Time Pass

The café on the corner of Church Street wasn’t much to look at. A faded red awning, a flickering neon sign that read “Café Mocha,” and wobbly tables that had seen better days. But it had the one thing that mattered: time. Time to kill, time to waste, time to pass.

Riya had stumbled into the café to escape the July sun. Her day, like most lately, was unplanned and dull. College was out for the summer, her friends had disappeared into internships or exotic vacations, and she had nothing but time and a barely charged phone to keep her company.

She ordered a cold coffee and took the corner seat by the window, watching people pass. She didn’t expect to meet anyone interesting. People rarely looked up from their screens anymore. But then someone did.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice asked.

Riya looked up to find a guy, probably her age, tall with a bemused smile and a book in his hand.

“Nope,” she said, gesturing toward the chair opposite her. “Go ahead. Just passing time.”

He nodded and sat down, opening his book but not reading it. After a few moments, he glanced up and said, “So, what’s your reason?”

“For what?”

“For being here. Random café, middle of the day. No laptop, no deadlines. Just vibes.”

Riya chuckled. “Escaping the sun. Killing time. That’s it.”

He smiled. “Same. I come here when I want to disappear without actually disappearing.”

Riya raised an eyebrow. “That’s oddly poetic for someone drinking overpriced coffee.”

They both laughed. Introductions followed — his name was Arjun, a literature student from a different college nearby. Soon, the conversation flowed: books they hadn’t finished, movies that made them cry, the absurdity of adulthood creeping in too fast.

Neither of them checked their phones. Hours passed unnoticed, and the café’s playlist looped twice before they realized it had gotten dark outside.

“We should probably leave before they kick us out,” Riya said, reluctant to break the spell.

“Yeah,” Arjun replied, standing up slowly. “This was nice. Unexpectedly nice.”

“Time pass,” she said, with a grin.

He smiled. “The good kind.”

They didn’t exchange numbers. No social media handles. No promises. Just a warm goodbye and the silent acknowledgment that this wasn’t meant to last. And yet, something lingered.

A week later, Riya returned to the café. Not because she expected to see Arjun, but because the memory of that afternoon stayed with her like a favorite tune. She brought a book this time and a half-dead journal she hadn’t touched in months.

He wasn’t there. But she wrote anyway — a page about the strange comfort of talking to a stranger, about how people sometimes show up just when you need them the most, even if only briefly.

Days turned into weeks. Summer drifted lazily by. She met other people, had other conversations, but none had the easy rhythm of that one. Still, life moved on, as it always does.

One afternoon in late August, Riya returned again. It was the last week before her classes resumed. She didn’t expect anything. She just liked the light that came through the café window at 4 PM.

And there he was. Same table. Same book.

This time, he looked up first.

“I was hoping you’d show up,” Arjun said.

She smiled. “I wasn’t.”

“But here you are.”

“Here I am,” she echoed.

They sat again, like before. No awkwardness, no pressure to define what this was. They talked, they laughed, and when it was time to leave, Arjun stood up and said, “Maybe next time we don’t leave it to chance?”

Riya paused. “Next time,” she said, pulling a pen from her bag and scribbling her number on a napkin.

He took it like it was something precious. And maybe, in that moment, it was.

Epilogue:

Sometimes, the people we meet during our most mundane moments leave the most memorable marks. Not because they were meant to stay forever, but because they arrived when we least expected them—and exactly when we needed them.

"Time pass," Riya once said, casually. But sometimes, in passing time, you stumble upon something — or someone — worth remembering.