Three Men in a Café

Special Edition

Season’s greetings, friends!

Earlier this year, Amrita and I had worked on a crossover issue (her idea), where we exchanged prompts and wrote an essay in each other’s newsletters. You can must check out the essay she wrote for that exercise here, and also subscribe to her marvelous newsletter: Learning To Be Happy.

The year-end seemed like an apposite time to re-share my contribution to the essay-exchange. Some of you may have read this already, but for those who haven’t, I’m sure you’ll agree that Amrita’s prompt was delightful — perhaps reading this will encourage you to write your own interpretation.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

---

The three of us fidgeted in our chairs, trying to avoid looking at each other. We picked up our respective cups, took sips, and yelped as the too-hot coffee scalded our tongues – all in perfect unison. I kicked the leg of the table a few times and cleared my throat to allay the uncomfortable silence. As I waited for my Pourover to stop identifying as lava, I peered into the mug steaming in front of the guy on my left.

‘So, you’re drinking a cappuccino?’

He nodded with a shy smile. His laptop bag lay slung across the back of his chair and his phone would light up every few minutes. He was clearly making an effort to ignore the notifications, to restrict himself to quick, sidelong glances.

‘Enjoy it while you can, buddy,’ I muttered. ‘Lactose intolerance is right around the corner.’

The man on my right addressed me with a frown.

‘You’re not supposed to say that. Please stick to the rules.’

There are some people who assume – wrongly, more often than not – that being older is the same as being wiser. This man could have been the President of their association. He had a self-satisfied way about him and it was beginning to piss me off. Besides, there was something about his appearance that had rattled me when I first saw him. I had refrained from questioning him about it, out of politeness, but now I decided to do away with niceties.

‘Why are you bald?’

He looked quite offended.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…why are you bald? What happened?’

Image source

His ears turned red. With a practiced fluency, he began reciting a response he must have repeated hundreds of times.

‘Firstly, I am not bald. It’s just a small balding spot – an altogether different thing from being completely bald. Secondly, it is rather inappropriate for you to be commenting about the way I look..’

I had no patience for this tripe.

‘Oh, shut up! You look like a boiled potato! How could you let this happen? I have been consulting a dermatologist for months. I have been popping half a dozen pills and applying all sorts of lotions. I have spent ridiculous sums of money on hair treatment solely to ensure that my head does not look…’, I pointed at his shining pate, reflecting the warm glow of the café’s downlights, ‘…like this.’

He glared at me for a few seconds, then shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

‘The treatment helped you…us….for a couple of years. But it could not stop that which was inevitable.’ His face reflected a profound sadness as he ran a hand over his barren scalp.

‘You’re saying in ten years I’ll be bald no matter what I do now?’ I asked, my voice cracking in grief.

He reached out, a little awkwardly, and patted my hand.

Image source

The guy on my left had been gawking at us during this exchange. When he spoke now, his voice had an awful squeaky timbre. (It is always disorienting to hear a recording of your own voice, isn’t it? I should have known that listening to your past – or future – self speaking would be no different.)

‘I…we… will go bald?’

‘Yes. And you’re just as responsible’, I barked at him. ‘Maybe if you had not waited ten years to start the treatment, we would never have lost our hair.’

Past-Me looked crestfallen and Future-Me started tutting.

‘Don’t take your anger out on him,’ he admonished. ‘We are all in this together.’

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. Suddenly, a thought struck me and I looked at Future-Me with renewed interest.

‘Okay, forget this bald business. I have a much more important question. Have we published any books?’

Future-Me pursed his lips while Past-Me gazed at us in amazement, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. Eventually, he got the words out.

‘You… We.. are writing? We are writers? Writing books?’

I didn’t remember being so dim. I spoke to him in a slow, deliberate manner, as I would to a child – which, as a matter of fact, he was.

‘Well, not exactly, no. I have not written any books. Yet. But I hope to. So, I am curious to know if I have managed to do that in the next ten years.’

Both of us looked at Future-Me in silent expectation. He squirmed in his chair for a bit before responding.

‘Look, I tried explaining this to you. I cannot tell you what happens in the future. It will create a causal loop. This is precisely what the bootstrap..’

‘Yes, yes,’ I cut in, ‘I know about the bootstrap paradox. If a piece of information travels back in time to cause itself, then it has no apparent point of origin. We’ve watched Dark, remember? Come now. You don’t have to give me the details. Just blink to signal the number of books I’ve managed to write… Don’t just stare at me, man… Why aren’t you blinking?... Oh my god, I have not written any books in ten years!?’

‘I can neither confirm nor deny that,’ Future-Me primly declared.

Image source

‘If you guys are so busy writing,’ Past-Me piped up, his face slowly breaking into a wide grin, ‘does it mean I stopped working at a law firm? Did I start earning a living from writing? Should I quit my job!?’

‘No!’ Future-Me and I both exclaimed.

Past-Me shook his head and left the table, saying he needed some dessert to make sense of what was going on. The two of us watched him as he stood in front of the frosted display case and looked at the blueberry cheesecake we used to love. We drank our coffees – the black, bitter brew that had made Past-Me wince when he’d taken a sip – and I furtively studied my companion. His face had more lines than I remembered from the mirror earlier that morning and the backs of his hands had started crinkling. This transformation of skin into parchment was familiar to me – I had seen it happen to my parents – but it still made me flinch. And was that a roll of fat under his chin? Did I stop running?

‘I have to say I’m very disappointed in you,’ said Future-Me suddenly, still looking at Past-Me talking to the barista. After a brief pause, he turned to face me. ‘In all this time, you’ve asked me about your hair and your writing and your books. But you never thought to question me about your family or your friends. Don’t you want to know if they are alive and well, if the people who love you are still a part of your life? Is there nothing you want to know about the state of the world? About society and what, if anything, has changed? Are writing books and not turning bald all you care about? Are you really this self-absorbed?’

He looked steadily at me and when I said nothing, he sighed.

‘I think I’m done here. Goodbye.’

When Past-Me returned to the table and offered me a bite of his cheesecake, I refused. I can’t remember when I stopped liking them. Sometimes you change in ways you do not even realise.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Past-Me mumbled. I nodded and waited as he struggled to articulate his query. ‘Are you…are we… happy?’

For the first time that evening, I paid attention to the scrawny boy – in a formal shirt two sizes too big for him – sitting in front of me. He had put his fork down and was cracking his knuckles, something I always do when I am anxious. In the decade to come, the grey clouds of despair that he can sense hovering in the distance will sail closer. They will consume him and leave him exhausted. There will be many illnesses – of mind and of body – and a once-in-a-century pandemic to battle. From never having had stitches, he will go to having his spine cut open by a surgeon. He will keep running on the corporate treadmill; clocking up promotions and jogging past conventional milestones, always wondering if this was all life had to offer. Work will overwhelm him and drive him to the edge of ruin. Some friendships will fade, while others will grow deeper. And, he will meet the person with whom he will share the rest of his life.

I smiled at him with genuine warmth. ‘Yes,’ I replied, picking up a fork and digging into the cheesecake. ‘We are happy.’

---

The prompt: You, yourself from ten years ago, and yourself from ten years in the future, walk into a bar.