Love Short Story from College – Looking Beyond
Photo credit: imelenchon from morguefile.com
That’s the way it should be. I wonder how one can be an extrovert. I even doubt does this word really is used in its right nuance or context.
It has been since year’s man looks for someone to share his feelings. We named him “a friend”. How soft and touching this word is “friend”. Why is it so that being having a lot of friends I feel lonely? Why I want to be in solitude sometimes even being a jovial person? Is it human nature or I am not finding happiness around me? Ah! Am I not a coward who is sacred even to pen down the truth? I feel like a handicapped person who is unable to do what he aspires to.
I still remember the day when I first met “that” friend. It was a beautiful day of summer. The scorching heat of the sun was sweating everyone; hot winds were blowing as if it were to burn everything. Most of my classmates were rushing in the college building but I was still waiting for someone to appear. I didn’t felt the heat, even the hot winds appeared to be unnoticed by me. Why? That I never knew. She didn’t turn up. A kind of sadness filled me. I felt as if I am losing my breath and my eyes were wide open to look for that beautiful face. Something strange was going on in my mind. My heart beats were ringing in my ears. I started questioning myself. Oh! Please, please for God’s sake, don’t say that I was in one of the most pleasant feelings. I will not be doing justice by calling it just the usual four lettered word in English which every one of us is well aware of. But it was quite obvious that I was lost.
“Like a feather brushing your cheek
Like a pain relieved after years
Like the clouds of happiness showering down
So was me away from worldly fears.”
I went in the college building as she didn’t come that day. A barrage of questions flooded my mind. I didn’t hear a single word in that lecture as if I was in a state of oblivion. I didn’t know what the problem actually was. I accompanied my friends for lunch in the Gujarati mess.
My new friend was short heighten and a bit healthy. Her eyes were scenic, her voice so stirring, and her smile so appealing. In all she was adorable.
She was not beautiful
She was not beautiful.
Nothing about her was extraordinary.
Nothing about her made her stand out in a crowd.
She instilled a sort of light cheer to whomever she met.
She was not beautiful.
But she made others feel beautiful about themselves.
She was not beautiful
She did not possess the heart of the one she loved
But she did not care.
I started cooking recipes in my mind with me and her as the chief ingredients but I never thought of hurting her by saying something offensive to her. So I decided to let the state of affairs as they were. Day dreaming became a part of my daily routine. As every dog has its day, the so was with me. One fine morning I realized the way she behaves with me and it was definitely some non verbal clues from her side. I was on the top of the world. She always used to smile in a different manner. As if she was to say something with the corners of her lips folded up. I captured that face in the digital camera of my mind.
“My eyes said, my words couldn’t
As I thought that it was a sin
If not me, you should have,
As someone has to begin”.
Whenever I close my eyes a crystal clear picture of hers comes in front of me. A lot of things happened during those days and still the irony was none of said something verbally. Though sometimes I feel that both of us had said what ought to be, using our eyes. We sat in the library to study together, in classroom to discuss and even in the canteen to enjoy with other friends. There was a sense of fear in my mind which still is in explanatory. I thought of her day in and day out. I myself was getting sick finding her face in whatever I did and everything I saw. I felt really flying in her company and used to envy my friends who come near her.
“I wasn’t like that
She made me flay
I wasn’t like that
She taught me to envy”
We sat for hours together discussing case studies and other academics but I never had the courage to say anything to her. I used to see in papers or looks towards the ground when she is with me. I was unable to see her beautiful eyes which she had under the cover of her golden specs.
Time passed away as sand rushing through my hands. I tried a lot to hold, to hold the clock so the hands might not move, to hold the calendar so the date might not change, to hold the sun so the evening might not come…
but all in vain. The day of our course completion was near. Every night in my hostel room I used to decide to break the ice next morning but never did that.
One fine day I went to the college, she was sitting in the computer lab. I too opened my shoes and went in. She greeted me with that same smile, a smile which can kill millions in a second. Her eyes under the glasses were deep as sea. She was looking more beautiful that day. I felt that buff of beauty on her face. She asked me to clear her doubts regarding a newspaper article and we discussed at length regarding the same.
When the things got over she requested me to accompany her for a cup of tea in the canteen. I was really feeling excited. There was really no place to sit as the place was much occupied. We still managed to find a place for ourselves waiting for tea to be served. My heart beats were ringing in my ears. I felt as if I were to die because of that pressure. The blood in my veins started flowing like a flooded river in a basin. The feeling was same that I had when I appeared for my first interview.
She suddenly asked, “What are you thinking?”
I was baffled as if I was caught red handed. I nodded my head to negate. “I want to ask you something”, she said while looking towards the table. A chill went through my spine as I thought that God has bestowed his wishes on me today and she will confess what I was planning to. Suddenly one of our classmates Nilesh jumped in and my boat lost its way just before the harbor. All of us had tea and we returned to the college. I started scolding and criticizing Nilesh from the depth of my heart. That day I didn’t have my lunch.
For the whole day my mind was wandering about what she was to say. I again gathered my strength and made up my mind to open my heart in front of her. With things rolling in my head I headed towards the mess where she used to have her dinner. My eyes scanned the place as a kid desperately looking for a familiar face in a crowd. I enquired about her from my friend and found that she had finished early so she left for the hostel.
Few days passed and I didn’t meet her intentionally and even tried to avoid her. It was one fine Monday morning when I got up and saw it is 23rd of September in my wrist watch. “Oh! God, it’s her birthday today”.
I planned to give her a beautiful gift and purchased one from my departmental store of my college. I didn’t purchase any greeting card as I was confused of selecting a “Friends” or “Someone Special”, birthday card. I went to the college nicely dressed with the gift beautifully wrapped in a gift pack. The first session started and she was still not there in the class. My heart was bouncing under my ribs like a golf ball dropped on stone flooring from a great height. She didn’t turn up till it was lunch.
I was now feeling like killing her if she appeared in front of me. I even wowed to myself of not talking to her in future. Till evening I eagerly waited for her call but the phone didn’t ring up. I called her burning my ego under my heart. She was not in her room and her friend told me that she was out for some work. Where has she gone? Why she didn’t come to college today? A lot of questions emerged in my mind. I became envious to her and criticized myself for making that call. I put myself on the bed with the darkness taking to me.
I was really upset and suddenly my phone ranged. It was her number on the mobile screen. I was given life as if a fish struggling for life out of water was put again into fresh water. I picked up the phone and pretended that I didn’t recognize her voice, that sweet melodious voice which imparted life into me. I wished her Happy B’Day. She explained me where she was the whole day without any question from me. Then there was a question in her silence on the other side of the phone and so was my similar deep reply. She broke the ice and said that she want to ask me something. I was desperately waiting for things to happen now. I was breathing heavily due to my anxiety. There was again some vacuum created between the telephone lines. She kicked my expectations by saying that I forgot what I was planning to ask. I disconnected the phone and went to my bed again.
Things went on as they were earlier. One day during the lunch hours one of my classmates told me something which was scandalous. Oh! God why I was not born deaf? If what I heard is true, I will never trust myself. How can she do that to me?
“She is having an intimate relationship with one of my classmates,” how painful it sounded to my ears I cannot express. I laughed as I saw the monument of our relationship grounded within seconds. I didn’t even thought of checking the standing of those punching words. With the clock moving I started putting my concentration only on studies. I started avoiding her but always used to have a glance of her beauty. The beauty which betrayed me still was intact and powerful. I tried my level best to hate her from the bottom of my heart but was unable to do so. I guess she might also have noticed the change in my behavior but she never pointed that to me.
We had our final semester exams which I wrote very well. On the last day of my college I thought of writing a letter to her before leaving that place once forever. I went to the hostel room and wrote a confession letter with the best of my vocabulary. The letter was wet with my tears. It was the land of my dreams which I tried to make fertile by my tears. I changed my dress and went straight away to the canteen to hand over my heart in the form of a letter to her. When I reached there I saw her sitting with the same classmate of whom I heard to be her interest. My heart filled with agony. I tore the letter and threw it on the canteen floor.
I met her on the way when I was leaving the college. We didn’t say anything to each other. In silence we departed. A silence which spoke more than words, a silence which was more effective than any other language, a silence which subdued the sounds of storm in our hearts, a silence beyond description.
What I am writing today appears to a moment of yesterday to me. But the calendar says it’s almost three long years.
“Though I am not a painter
I can put her to canvas
Though I am not a singer
I can be melodious for her
Though I am not a writer
I have written for her.”
“She” has become my strength, my imagination or what I am.
“Like a kid
Like a thief
Like a liar
…I didn’t reveal the truth.
__END__
Romy
