The Table Across Mine
Hi… I am Ayaan. You probably wouldn't be surprised if I told you that strange things happen around me quite often. I'm not saying I'm particularly lucky or unlucky. I just seem to notice things. Last Sunday was one of those days. I was sitting in a café, working on a freelance project. My laptop was open, a few lines of code staring back at me. And then, completely unrelated to what I was doing, I remembered something from a few years ago. I was at a friend's house when his family had invited another family over. A boy's family had come to meet his sister. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be there. But somehow, I ended up staying. And then I witnessed one of those wonderfully awkward family meetings. The greetings. The forced smiles. The irrelevant questions. The silence between answers. Everyone trying to behave normally while being painfully aware that this wasn't a normal meeting at all. The boy sat there. My friend's sister sat there. T...
