The restaurant

It was evening, after he finished his shift, the young waiter sat on a black chair made of iron and beautifully designed cushion, drinking a cup of coffee lied upon a white small plate. In the corner of the restaurant, finally he was taking a rest after the strenuous job, thinking while watching customers coming in and out; sitting; drinking; smoking; talking… things the waiter usually see every day. Yet the more he kept looking closely at each person, the more they seemed strange and pitiful to him. There was this woman of about thirty years of age; it was almost unprecedented for a decent attractive female to sit alone for hours without being intruded by a male. “Was she a widow, a divorced, or apparently a bad luck?” Wondered the young servant, the unlucky woman as he supposed, with self-pitied eyes stared occasionally at a nice-looking couple sitting placidly for about two tables beside her. Before her there was another couple laughing uproariously, looking at each other desirously, and switching between mostly French and few Arabic words. Their conversation stopped every now and then every time their large mobile phones winked with red light and tune of a newly-arrived message from either ‘what’s up’ or Facebook. When their nonsensical communication went on again, the male with his playful words and wistful eyes gazing at her deliberately-made cleavages and her red lips, stimulate her to behave uncontrollably and laugh unprovokedly. But all this noisy celebration of individualism had not attracted the attention of the unlucky woman. In fact, she was drawn in by the tranquility and the harmony of the other couple, who appeared interested but engrossed in each others' presence, hopes, and dreams. “That was absolutely a sign of a euphoric moment” thought the servant recalling his beloved one. Near the waiter, an old man seemed very comfortable behind a newspaper between his both wrinkled hands, only a few hair brushed over his half-scalp appeared above the paper. Yet his comfort had come to an end when he kept chasing away a fly that bothered him. It landed regularly on his scalp made him scratch it with his uncut nails. After a while, he found out that the fly did not understand that his head is an unwelcome territory, he folded the newspaper and with a resolute and precise calculation he hit the fly until it dropped down inside his cup of tea, “first my head and now my tea, that must be an omen, I’ve to leave this place” believed the old man, but he was too slothful to move, so he folded the paper and looked accidentally at the unlucky woman. A group of friends came in and sat close to a TV that nobody was watching. One of them, a young man with a half-shaved face, waved to the waitress and pronounced voicelessly “Wi-Fi password”, the waitress on her part read his lips and formulate numbers by her pale fingers. The group of friends had a friendly chat until they got the golden key to access to the virtual world, after that they were no longer a group, they were no longer existed. Each one of them constructed a bubble around him, with the bright luminous screen light of their phones went upwards and their faces looking downwards. “I’m certain that they wouldn’t move no matter what apocalyptic disaster might come to their way” whispered the old man to himself while he was directing his gaze toward the young men. After he succeeded with the fly he felt so motivated that he could talk to the unlucky woman though he had not approached a woman for ten years after his loyal wife had passed away. So when he stopped composing scenes of “what to say” in his mind, he collected his nerves and took the decisive step to get up and move toward her. On the way, he seemed even older with the obvious curvature of his spine, his heart was throbbing, his eyes fixed on the woman, and his hands were shaking as an earthquake. When he arrived at her table he said with a sudden smile “may I offer you a drink?”. The woman was surprised by the unexpected arrival of the ghost-like man who came soundlessly from behind. She looked at him for a moment and uttered one laconic reply “no” with regret that she wished she said yes for she was in need of someone to talk to, yet the old man knew that the quick uneasy ‘no’ was not a result of a determined decision but rather of pride. The grim set of the old man’s jaw protruded on his face for she made it difficult for him, yet he was too anxious to think of other possible ways to convince her; he went out of the restaurant disappointingly blaming his age. The unlucky woman turned out that her luck was controlled by her pride after her eyes followed the old man when he disappeared through the door.