The Unexpected Coffee Date

Up the road I was walking, minding my own business, humming a few songs, chugging along.

Ok, now I’m not one for civic cleanliness, but I try not to let go the habits taught by my dear mother and enforced by an ex-girlfriend. I try and do my bit for the society and its cleanliness, when I’m in my right mind. But as they say “vinaash kaaley vipreet buddhi” (when you near your end, your brain doesn’t work as well as it should). When your time is wrong all goes wrong.

Not having slept the entire night before, I was walking in a semi-asleep mode, chewing on gum to keep myself awake. (How lame, as if chewing on gum would keep me awake. I even know of people who can sleep doing stuff that keeps most people awake*assignments*, you dirty mind). Now, just like my boring life, the chewing gum had lost its juice, when I preferred to throw it out of my mouth in one perfect and beautiful projectile motion that would shame my class twelfth physics teacher. 

Proud of myself I kept walking.

What happened next, may seem like scene from the Fast and Furious (10^th part- year 2022), a slick black Mercedes SLK 200 Kompressor came up on my right at around 80 kmph, did a 540 degree swivel, and stopped just metres away from me. My jaw dropped open, and out came a girl, one so pretty that Kareena Kapoor and Edward Cullen seemed to be the donors for her genes.(Do I have the support of you twilight fans now?)

When my blood decided to come back to flowing into my head, I asked, “What do you do and how do u do it, to own a car like that?”

She stared at me with an expressionless face, just when the passenger’s side door opened, and out came a guy, twice my size and four times my age. He looked at the windscreen, and back at me. He appeared angry.

“It must be her father, how can something like THAT produce something so beautiful?” I muttered under my breath, and contemplated on how beautiful her mother must be to compensate for whatever homo sapien she had there to call a father.

“You think you’re a stud of some kind? Pick that chewing gum off of my windscreen right away.” He demanded.

“I don’t pick up things I just threw”, I responded trying to sound cool. The girl smiled. Whether out of  sympathy or out of empathy, I wouldn’t know.

“You’re picking it up or I’ll make sure the teeth you’re smiling with, are ground to powder right before my eyes. And stop checking out her legs.”

“Sir you want to resort to low life deeds in front of your own daughter? What would she think of her old man?”

“She is not my daughter. And I am younger than you and I can kick the butts of tens like you. I am God.”

I looked at the girl. I had to take a shot, she was so damn pretty. I said “Does God need a few pills? I 

have few friends who can fix him, his head and his you-know-what. We can discuss that over a cup of coffee if you like.”

She smiled.

I had scored. Or had I?

“Come on Amrit, let’s leave this kid alone”, she said to the old man.

“Yes UNCLE, go run off with your daughter. She wants you to be safe.”

He kept quiet and in one sudden motion took out what looked like a .32 Beretta from its holster, and aimed it at me.

“Holy Fuck”, I screamed.

I wanted to remain calm. That’s how it should work. That’s how I could find a solution out of this, but my mind wouldn’t budge. All these years of solving equations, topping in school, having a great brain, would go waste.

“I want to get out of this alive.” I said to myself, but I didn’t know how.

Suddenly it struck me.

I had a phone. What better time for it to be of any good?

“Sir, I getting a call, please stay calm and just let me talk to my mom once. After that you can get back to shooting me”

 “Okay, go ahead kid. But u make one wrong move, I shoot you in the head. I’m just trying to teach you a lesson here. Don’t act over smart.”

I took out my phone, held it in a perfectly vertical position to photograph him, making it appear I was trying to reject a call.

I heard a gun fire.

Off went my phone to the ground, a hole through the place, the apple sign use to be.

“I know how phone cameras work, kiddo. You’re too smart. Aren’t you?  Too bad you have to keep them in an exact vertical position to take a photo. Can’t I see through that?

“No sir, I was just checking whose call it was. Just making sure it wasn’t the Police”

“And I would agree to that why?”

“Sir because I don’t work for the FBI. I’m just a college going kid, who values his own life.”

 

“Stop with that crap.”

“Now, take the Lord’s name. Any last wishes?”

“Can I kiss your daughter?”

She smiled once more.

He frowned.

Another gunshot.

Have I been shot. My heart came to my lungs. I blacked out. The ground I hit was hard.

I woke up to a pretty girl sprinkling water over my face.

“You okay”?

I came back to my senses.

“Yeah, I guess so. Is this heaven?”

“No silly. I just shot my manager in the arm, he’s bleeding. Let’s take him to the hospital He is one crazy fellow. Takes my security too seriously. Anyway post that, if you don’t take me out on that coffee date, you’re getting one bullet too.” She smiled. I hoped she was kidding. But I wouldn’t know.

And that was how I got my first coffee date with a woman, who is now the face of a million ad campaigns.

That’s how life is.

This is my entry for a contest organised by KFC. Find it here.