We follow a guy entering a café with a briefcase. He almost slips at the entrance, shows an angry look at the guy cleaning the floor, and curses mutedly.
He looks around desperately, and notices quite a lot of crowd. In one corner of the café, he spots an empty table. He hurries to the table, puts his bag there and hurries back to the counter.
From his point of view, we see the counter getting closer and closer. We also see a man with his back towards us. Just then, the man turns around saying ‘thank you’.
The man is carrying a tray with coffee and snacks, and he bangs into our guy, spilling coffee all over his shirt.
“What the hell! @#$%^ Watch where you are going yaar.”
While the guy is apologizing continuously, the man curses him further. He inspects the stain once again and rushes to the restroom to clean up. While he is still wiping the stain with a wet tissue, his phone rings.
He looks at the screen, “F**k”, and answers, “Hello sir. Haan sir. Nahi sir. Woh mera lunch baaki tha sir, toh yahan ek café mein… nahi sir late nahi hoga, bas fatafat… haan sir, pakka sir… No sir, I won’t keep anyone waiting. Ok sir, bye, sir.”
Some more cursing.
Finally, it looks ok. He comes out of the restroom and rushes towards the counter. We see a girl politely offering him the menu, but he brushes it aside.
“Nahi, yeh jaane do. Ek coffee de do… aur khaane mein kya hai?” He looks at all the items displayed, and points out to a sandwich. “Woh sandwich veg hai? Ek de do. Nahi garam mat karo, aise hi de do. Nahi ketchup nahi chahiye.”
We see him constantly tapping his foot and fidgeting with his phone, looking at the time, while the girl goes to the coffee machines, and makes his coffee.
He collects the sandwich and coffee in a tray and walks towards his table.
Once there, he gobbles down the sandwich, and takes a few sips from his coffee. He again looks at his watch, and realizes he doesn’t have enough time.
“Oh shit.”
He decides to finish his coffee on the way, collects all his stuff, and walks towards the door.
He has almost exited the café, when he realizes that he has not paid for the food. He runs to the counter and says, “O suno, paise dene baaki hai. Bill de do, please. Kitna hua?”
The girl at the counter, confirms something on her screen and smiles back.
“No sir, you don’t have to pay anything.”
“Huh!?!”
“Yes sir, your food was free. In fact, we will have to pay you something.” The girl says, with a wide grin on her face.
While our man gets confused as to what’s going on, she pauses to enjoy the moment.
She speaks up after a moment. “We are celebrating our first year anniversary this week, sir. And you are our 1000th customer in this week. Because of this, you win a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakh. Congratulations, sir. Please wait a few minutes here. I will just call the manager.”
The man stands there, frozen. It takes a moment for it to sink in. And then he breaks into a big, joyous smile.
He takes a deep breath and looks around. He notices the man who had spilt coffee over him, seated at a table nearby. The man notices him too, and mouths a ‘sorry’, but our guy couldn't be angry about anything anymore. He replies with a gesture conveying, ‘That’s ok. No problem.’
A few minutes later, he steps out of the café, and notices that it is raining. He spreads his arms, and steps into the rain with his face up towards the sky.
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This story is the 3rd of 4 stories I wrote for a contest in my office.
The previous ones: 'The Proposal' and 'The Dilemma'.
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