This is the eighth part of a novella “The Confession”.
Read the rest of the novella here
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Given that he couldn’t go back to sleep that night, David took an early morning walk the next morning. Midway through his walk, he heard Priya calling out to him from behind and noticed that she was walking just a few paces behind him. Given that it was around 6 AM in the morning and Arya Gowder road was slowly starting to stir with activity with the milk vendors opening up their shops, the newspaper boys sitting on their designated corners of the footpath and sorting out their delivery runs, the old uncles and aunties of the area walking towards the two-three temples that dotted the road already having bathed and dressed themselves befitting of the temple visit.
Given last night’s disturbing dream of Priya accosting him on the beach, David wasn’t a 100% comfortable with her presence. In fact, he had decided to take this walk only to clear his head of the dream and her presence only added to his continuously increasing confused state of mind. But he was fully aware of the fact that walking away from her or ignoring her would be extraordinarily rude, more so given that she was Ram’s sister and their parents had been extremely kind and generous in having him over and helping him in this delicate condition of his over the last couple of days.
When she caught up with him and started keeping pace with him, she bid him a reasonably cheery ‘Good morning David, tell you what, let’s go to our usual coffee joint. Let me take you there.’ And she steered his right forearm gently towards a right turn from the main road onto a smaller side street. Without protesting, he let her lead him to another side street and into a small roadside eatery cum hotel which was already abuzz with some people sitting and drinking their early morning cups of coffee and tea.
Walking right to the very corner of the eatery, Priya sat herself down on one of the benches and motioned David to sit on the opposite side of the table facing her. Almost immediately, a teenager of around 16-17 yrs came up to them “Enna Priya akka, ippo ellam indha pakkam varudhe illey!” (What Priya akka, you don’t come this side at all nowadays!)
“David saar ungala Coffee Day mattum thaan date kku kootikuttu povara?” he laughed (Does David sir take you only to Coffee Day on dates?)
Priya just smiled and asked the boy to bring two coffees. David understood enough Tamil and was quite surprised by the statement that boy had just made. Maybe there was more to that dream than he remembered right now.
Priya just kept quiet, all the while looking at David’s face. When the coffee did arrive, Priya told him “Appa and Amma are taking Ram to the bank today. They have some work to be done and it will take them a good two-three hours to finish it up as they are also going over to Appa’s auditor office while Amma has some shopping in T Nagar to be done.”
“I am not going with them, and I don’t want you also to go. I have something to talk to you about.”
Not allowing David to respond, she quietly finished her coffee and started walking out of the eatery. Not wanting to be lost in the maze of side streets around Arya Gowder road, David also left the rest of his coffee on the table and followed her back home. They didn’t exchange even one word on the walk back home.
And just like Priya said, it was around 10 in the morning when Ram came up to David and asked him if he wanted to tag along with him and his parents. David declined as he was really interested in what Priya had to talk to him about. Ram then left with his parents in their car, he was their designated driver for the day.
Once they left, Priya came up to David and asked him to get ready within the next five minutes as she was taking him somewhere ‘special’.
In the next ten minutes, David was sitting behind her on her Scooty Pep+ and she was happily weaving through traffic on the Saidapet road. Not knowing the destination, David decided that he might as well take in the sights and sounds to try and see if anything came back to him. Given that the only sights and sounds that he got were Metro pillars under construction and Chennai MTC buses spewing smoke whenever they overtook them, he resigned himself to letting Priya take over his day.
The finally reached the road adjoining Elliot’s Beach in Besant Nagar and the sheer sight of the coastline stirred familiar feelings within David. She gradually slowed down the two-wheeler and came to a complete stop almost directly opposite the famous Karl Schmidt Memorial on the beach. And when David got a clear view of the memorial from this place, he clearly knew that this was something that he had seen loads of time before.
Priya parked the vehicle, and then took David into a rooftop café which had a crystal clear view of almost the entire beach and the memorial itself. She waited until the waiters cleared one particular table and placed the chairs in a specific manner, and then she ensured that he sat on the chair facing the beach. She then ordered two chocolate lattes and two black forest pastries.
Disturbed by the fact that the entire setting seemed so familiar but yet he could not remember why, David asked her “You told me that you had something to tell me. What is it about?”
And then Priya did something that would remain firmly etched in his memory forever.
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This novella started off with the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2 where the first seven parts dealt with the seven prompts for the Festival.
This is the eighth post in a novella “The Confession” that I am writing.
Read the rest of the novella here