That Corner Table

It’s gone today. My favorite table. The only predictable thing in this unpredictable world.

That unassuming table, with its three passable chairs, used to stay put in a corner diagonally opposite the door of this cafe I visit a few times every week. My favorite table.

I even have their bloody loyalty card. Topped up with cash. Fast payments. No fuss. Just let that corner table be, I told them. Well, I didn’t exactly, but they should’ve known considering how many times I sat on those chairs and wrote from that table. It must’ve smelled of me by now.

There was something irresistible about that table. It would look at me with a longing, waiting to be used. When I wrote from it, the ideas would just flow, the din around me notwithstanding. When I needed a break, I had to just lift my eyes and look to the left. The cafe bustling with people and the road in front bursting with vehicles, enough variety for my eyes and mind. Two minutes and I was back at it. Ideas would, again, just flow.

Some days, the table would be occupied. I would sit afar, wait with bated breath, sometimes almost staring its occupants away. It’s mine—just mine, I’d signal. Like a psychopath.

Today it was gone. I walked in and my heart sank. An empty corner. A void. The cafe was still bustling and the road was still bursting, and yet there was something melancholic about it all.

What happened to that table, I asked the poker-faced waiter. It’s gone, sir. Gone to another outlet that needed it. Wait, what? Another outlet needed that particular table, which looked like every other damn table in this stupid cafe? I didn’t say it out loud but the waiter read me. Sorry, sir, he said in a tone that was either conciliatory or condescending, I couldn’t tell which.

But gone it was. Gone to never come back. It was time for me to move on. To build a relationship again from scratch. To forge a new bond. To love once more. To obsess one more time. To set myself up for another heartbreak.

That’s life, I thought. Uncertainty is the only certainty. I wiped off my imaginary tears and reached out to another table. It was the same design. The chairs looked the same too. I put my bag on one chair and sat on the one beside it. I touched the table. Same texture. I looked around. Same cafe, same road.

Everything was the same.

And yet, so different.