Food Court - The Confession

In all this time she had given me the cold shoulder but I supressed my anger and hid my shame, I walked into the carriage and sat down opposite her. She looked uncomfortable but then I looked totally uncomfortable in my own skin. people piled into the train, 630pm time to go home, its not my train I am here to get something off my chest, its now or never probably she will start talking on her mobile phone, get up and walk away shout for the security guards to hual me away, I must take these risks if I am to say my peice.

And so I start it as casual as I can: "What time is it?" I ask, making eye contact proper for the first time. Its 6.27 I say looking at my watch as she stares back but does not answer. "Its 6.27" I repeat. "And can you tell me what day it is?" I continue my monologue. She is like Mona Lisa she has a poker face that even the gods of fate cant deconstruct. So I play it coy. The train begins to move. I notice the freckles on her pale Punjabi cheeks. "Its Friday." I answer my own question but she hasnt got up and walked off so I continue. "And do you know what month it is?" I ask. She replies "yes of course", her answer is smug and arrogant. As she says her first words, she turns her head to look out the window. I take the opportunity to look around us, no one is staring at us thats good. I continue and in a playful manner I ask: Well we both know the answer that its May and its may 30. Does that mean tomorrow is June?" She looks back at me. She looks at me with some level of comfortable relaxedness to her body language. I count on my knuckles Jan Feb March April..."No May has 31 days." "Its tomorrow, tomorrow is the last day" she volunteers. So I smile and I continue: "I started work at Morrocco back in November, November 26. Now its May. I worked at Morrocco and the cake shop for seven months. So I worked there for 7 months now, as you and everyone else knows I have quit. And now Im going to tell you a secret." She looks into my eyes, her forhead frowns. "Back in February I was offered another job. A flying job." The train is noisy, "$60 per hour, $60," I repeat, "$60 per hour while im in the air. And I said No! I went to an interview I sat at a table and spoke to five men for 1 and a half hours and the next day they phoned and said how would I like the job! And I said I didnt know and Id have to talk it over with my girlfriend, but really I dont have a girlfriend. I didnt want to leave Morrocco or the cake shop." She is listening. "So I stayed as you know." I pause and look at her more and there is tension building and I proceed: "They offered me $60 per hour. Id work maybe 35 hours a week and earn $50 000 per year. But I said no to $60 per hour so I could stay at the cake shop." She looks bored and interested at the same time. Im building up to my point Im trying to focus so I dont faulter or stumble on my way. I must make this point my life depends on it. "And how much do you get at the shop?" She doesnt understand. "At the cake shop, How much do you earn per hour?" She responds with a look that says Im not going to answer. Well I got $17.81 per hour" I say, "And I know Mary got 15.80 and you and her are both on foriegn working Visas in my opinion as you havent told me either way, but Id guess you are on 15.80."

I look to her eyes and see surprise register on her face. Maybe I guessed right. Now her attitude is becomming more social, treating me less like a criminal. This so far is the longest Ive ever communicated to her. The train is making a din. She is holding her phone, she glances down at it and then looks up at me and says "Where will you work now can you fly, thats very good" This string of observations and a question seem like a timid first step into a potential connection, but then she adds "My husband will call me, he will call maybe very soon."

I smile and raise my eyebrows and I continue: "He is a lucky man. I hope he appreciates you." She doesnt understand what ive said but she smiles. "I hope he understands how lucky he is." Then I stop smiling and I get serious again. "Listen Gulab. I was offered to fly and get a good salary, but I said no and I chose to stay, I chose 'cup or cone', 'waffle or plain cone', I chose 'lettuce tomato onion and garlic sauce'." I list all the standard phrases we say to customers ad nauseum. She understands this and she looks entertained. But still im lost in the woods. "I chose to stay because I wanted to have a conversation with you, because I wanted to talk to you, I stayed because I wanted to see you and speak to you and talk to you everyday. Thats true and thats why. But in all those seven months, you wouldnt even speak to me, you always turn your back you act like im a bad guy." Shes just looking at me like shes listening, "I worked there for seven months and I was unable to speak to you for more than ten minutes in total!" You know how it was, everytime id speak to you you would just walk away or ignore me. Even in a work related matter you would sometimes not talk to me!" I look pissed off, I am upset and Im saying it true. She is frowning like ive offended her, but I dont give a damn its a mask of hers and Im going to continue. "In seven months you spoke to me barely ten minutes! You always spoke to John, and Enrique even about non work related things but to me you were so rude so bad so cruel. Everyone could see this, even Pia used to joke around that you were the super bitch to me."

She scrunches up her eyes, frownes and fires off a shot "What?" She assualts me with her standard line."What you mean?" She knows perfectly well, but when chicks dont like you they tend to be evasive.

But I know she dont give a damn I know Im just another stupid guy, I know I nothing special, but still I didnt deserve to have my heart smashed and thrown on the pavement. She could have at least not ignored me. Thats not too much to ask!

"I must be a real bad guy huh? Whats so bad about me? Am I so bad? I that bad that you wont speak to me? Am I that scary, that threatening, that dangerous that you wont speak to me!? Do I smell bad, do I say the wrong thing do I look at you the wrong way?, Am I so terrible that you cannot speak to me?" Im sitting erect Im Standing tall so to speak, Im getting my dignity back - my dignity its coming back from her - the black hole that sucked it all out of me over those long agonising days of tension wonder and gut wrenching cruelty. "Am I so rude to you? Am I so rude that you wouldnt talk to me, so ugly so stupid so evil that you wouldnt talk to me? You treated me like I was a criminal. You treated me like I was a criminal. and all I wanted was to talk to you so I put up with this rubbish for half a year of my life, just in the hope in the stupid hope that you'd change your attitude. What a waste! What a waste of my time!" Just then the train has stopped and some people move into the carriage and I am not willing to speak so candidly infront of strangers and in public, but Ive said my peice and Im spent and I feel empowered that she has had to endure the blame from me for this tradgedy and now it is I who looks out the window and the ball is in her court. The train goes along, I glance at her she has been looking at me as I look out the window, shes looking at my big lanky head my podgy jawline my acne scars my red complexion my wrinkled forhead my slicked back hair, my greasy nose. She couldnt love me, but the moral dilemma has for a brief moment graced her conciousness. Should she give me false comfort or should she just look to her own interests as per usual. I return my gaze to her. She is processing this mentally. For a moment she looks guilty, but then she moves on and with a blink of the eyes and a sitting up straight she looks further on down the carriage and I see she has already forgotten me. I know this is how it is and I accept it. I look at my watch and say: "My stop is the next stop." she quickly looks at me she doesnt know what to do or say, and niether do I so I just look at her my eyes so sad my expression so sincere, my will so unbendable, my grief so obvious. But her Mona Lisa poker face is on and its obvious that whatever internal emotional state she is in is not connected to the facial presentation that she has switched on by default. She couldnt be that heartless in the prescence of me - I who looks like I have just heard princess Diana is dead. She couldnt be that heartless. But they say love is blind and maybe she truly doesnt care about my torment. Maybe she doesnt notice it but shed care if she could see it? No Impossible! She can see it thats 100% certain. But wheather she cares is the question. Either she cares but she hides it well, or she actually doesnt care.

The train slows (I intend to get off and get on the same line going back to the city) Maybe she doesnt care? Maybe Ive fallen in love with a bitch...

Her small face her plump cheeks her big eyes. Her truly gigantic tits pushing up her coat. She is used to men's attention, Im just another man: maybe she takes me and my obsession with her for granted? Maybe her awareness of herself as a sex object for so many years since early teen dawn, has made her desensitised to the pain of longing that she must arouse by default by her appearance alone, in mens' hearts she makes an impression, she takes it as the natural state of her existance -she like the battle hardened soldier who has grown callous to war-suffering, she no longer feels the need to comfort those men who suffer from her beauty, for these men are every man she meets. Her beauty is her power. My passion is my instinct. They say desire can never be permanently relieved, but I know if I could just have her Id die a happy man. But its not to be. She who has so much, chooses to give nothing and I like a starving peasant go my way and deal with the pain in my unconsolable heart.

The train slows, Im looking at her shes looking at me, I cant bring myself to smile, it dawns on me that I must look scary to her, I look away but shes still staring at me. I look back and raise my eyebrows up then down to kind of say "well here we are then." and then I get up and turn and walk back to the door and turn again and I see shes staring at me this whole time and I gaze back at her and then I slip out the door and im there on the platform and the train whirls away and that is that. I would have been better off to have never met her.