The Keepsake.

A dusty summer afternoon. His head was inclined sideways, his scant stubble catching the tired sunlight. Gold and red. Like the mahogany table his tissue rested on, the ink on it still wet. A deep azure. We were never to speak, him and I. Regulars at that forgotten, quaint cafe. He always scribbled on those pieces of tissue, smiling to himself at some private joke, balling them up, aiming at the wastepaper basket on his way out. "We daydream too much, such cheap corruption. All our banal brain is capable of doing is modifying reality." He missed often. I was curious.

That day I stayed till past midnight, working on my 16th century theatre assignment. He kept a brown paperbag on the table, for 6 hours. Every few minutes, he would peek in, grin absently, nod a little and get back to whatever deep lyric he was working on. Whatever deep lyric he would throw away, again. Over the last few months, I'd developed the unconscious habit of flashing interested, intrigued glances at him from the corner of my eye, every few hours. We were comrades. We were both escaping the reality our brain could only modify.

After downing his 50 somethingth cup of espresso, his hand inched closer to that curious bag. He seemed to hesitate, fought a mental battle, lost, and gave into the temptation again. He looked in. That familiar hue of subdued glee seemed to paint his face, before he guiltily wiped the expression off his face. I wanted to give up all pretense of indifference, to go upto his table, pull out a chair and demand to share his fascination. I didn't. Our tacit code of brotherhood was too precious to be violated by even awkward hellos, and such an overt acknowledgment would absolutely shatter it.

The evening passed on. Growing frustration on my part, the same absent joy on his. I was struggling to dissect Restoration Comedy, the multitude of cups on his table grew in number with each passing hour. At some point, he nonchalantly reached over for the paperbag. My pen stopped mid-sentence, his established routine for that night was far from getting old. This time, he flattened the paper, and worked his pen into great swishes all over it. Anxious crossing. More scribbling. This, he followed by pulling out a weathered LP and balling up the paperbag. With one swift, disinterested motion of his wrist, what once held a world of attraction, now lay in a languishing, inconspicuous mess by the dustbin. He left the cafe, humming to himself.

I still have that paperbag, the years have deepened the creases on it, the ink on it is beginning to fade. It smells like parchment and coffee beans and decaying wood, like an Englishman's old piano. A relic.

The shy ink reads: "We're strangers and lovers, poets and brothers.
We're actors in someone's play, we're characters in a book someone is reading out to a drowsy child.
We will but be a hazy memory when this night dissolves into dawn.

Isn't that a relief?"