Drinking Old Cheap Bottles Of Wine…

(This article has been inspired from the song The Script – For The First Time)

PLAY THIS WHILE YOU READ

PLAY THIS WHILE YOU READ

Water trickled down the label of the bottle of wine; it was getting warmer but he did not care, this time the wine did not matter. She did. He was just waiting for her to arrive for the date, which she did in a minute, clad in a simple green top and denim. She too had her own bottle of wine. He waited with a twinkle in his eyes till she sat and made herself comfortable, allowed her to open her bottle and pour herself a glass of the wine- ladies always first; he was meticulous about these things. He then allowed himself a pour, they smiled, raised their glasses and clinked them for a toast; it sounded like a ‘thump’, cheap glass hitting plastic… 

She spoke about her day, deliberately keeping the emails and phone calls out of the topic. He realized that her niece had grown into a beautiful year-and-a-half old girl that occupied most of her time. He found out about the latest songs she liked, some of them he hadn’t even heard but made a mental note to listen to them when he gets a chance. He heard her opine about the new movies she had seen, the way she aggressively voiced her dislike towards some of them made him smile silently.

He couldn’t help but stare into her sparkly eyes, she looked beautiful, her smile making little dimples on the cheek. But, there was a faint hint of dark circles below them, a little frizz in her hair and a speck near the brow. He ignored those, in front was his beautiful date, and that was all that mattered. He noticed she had stopped talking and was simply looking at him too with a faint smile. Afraid that she may be taking in his appearance, that sudden loss of weight, the strain-bruises, he dived into the topic he loved the most – food and his beloved industry. She learned about the new techniques of cooking, of the James Beard foundation and saw all his dreams about walking the bocuse ramp, the chef-restaurateur he envisioned himself as and many more. Her smile and her attention was inspiring and encouraging enough for him. He felt warm.

By that time the ice had melted and the conversation flowed like river that had just broken free of the dam. Random topics flew in and out – politics, horoscopes and their validity, hollywood-bollywood, space, game of thrones and all possible crap they could come up just for the sake of freezing the time they were having, locking it in the memory with the hope that this date would never end. That many such dates would be following and that it may lead to something more, something that they really wanted. Deep inside, while talking to her he just wanted to grab her, shake her by the shoulders, give her a hug tell her it wasn’t supposed to be like a first date, this was not their first date..but he held himself. Instead he smiled on, so did she because it was exactly as if they were meeting for the first time. They had spoken like they never had; simple things they had never bothered to know about each other. It was new all over again.

They cautiously approached the dreaded subject simultaneously. He told her he was happy now, much satisfied in his job and more so thankful for having one when many other’s didn’t. Her tender expressions told him she was proud of him. She never brought her situation up, he knew what that meant. All those emails had went straight to the trash, the contacts feigned busy life ignoring the big influx of pleas from freshers all over. He ventured away from putting his feet in those waters, there was no point in ruining the wonderful time they were having. She meant a lot for him as much as he meant to her, their presence in life mattered over anything else.

There was a silence for a minute…..

In that her lips curved into a really beautiful, soft, natural smile, those tiny crescent shaped dimples were prominent. That’s when he couldn’t take it anymore. He just wanted to reach out, grab her, embrace her into a big long hug and dissolve that smile into a warm kiss. He wanted to look right into those hazel eyes and tell her that he would always be there for her that he would turn the dreams to reality, pamper her like a princess because she was worth all of it. And right at that moment, an electronic sound of dripping water echoed in the room and the screen turned blue; her camera vanished and the screen carried a notification – please wait while skype tries to reconnect…

The huge round ice cube plonking into the old fashioned resonated the sound of the call drop he dreaded. It brought him out of the reverie as the rock slid across the oak bar skidding a few inches from his fingers. The bearded bartender carelessly poured the golden elixir from the black label. He took a long sip and let out a long heavy sigh. A guitar strummed somewhere in the corner playing a well scripted song. He looked at his cellphone, assumed she was sleeping since it was way too late for her, although a couple hours past midnight was sort of an early off from work for him; anyway the day was gone, the damages were done, he couldn’t take those words back. But he knew she would understand, she always did, well at-least he hoped she would. He gulped the single malt in a shot, left a tip and walked out…

Miles away she lay awake in her bed, trying to go to sleep. All day’s texts had kind of disturbed her; she knew it was just a building frustration in him that was getting vented out, but still time and distance mattered. Nothing seemed to be moving in her life yet, the hundreds of emails sent had not yielded any results and every passing day was clawing at her life making a bight summer morning look dull and miserable. Yet, she still held a head high because he was there in her life, it gave her sense of serenity and happiness. But then again, her mind wandered to the texts…

(here is the original song)