Eluding Memory

Chapter 5

TW: physical violence and sexual harassment

It felt like a scene straight out of a comedy-of-errors movie. There was a large puddle of water across the room and smaller ones on all the tables except ours. Everybody's food had been soaked in the spray of the fountain water, and people were refusing to touch them anymore. Our table, however, was entirely dry, save for a few droplets that I had spilt while drinking juice earlier. Even the spray of water that had hit my face had not ricocheted onto the table. My face had almost entirely dried already. What was remaining of the appetisers was still crispy, save for the fries that had already lost most of their crispness before I ate the samosa. It was like there had been a waterproof shield around our table.

I heard my teacher exclaim and turned to look at her. Scratch what I thought earlier; the shield had only covered the food and me. She, on the other hand, had been entirely soaked. Her hair was dripping onto her clothes as she looked warily around the room. The cool breeze that had been fanning us earlier had turned into a strong and chilly gust. The gust was cold enough to make me feel uncomfortable, even though I was dry. She was shivering, so I picked up my jacket and draped it on her shoulders. My jacket was dry and warm, and she smiled at me in response.

I heard an angry shout from across the room and turned in the direction. A customer was yelling at the staff members who were trying to clear up all the water. He was berating them for their irresponsibility and lack of professionalism; how the fountain suddenly going berserk was the mistake of the staff was beyond my understanding. The staff members were profusely apologising and even offering to give him a discount, but the man still kept shouting at them. I felt bad for the employees and was wondering if I should step in. That was when my eyes were drawn to a female employee. She looked young, and she was trying to wipe the table with an already soaked rag. She accidentally splashed a few drops of water back onto the angry customer, which threw him into a fit of rage. He slammed his fists down on the table and directed his yells at her.

She seemed terrified and immediately apologised to him. She said she would run back and get a dry rag, but another employee informed her that all of the rags had been soaked too. The angry customer demanded of her to clean it with her shirt if she had to. The restaurant, which had been filled with low chatter earlier, suddenly went silent. All eyes were on the man and the girl, who was nearly in tears. The manager quickly stepped in and kept trying to get the man to calm down, but he wouldn't budge. He got menacingly close to the girl when a spray of water hit him right in the face.

The water didn't come from the fountain. It wasn't accidentally splashed from the table. It came from my glass. I had run over to their table, somehow not slipping on the still wet floor. I had barely missed launching the glass along with the water at his face. He turned to me, looking shocked. Before I could say anything, he charged towards me and grabbed the top of my shirt. His loud voice was talking so rapidly that I didn't understand a word of what he said. All I understood was that he was angry, but I couldn't take my mind off the relieved look on the girl's face when he turned away from her. I turned to look at her. She was still wide-eyed, but she didn't look as scared anymore. I felt somewhat comforted that he wasn't yelling at her anymore. I didn't even register the man shaking my shoulder and his shouts for me to look at him. All I could focus on was the girl's face. She was looking at him. Suddenly, she looked at me and said something. It took me a second to realise she warned me to look out. A second that was enough for him to yank my face towards him and land a punch on the side of my face.

I clutched my face in disbelief, my attention fully on the man now. I tried to speak, to yell at him, but my throat refused to let out a single sound. My hands were trembling, and a shooting pain ran up my head. He was still screaming, but my ears were ringing, and I couldn't make out what he was saying. My chest felt heavy, and I felt like I could hear my heart racing. It didn't help that he still hadn't let go of my shirt. I tried to push his hands away, but my trembling hands couldn't even dislodge a single finger of his. His face was blurry in my vision, but I could roughly make out his features, including his dark handlebar moustache. It looked exactly like the one the man on the trip had. That man had also pulled at my shirt when I asked him for directions. My breath quickened as the memory came flooding back. The fountain water also came flooding back onto the man.

The fountain had turned back on in full force. The force of the water was enough to push the man away a few feet, along with me, as he had held onto my shirt tight enough to pull me with him. However, just before he slammed into the floor, the fabric of my shirt tore away in his hands. The lights immediately went out, and something whooshed across the room and landed on my upper body. Something that was soft and fluffy. Was this someone's jacket?

The lights switched back on just as quickly as they had turned off. I looked down to see that a shawl had draped itself around me. The man was in a puddle on the ground, his mouth still moving as he struggled to get up. My ears stopped ringing. When I couldn't hear his screaming, I assumed that I couldn't hear anything, until the girl's timid voice piped up to ask if I was okay. I looked around, seeing a lot of shocked faces and one smiling face. The last belonged to my teacher, who was beaming from ear to ear as she came over to me. She said that the shawl was hers and came to me when I needed it as my jacket went to her. She had placed it on the metal frame near our table, and a sudden gust of wind had jostled it out of there and blown it all the way over to me.

She was appreciating me for standing up for the girl when the man started speaking again. I apologised for throwing water at him and demanded he apologise to the employees too, especially the girl. He was livid and managed to get to his feet. He stalked over to me menacingly, despite the employees requesting him to stay back. They weren't quick enough to stop him from reaching me and grabbing my arm. My feet felt frozen in place, and I couldn't stop him as he tried to pull off the shawl. All of a sudden, I felt something crawling on my foot and involuntarily jerked my leg. In the process, I managed to kick his shin and land my foot right on his ankle. He let go of me and screamed in pain, hopping on his other foot.

He was then taken out of the restaurant by a group of people, employees and customers included. The girl rushed over to me to check if I was alright. She gave me a grateful smile as she ushered me over to our table, my teacher in tow as well. She sighed as my teacher mentioned that there was now a bigger puddle of water for the girl to mop up. I remembered the time I had slipped on a rainy day in school and my classmates had laughed at me. My cheeks heated up, and I glared at the water puddle. A torrent of hot wind suddenly blew in, and the puddle disappeared in a matter of seconds. In fact, all of the tables were dry now. Even the rag that had been dropped by the girl had returned to its presumably original colour of light blue. The restaurant had also returned to its original state, with dry furniture, pleasant lights, and the faint sound of music in the background.

My teacher and I went to the restroom, where I returned her shawl and she returned my jacket. We then went back to our meal, ordering the main course now. The restaurant gave us a free dessert, which I tried to split with my teacher. She said she didn't want dessert and that I should have all of it. I tried to convince her again, but she just simply picked up a spoon of the pastry and placed it into my mouth. The pastry was so delicious, and I quickly polished it off. Before the last few bites, I asked my teacher again if she was sure she didn't want it. She said she was sure and sat smiling as she looked at me. When the bill came, she insisted she would pay. When an employee showed her the digital bill on his phone, her eyes went wide. I ran over to see that the bill was exorbitantly high. I had checked out the prices before coming to the restaurant, so I was surprised that the bill was so high.

I asked to check the items on the order, and the waiter handed over his phone. My eyes raced down the list, finding no item that we hadn't ordered, and yet the total was so high. The service tax wasn't that high either, so what happened? I thought I had missed something, so I went back and checked each item slowly. Everything was correct, and this time when I got to the total, the total had changed to a more reasonable amount. The manager called out to the employee and told him to reload the page as there was a network issue. When he did, my teacher took the phone from him and saw the reasonable total too. Her shoulders relaxed, and she fished out her wallet and paid the bill. We chatted outside the restaurant for a few minutes and then went our own ways after promising to catch up again soon.