends. The day we first met, he had had a fight with some of them and came to the cafeteria for some peace and quiet. Now he came their everyday for sharing lunch. At least that’s what he said. But somehow I didn’t feel like an outsider with him. I could talk very well; we talked about a lot of things. Everyday I would eagerly wait for the clock to strike one. With that one o clock bell my fifteen minutes of fairytale began. Maybe for the first time I found a friend.

Somehow it didn’t matter that I had no one to talk to in class, or sit at the end row, or I had to live under the restricted life my parent’s allowed me to live. I had something no one had. Fifteen minutes of fantasy.

Everything was going fine, when one fine morning I woke up with my head heavy, my nose red and my whole body aching. Flu. It’s a yearly visit, which meant a week of school. Usually it was a mini-vacation I enjoyed, but this time I was afraid. For one week I would have to stay away from the one person in the world who never called me nosey, who accepted all my stupidity with a smile, who really wanted to be my friend all for such a small fee _ sharing my lunch with him. This time fate was even crueler, the flu was particularly severe and that one-week ordeal left me so weak I had to take ten more days off just to recuperate. Every day as the clock struck one a hammer beat inside my chest. This feeling was so different from anything I had felt earlier. It was so painful and yet so special. I had to do something about it. So with seven days of holiday still remaining I made a strange request to my mom_ I wanted to learn how to cook.

After five days of practice, numerous trials and errors, I returned back to school armed with a medical certificate, half a month worth of homework, and a neatly packed container full of chestnut rice. As the clock struck one I found myself at the corner table.
A bit afraid that he might not turn out at all. But five minutes of waiting he came.

“Hey look who’s back What’s for lunch?”

That’s the only thing he said and started unpacking the lunch I gave him. As he tasted the first spoon-full of rice I put in shyly,

“I cooked this”

He looked up at me and smiled.

“You’re not as good as your mom”

Of course I wasn’t. But at least he could give some words of encouragement. For the first time in all these months, I couldn’t find anything to talk to him about. He just kept eating quietly.

Didn’t he miss me? Not even a bit? Why did I miss him so much? God knows who gave me the courage but I spat the words out,

“Did you miss me?”

He looked at me, and replied with his mouth full,

“I missed the lunch”

That’s it? He missed the lunch? That was all that mattered?

I nearly hissed,

“How could you be like this? How could you be this cruel? This clueless?”

He stopped eating, evidently surprised at the outburst.

“What’s wrong?”

His reply made me even madder. I lost control.

“Each and every day, I missed you so much, and to you the only thing that mattered was the lunch? At the end of the day all I am is a caterer aren’t I? Why cant you see that…that I…that I like you?”

When I finished tears were rolling down my cheek He stared at me with a dumb expression. And again went back to eating.

“I like you’r cooking”

Their! That was his innocent reply.

A cold but stern voice came out of me,

“Go. Leave the box right there and don’t come back. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore”


I shut my eyes trying to fight the tears. As I opened them he was gone. The lid loosely covered the box. My fairytale had ended. I took out a spoon from my bag and dug out the little chestnut rice left in the box. Once I put it I my mouth I felt something exploded.
WHAT IS THIS? I had never tasted something this horrible before. As if it was a mixture of sawdust, soap, sand, cobwebs, kerosene and what not…then I remembered something. I was so nervous about the whole cooking thing, I never tasted what I had prepared this morning. One bite was enough to make me vomit out everything I have ever eaten, how did he manage to eat this much?

.

Outside it was overcast. A slight drizzle started. I sat at the empty cafeteria looking outside through the old window. Two raindrops chased each other down the pane. I have learned a valuable lesson today. The most important things in life are not said, they are felt, they are understood, and they are experienced.

“I like your cooking”

The words rang through my ears like a sweet song. Will he come tomorrow? Something in my heart said he will. All of a sudden a smile touched my lips_ my fairy tale was alive, very much alive.

I gathered the lunch box and prepared to leave. I had to do a lot of things, learn how to cook chestnut rice, learn how to talk with people, learn how to….

But before anything else, I had to buy a peppermint. Sorry mom I have to break your curfew just this once, my mouth is like a battlefield…