A Forgotten Purpose

            I sat beside the café window, the same seat I have been sitting at for two years. People mistakenly believe that I sit there waiting for someone, or perhaps waiting for something to happen. And those women bickering the corner believe that I sit here because I have nothing better to do.

            Every day in the morning I sit beside the same window, sipping the same coffee, reading the same book. With the ever-fickle seasons by my side, I flip through the pages of translated text from the original Don Quixote. That ever-vigilant knight never ceased to amaze me.

            As I continued flipping through these familiar and fine-grained pages I came across a picture. Perhaps I slipped it in there without thinking, or maybe it was bookmark from long ago. Either ways, the fact that this thin three by four picture of me still existed was a surprise. I thought I had lost it so long ago, like all the other little things in my life.

           

It was the first time I came to this café, the day I first sat in this seat, and ordered this same coffee. And as I began to immerse myself in the entertaining adventures of Don Quixote the light showers of rain became snow. A few children began to gather around the windows, circles of vapor began to fill the windowpanes.

I began to read again, eventually muffling the children’s snickers.

Flash.

I’ve never seen snow with lightning before. The muffled snickering became uncontrollable laughter, and I snapped out of my reader’s daze.

“Um. Hello,” I lifted my eyes from the donning of Don Quixote’s knighthood and only to be met by the lens a busy looking camera, “can I help you?”

“Just wanted to take a picture of the person who took my seat in the café.” The young man, maybe two or three years younger than me, placed his camera on top of my book and flashed a wide smile.

I stared at the camera, its sharp and complicated form pressed onto my book, scratching its clear cover.

“Can’t you get another seat?” I said with a hint of irritation.

My eyes still concentrated on the camera that violated my peace.

“No. I like this one better,” he still smiled. What an annoying smile, I thought.

“Learn some manners will you? You’re sixteen, act like it.”

“Fine. By the way, I’m fourteen.”

I didn’t respond. There was no need to.

 

I looked at the text, the beautifully translated text telling of the stories of Don Quixote. I looked, but I was not reading. I glanced, every few minutes, at the fourteen year-old-boy. His thin frame sat perfectly poised two seats from me, holding his camera eagerly. Every few seconds his eyes would rest on the café doors, was he waiting for someone?

He left his seat and made a call from the register counter. He came back, and I pretended to read again. His seat was taken already.

The bell tolls told me that it was afternoon already, and the snow did not stop. Instead, it fell steadily, little by little. Kind of like a little kid trying to savor every sip of his soda pop. The fourteen-year-old now stood by the café doors. Whoever he was waiting for, that person was late.

 

The bells sounded again. I woke up. Was it two in the afternoon already? Someone had tapped my shoulder, and I turned to see the same fourteen-year-old boy, his camera hanging limply from the strap around his neck.

“Hello.” His earlier enthusiasm disappeared into a drone.

“Hello,” I responded, with equal enthusiasm.

“My friend couldn’t come today. I was wondering if you could let me take a few photographs of you in the snow.”

“Why would I let you do that?” The youth nowadays really are ridiculous.

“Well, if you let me take a couple of photographs of you, I won’t ever bother you about taking my seat ever again.”

“You weren’t bothering me before,” I wasn’t able to stop myself from uttering those last words.

For the next half hour he took endless snaps of me sitting in “his” seat, with coffee in front of me, and an enormous book in my lap.

“Will you stop?”

“Only if you let me take some pictures.”

“You seem to have taken enough already.”

“I have thirty more frames.”

 

I walked into the cold air. Could it have possibly been afternoon?

“Pose for me,” he said.

“Easier said than done.”

He tried directing me, but after ten snaps he only gave me a grim smile.

“I’m not a model.”

“Nobody said you were.” He began to laugh a hearty laughter, and I began to laugh as well. The cold air must have gone to my head. I wondered if I looked like a child, a child who just giggles from an untold joke, or a child who never stopped laughing.

“Last frame,” he shouted from behind the camera.

I smiled at the lens, knowing that there was a smile behind the camera as well.

 

I watched as he laid all the pictures me across the already-shoveled pavement. Each one of them developed after another. I watched as he fussed over bits of snow that invaded a bit of some pictures.

“Here.” He held out a single picture, “for you.”

It took a while for me to respond. I wasn’t sure of what to do. Grinning, I took the picture from his hands, “thank you.”

“This is the best one,” His wide smile wasn’t so annoying anymore. “I think your natural shots are great. If you ever want some professional photography of yourself, call me.” And he winked.

 

For two years I sat in the same café, and the same seat, drinking the same coffee, reading the same book. Now I hold this little picture in my hands, still sitting, still reading, still waiting. Snow began to fall again.

Author's Note

I hope I got the message through with this short story too.