Coffee with My Younger Selves

It was one of those cloudy afternoons when the sky couldn’t decide whether to cry or just frown. I walked into my favourite writer’s café, hoping for some silence. Wishful thinking, I know.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom was with me, just like every other book I pretend I’ll finish soon. It’s been tagging along for quite a while now. The bookmark hides its grin, knowing I’ll never finish the book.

I ordered a coffee and my all-time favourite: a slice of plum cake. My friend said she’d join me after work. So I was alone, wandering through the unpredictable landscape of my mind.

Then it hit me—what if four more people joined me for coffee? Not strangers, but versions of myself from my teens, twenties, thirties, and forties. Maybe even a few more, depending on how strong the coffee is.

So, if I ever become a published author, I already have my book title: The Four People I Met in the Coffee Shop.

Just before I slipped into my inner world, the waiter came over and politely asked if I would mind moving to another table. A group of youngsters wanted this one, it seems.

I knew a two-seater would’ve been more than enough for me. But I smiled and said, “I’m waiting for four more people.”

He looked unconvinced. By then, the youngsters were already hovering nearby, ready to conquer the space with the kind of confidence only youth can carry.

I quietly gave up the table. After all, my guests belonged to another timeline.

Then I saw them on the other side, seated at a long table by the window and the bookshelf: my younger selves.

Was I imagining things? Maybe. Maybe not. These days, I’ve stopped trying to separate dreams from daylight.

The teenager spotted me first. She wore a full skirt and blouse, typical Kerala style, with her hair neatly parted into two braids.

She was so happy to see me. Looking at my order, she asked, “Do we still like plum cakes? Or did adulthood ruin everything? And… did I cross the bridge—the entrance exam?

I smiled and pushed the slice of plum cake a little closer to her.

Next to her, the twenty-something version of me, married and with two small kids, rolled her eyes. She looked tired, a little overwhelmed.
“Are we still in tech?” she asked. “Or just busy being a mom of two?”

I laughed. A little too loudly.

The thirty-something sipped her masala chai, clearly stressed. It was written all over her face. My loud laugh had annoyed her.
“Not all of us have time. We’re busy with kids and work,” she said quietly.
“Be honest. Did we ever go to that farmhouse by the Bharathapuzha, with paddy fields around, to write the stories we dreamed of?”

I just smiled.

The forty-something looked at me over her reading glasses, calm and quiet. She had lived through Papa’s absence and juggled a few careers.
“Did we make peace with the chaos? Let go of the nine-to-five(or nine)? Survive? How are the kids?”

She looked at me as if I owed her answers. Some questions don’t need answers. I pulled out a chair next to her. I wanted to hug her. I still might.

After a few seconds, one by one, they faded away.

The plum cake girl with dreams too big, clueless about the wild terrains waiting ahead.
The mother who forgot herself for a decade.
The rebel coder who secretly wrote stories in Jupyter Notebooks.
And the confused yet confident woman who desperately wanted an escape from the rat race.

And then I was alone. Just five cups sat on the table:

• A coffee with extra sugar (teenage)
• A strong tea (twenties)
• A masala chai (thirties)
• A herbal tea she pretended to like (forties)
• And mine, a hot filter coffee

Then the café door opened again.

A woman in her sixties walked in. Her greying hair was casually knotted in a loose bun, and the deep pockets of her kurta were stuffed with pens and folded papers.

She was trying to act like a serious writer, but she couldn’t pull it off anymore. The moment she saw me, she burst into laughter for no reason at all.

“One ginger lemon honey tea,” she said dramatically. “It soothes the soul and the ego when the drafts are bad.”

I checked to see if she was limping and asked how her knees were after that surgery a decade ago. She flashed a smile and said she had gone trekking last week.

Before I could say anything more, the door creaked open again.

A woman in her seventies walked in, her saree pallu tucked in neatly. Her eyes sparkled with memories, and her smile was filled with years of laughter.

She ordered a black coffee, no sugar. “Life’s sweet enough,” she winked.

There we sat, three versions of me, sipping our chosen drinks slowly, sharing quiet smiles, saying little, but somehow understanding everything.

And then my phone buzzed. It was a video call.

“Sorry, I couldn’t make it,” said the eighty-something woman, her face lined with a few wrinkles but still bright with life.

The eighty-something continued, her voice full of spirit and enthusiasm, “I’m in Dehradun, near Ruskin Bond’s place. Attending a veteran authors’ meet. Just ten minutes to spare, but I didn’t want to miss this.”

The sixty-something said with a grin, “Ah, the hometown of your literary-world crush, was it?”

The seventy-something teased, “Oh yes, she was always prone to intellectual infatuations, never gave the slightest hint to the poor soul involved…Classic Libran!”

We raised our mugs to the screen as if it were an inside joke, and burst out laughing.

“Why the rush?” I asked.

“Doctor’s appointment in ten minutes,” the eighty-something replied, adjusting her shawl like a queen.

The sixty-something lowered her voice. “Fracture again?”

She laughed. “No, no, that was the first and last fracture. This is just the usual frozen shoulder.”

The seventy-something joined in. “Same old doc?”

She giggled and said, “Nope. My grandson is an orthopedic surgeon. He runs his own clinic now.”

Ah, God must’ve heard my prayers. Just as I was about to ask, “How many more grandkids do you have?” the call dropped.

My phone rang again. It was my friend, the one who had promised to join me for coffee!

P.S.: I changed the book title to The Seven People I Met in the Coffee Shop.