Short Story College – Comfortably Numb
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
This story circulates around two good friends, or rather friends for choice, Ashish and Sid. A story which may have an indefinite morality over friendship, a perception of back stabbing but believe me its not so. It really wasn’t the friendship that lasted but the mere consequences, that followed which even irked some one like me to pen down the potentials of a human being, God’s favorite creation!!
Among 600 successful candidates getting admission in an Engineering College, it was also a chance for two individuals, Ashish and Sid to get themselves enrolled with the Computer Science Department. Ashish was an orthodox typical Indian (vegetarian) Brahmin for whom even petals seems to be a flesh of a flower and on the otherhand , Sid was a Catholic Christian who would need WINE as a tribute to JESUS CHRIST. Who knew that one day their paths would cross and they would become roomies, sharing each other’s thoughts, words and lessons in life.
Ashish knew Sid was a liar. A heavy hearted one with full of fantasies wrapped up with the ribbon of reality. Surely, Sid was. Sid would hurl around fake stories of his own heroic adventures, intelligence and damned things that really didn’t exist in his world. Fellow mates would swallow them because it was so fresh that the stories would sweep them into a wonderland of Sid’s own. Only Ashish knew about it as he was the only person who tolerated his friend’s features.
“Sid, you are a clumsy liar!!” Ashish bursted. “ Say’s who??” came a berserked reply. Sid would do nothing but lay stranded on his little broken bed which he wouldn’t even exchange with a new one terming that the bed was lucky for him. And Ashish used to do the daily chores like cleaning and wiping the room. But Ashish never complained because it was his own room, which he has been taking care for the last two years. But the only thing that Ashish couldn’t stop complaining about was Sid’s cold idiotic stories.
“ Come on pal, it’s just for fun. People enjoy it and they take it for real. My stories don’t do any harm to them but yes, it just makes me a li’l famous. So what’s the heck in telling?? Giant Direction Houses even have directors who work day and night to bring out ideas from their heads and they get paid for it while I do it by lying down on my coffin (bed) and I don’t ask for any financials. It’s the dawn of a new age, Ashish, and we don’t even have to pay taxes for that. Right I am, I Hope ??” was the lunatic’s favorite reply. Ashish would stop at that. Because he was destined to. Even if he hadn’t then Sid would eat up his mind with his lies.
The fourth semester results were at bay and everybody in the hostel were under the shelter of their divine GODS except Sid. Ashish’s Control Systems paper didn’t go well and he really looked perplexed the more each day. Sid knew he would get a supplementary again and thus it didn’t matter to him. The results checked in. Ashish stayed in his room that day and Sid was the one who played the part. It was superstitions that both of them had. So on every day of their results, Sid would go and look at both of their marks and would convey the same to Ashish, who remained locked in his room. Ashish had a belief that at least Sid played a good samaritan in fetching him pass marks every time.
Ashish passed again and Sid flopped. No matter what, that day Sid felt a li’l bad and cramped inside him. He felt that every time he would have a look at the results, it would be his name penned among the failures in the list. Now, a plan came into Sid’s mind, which he never knew would change their worlds completely. After seeing the results, Sid tore away their list and headed back to his room. Ashish with a mesmerizing look on his face asked “ Sid, What happened?? The results…. Are they ok?? Don’t tell me that u have failed again??”.
Sid stayed silent for a few seconds and then uttered with a heavy tone. “ Yes, I have. And you are also with me this time.”
Ashish’s senses stopped. He couldn’t think of anything but the word ‘ F-A-I-L’. It ate him that moment which made him impossible to react. What would he do? What would he tell his parents? How would they react? Ashish hurried down the corridor towards the administrative block to see his results himself. Sid, sat on the corner of his bed and was happy within himself that he has made a fool of Ashish this time.
Time passed by. It was around evening. Mist and lights within the clouds dazzled liked a lucrative theme party of the GODS. Everyone returned to their respective rooms, some happy and some morosed, but were healed by the modest words of their mates. Sid remained on his bed and Ashish never returned. Both were sublimed into time. One with failure as a cause and the other drowned himself in the morality of friendship.
Ashish did have a look at the notice board, but couldn’t find his name there. He couldn’t take hold of this feeling which resulted in a heart attack and his body lay stranded till he could be taken to the hospital.
So readers, what do you get from this story? I know you must be having a demoniac feeling for Sid. Well, to say the truth even Sid felt like that. Sid knew that he had murdered Ashish.
Today Sid is bed ridden in one of the country’s biggest asylums and is being survived by electric shocks. Sid got paid for his stories atlast.
__END__
