Coffee, Anybody?

A lazy couch. Some lazy friends. And then there was me.
We were sitting in a coffee shop, sealed away from the busy world outside. Two of them were embroiled in a bitter battle to save their respective rooks and pawns. Another sat watching and actively commenting on each move. My patience level doesn’t allow me to concentrate on a game of chess, like hers does. I’d rather capture these moments on my camera, I thought. We waited for the fifth one to join us. He said he was on his way. The brown couch became a place of permanence. Were the shop people bothered with that? We did not know. We didn’t care to know. For, after a gap of eight years, when old acquaintances meet, the annoyance of a stranger working in a coffee shop is the last thing that would concern you!
One song after another, the radio belted out a lovely ambience. We ordered coffee. The game proceeded amid small talk. Other languid coffee drinkers ignored us. Nibbling on bitter coffee beans, I watched each of them. Age-defying as they seem to be, they had definitely cruised through eight years of life, without seeing me. I would have recognized them all, had I seen them in a crowd. I would have had things to talk about had I seen them decades later. I would be glad to spend yet another coffee-drinking evening with them, when time permits…
Rulers, we definitely rule!