What keeps you up at night!!

They were both having fun. Playing in the sand. He watched them from afar, smiling, thinking to himself how lucky was to have been blessed with two great kids, Aarav and Saby, his lifelines; and alongside him, the love of his life who was looking at him with pure magic in her eyes thinking of everything they had braved to get to where they were. They had been fulfilling the dreams they had together when they were young and foolish.
"One day we will live on a small house by the beach where both our kids,!!", "wait, u have already decided that we are gonna have two kids!" they had discussed. "Like you havent already decided what we are gonna name them," she teased him and he smiled coz he actually had. And even though it took a lot of effort, it had all come to fruition. They had done it. With their two kids, they had bought a small but amazing place right by the beach where each evening they would all just relax.
This day however was gonna be different. He didnt realise when he drifted off into his dreams and she as well looking so dreamily at him didnt notice when the huge wave swept and and both Aarav and Saby got washed away. Only when she couldnt hear their laughter for a few seconds did she turn and saw that they were nowhere to be seen. They both though were close to each other and Saby could swim really well, she saw her brother in the distance swam right to him and held his hand. What she didnt know how far off they had been washed away from the shore. They could see the beach in the distance but the heavy waves pounded them down.

They screamed as hard as they could. She too screamed with horror.

He woke up to the sound of the scream, his face wet with sweat, his arms shivering and his heart pounding. He looked around and tried to breathe.
It was the familiar surrounding of his room. He was there in his house, an empty bed and nothing but memories of the past, haunting him as nightmares now. No, those dreams had never come to fruition. He had been all alone for as long as he could remember. He had trouble separating fantasy from horror from reality. Slowly it all made sense and he just sat there, sat awake through the night, like every night had been for the past 15 years.

The Stranger in the Cafe

“Its 22 years now, it is time”, he tells himself.

Packed up his life, a bag on his back, a one-way ticket to the island, he leaves everything else behind.

It was time to bring the dream they had together, to life.

3 months later, as the cafe opens up for the day, a girl walks up to him, “This place is magical!”. He smiles as he takes her and her friends’ order. “The name is really unique and…”, she stops midway as she sees the tattoo on his arm as he put down their food and drinks on the table.

“Mom, you won’t believe where I am!!” she squealed over the phone. “I sent you on that vacation Sabby, of course I know where you are!” growled the voice on the other end!! “No no, that is not what I meant, I ran into this really amazing cafe and guess who its named after, YOU!!” she exclaimed, without giving her mom a chance to guess. “Ohho!! did u really wake me up at 1 am for this?” the voice sounded grumpy. “No mommieee, that isn’t all, the guy who owns the place has so many tattoos on his arms!”she tried to say “so what Sabby, people all over the world have tattoos, even you got one on ur last bday!!” the voice on the phone started getting impatient. “ Lemme finish na maaa..this guy’s arm full of tattoos, and guess what I found among all those, my name, and and and that book’s title I told you I started reading on this trip!” she blurted out the whole sentence before her mom could cut in. “Your name?? what are u talking about?? and what book? U read so many books, which one is this now??” her mother threw all these questions at her all at once. “Yes ma, my name, in full!! And I told u the book’s title when I got it, Acceptance is salvation, what ma, u never listen to anything I say carefully!” she said in her typical squeaky voice. “ Acceptance is my only salvation!?? is that the book you are talking about??” the voice on the other end of the line suddenly sounded shocked and a bit confused! “ Yessss ma, exactly, heyyy, you do listen to me!!” the girl continued in her pampered voice. Her mom got lost in some thought and stopped listening to her. “Mom, hello, are u there? are u listening mom??yuhuuu..” she said thinking maybe the line was down. “ Ya ya I am here, guess the network dropped for a second there. Well this is a huge coincidence, but its nothing more” said her mom, trying to conceal all the thoughts she was going through!. “Enjoy your vacation Sabby and stay safe and call your brother later today, he won another competition yesterday,I will speak to you later” she ended the call. The girl got busy with her food still thinking about the crazy coincidence.

Some time later, he comes back, “ how was everything?” he asked them “ Can I get you lovely girls something else??”

“The food was just amazing and the drinks were great too, thanks a lot sir” she replied courteously. “Oh I am no sir, just call me Armaan” he smiled back and left for his counter.

Moments later, she walks up to the counter to pay the bill. “You have so many awesome tattoos.” she said, trying to strike up a conversation. “ Thanks, they all mean a great deal to me” he replied smiling yet again. “ Oh great, I was just surprised to see you have my name in those tattoos there” she replied. The smile on his face turned into surprise, “ what is your name?” She simply poked his arm where her name lay in ink. “ This sure is an interesting coincidence” he replied. “ Oh this is nothing, the bigger one is that you seem to be a hardcore fan of a book I am currently reading and also this cafe is…” she was cut in. “ Which book??” he was getting a lil intrigued. This time she pulled out the book from her bag instead of poking his arm. “ Oh ya, it was a great book, I really liked it too, the story was really interesting, specially the end.” he tried to cover up a lot of emotions. “Well obviously I can see you loved every part of it, why else would one get a book’s title tattooed permanently!?” “ And and u didn’t let me finish earlier, this place is named after my mom, now that is a whole lot of coincidences.”she rushed through the last part. “Your, your mom? this place??” He was in shock. “ Yup even I was shocked at first, crazy right??” she said in a bubbly tone. “ Ya, these sure are too many coincidences at once.” he said as he handed back her credit card, still in a state of shock.

“Well, thanks again for all the amazing ….” again she got cut off as her phone rang. She pulled it out and her brother’s name flashed on the screen. He looked at the name in disbelief. He stayed in his dazed state as she walked out while talking to her brother. He turned his arm to reveal the same name on the back.

A lone tear escaped his eye as all the memories came gushing back to him.

He picked up his phone to the notification sound of new mail.

The opening line read,“You actually finally did it”-she did remember.

“I had to keep my promises to you and myself”, read the opening line of his reply. He simply stood there and smiled.