The long sigh

"Oh thank you my darling" said the gentleman in his hoarse, yet strangely calming voice. 

I involuntarily let out a long sigh that lasted a few good seconds.

I looked up slowly and furtively and took in the scene. He must have been in his fifties. The lady who joined him at his table had brought him a cup of coffee along with her cup of tea. 

A simple gesture, I thought as I reluctantly dragged my eyes away from the couple. That is something I do everyday, more than once. In fact, something like this would be one of the least laborious things I do every day. I am expected to do a whole lot more than bring over a cup of coffee that someone else had made. 

Yet, I have never ever been thanked like this in my entire life. His words had a musical quality to them. It seemed to me that he had sung it to her, not simply said the words of thanks.

Thank you my darling, he had said. 

To be called darling by someone who matters to you. What a privilege. Or may it seemed like a privilege only to the common observer, and not so for this lady. She may have been given this lovely attention by her people everyday. It might even be something she takes for granted. 

Yet, the man does not seem like the kind of person who grants anyone anything so easily. Perhaps not even when he was a child. It is hard to imagine him as a child, but i try. 

In my imagination, he is five or six years old. he is seated at the breakfast table with his mother. If he graces her with his attention, his mother would have surely placed her coffee down at the table and turned to him, giving him all her attention. "What is it, my darling?" she would say. 

"Would you like a piece of toast?"

She would then proceed to pop in a slice of bread into the toaster. She would choose a good shaped slice and would not choose the crusty piece. She would wait for it to pop up as she sips her coffee calmly. She would not start eating her sausage in the middle of this, because she is still making the little man's toast. She would not want it to grow cold before she can apply butter on it. 

Or maybe she already had a piece of toast on her plate, which was untouched and it had butter applied on it evenly, all over it. She would have given that to him, so he can have his toast right-away instead of waiting.

But if there was no perfect toast on her plate, she would be doing exactly this - waiting for his toast to pop out of the toaster. As it does, she would pick it out nimbly and apply butter to it carefully. Bit by bit, smoothing it out, reaching all the corners, covering them evenly and then she would present him with the nice toast, which he would eat, after thanking her. 

That is the kind of child he must have been, this gentleman who thanked his lady so kindly and musically as she brought him a cup of coffee that someone else made.