"Please Forgive Me"

 

I took a sip of hot coffee, felt a tranquil heat in my body and mind with the harsh taste of the coffee. As the night was passing the chilliness was increasing. I had been for fifteen minutes to come here to the cafe. Tonight I had to meet her. We met in this cafe every day but now we were meeting after a long time. He gave me the time at nine o'clock, but I arrived at eight-thirty. I was waiting for her very impatiently. The environment of the cafe was cheerful. The great hustle and bustle were here. People were coming and going, some were sitting with their families and friends, talking, laughing, eating, and drinking. At the back, Brian Adam's song "please forgive me" was playing which made the whole environment doleful. Normally it doesn't play here English songs but don't know why tonight there was playing the English song, perhaps someone would request it because sometimes cafe owners play the requested songs. This cafe is at the top of the hill so you can see the view of the whole city if you sit at the terrace. We used to sit here mostly so tonight too I chose this. In front of me, far beneath, lights of the houses shining like fireflies. I was seeing these electric fireflies very intensively.   That night I was also seeing these electric fireflies when I met her for the first time. She came here that night with her little sister and little brother. Both sisters seemed the same age but their brother was so young, almost eight to ten years old. I was sitting in the same seat with my pal Saad. Saad was her university fellow, when he saw her, he went to meet her at their table. Their table was on my backside so I couldn't watch them. I had been taking puffs of the cigarette calmly. The bitter taste of cigarettes made my throat caustic. I took a sip of coffee and turned my head to see my friend Saad who was still sitting at their table and talking with them.  After a while my friend came back but not alone, everyone else was with him. "Meet my friend Zain," I stood up, Saad introduced us to each other. Her name was Sarah. They sat there with us too, they told us they also used to come here mostly. Saad had been talking with them and I kept taking long drags of my favorite cigarette.  The smell of my cigarette was blended with the nice scents of both girls which they had applied. Both girls had worn the same pink colors. Sarah had tied her hair back in which she looked pretty. Her sister was also pretty; she had a strange habit whenever she spoke she blinked her both eyelids. Their little brother had worn glasses; he had been playing a game all the time on his mobile. They were talking about their university fellows. I didn't participate much in their conversation and just watched my favorite fireflies. They had been sitting there for a long time. After this, we met many times in the same cafe and at the same time, almost daily. Sometimes she would come with her sister and sometimes alone. This table was reserved for us. We had been talking for hours. Sometimes we used to pass comments about the people who were around us, someone from us whispered about a man or woman who sat next to us then we all laughed loudly. All the people turned their heads toward us suddenly, stared at us, and got busy again in their conversation. Sometimes Saad started to discuss poetry, he remembered a lot of poems so he would tell us many poems. He would start with Keats then moved towards Shelley and Wordsworth, and stopped at Robert Frost. After that, he started Urdu poetry, Ghalib's ghazals resounded loudly and sometimes he told us French poems. He used to live in France for some years so he can understand French a little bit. He told us he learned French literature from a French girl who worked with her. He was going to marry her but for some reason; he had to return to his country. Saad also used to write poems himself so he recited his poems whenever he was in his mood. But his poems were mostly incomplete he deliberately left them incomplete because he said everything in the universe is incomplete. Sarah used to argue with him a lot about this strange theory of him, but he did not convince and when he did tire he stopped conversing, took a long drag of a cigarette, and began to stare far towards the valleys. 

 

Now, I had added the breaking stars to my friends along with fireflies. Whenever I saw a breaking star in the sky I showed her, she also liked it. Then we began to make different shapes in the sky with the stars. We joined the stars and made different shapes; sometimes we made a mustache of a man and sometimes made any other shape. She shouted, " See, see, Zaini I made a nose of a woman" she lifted her finger at the sky and showed me her shape that she made with stars, after that, we laughed aloud at it. Sometimes Saad took part in our foolishness and sometimes he didn't care and just got busy taking puffs and making his incomplete poems. 

 

One day she came carrying a basket of flowers. The flowers were colorful and beautiful. She said, " These are for you Zaini, You like flowers so I plucked these especially for you from the garden." 

 

"But from which garden"? We asked her surprisingly, then she said, " I have a garden in my way, today when I was passing from there I saw around, not a single man was there so I entered the garden sneakingly and plucked these flowers. But when I returned to go back, a gardener saw me. He chased me but I ran from there." When she got silent we laughed badly. That night we teased a lot of her mischievously. She pretended fake resentment on us and went from here saying, "Now I'll not come here after today. First, you both apologize to me then I'll come back." She smiled and went. That was the last smile of her which we saw because she didn't come again.

 

I was lost in my thoughts then suddenly my friend Saad grasped my shoulder from my back, "You are still thinking that she gave you a time of nine o'clock to come here. You know very well that she cannot come; she has died for three months. Now forget her, and leave this spot, let's go anywhere else. I cannot sit here anymore." When Saad got silent, I stood up and walked behind him silently. I glanced at my friend's fireflies. I felt that their shining light had faded, the color of the white shining stars had turned yellow, we got down from the balcony, the leaves were lying dead on the ground on the lawn.

 

We came on the road and walked unintendedly in one direction, there was silence on the road, Brian Adam voice was coming behind us,

 

“Please forgive me”, … “please forgive me."