Fat Boy Thinks

The fat boy stands in front of a tall mirror and studies his body keenly. His attention particularly lies on the reflection of his belly on the mirror. He gently rubs his belly and shakes his head, disappointedly. He stands there for a while, in front of the mirror and then his face suddenly turns sad. He takes a deep breath and sits on a chair that is in front of a table with a few books on it.

The time is now ten thirty at night and already thirty minutes passing the time the fat boy usually goes to sleep. The delay is because; the day is unlike any ordinary day. It is the day before the examination day and there is in front of the fat boy a heavy book, which has to be fully read before morning comes.

The fat boy starts reading the book and slowly another thirty minutes passes, but the fat boy reads only three more pages. The subject is not easy, the fat boy now realizes. He sighs weakly, as he pushes his book forward and reclines on his chair to relax for a while. His thoughts slowly drift on to a different subject as he sits back and relaxes.

Two years ago a pretty girl captures the imagination of the fat boy quiet extraordinarily and from there on he never stops thinking about her. The girl is very pretty with sharp features and sits just in front of the fat boy in the same classroom his school. The fat boy now tries to remember the time he first sees her and wonders if she ever thinks of him. The fat boy then starts to dream about a few trivial things as well, like eating the cake his mother bakes for him a few days earlier and more such things while slowly falling asleep.

The fat boy wakes up to the loud shouts of his angry fat father standing next to him and realizes he has slept the whole night, lying on the open book in front of him without even knowing it. He slowly regains his consciousness and understands his father is not happy about something. He turns his head towards the direction his father is angrily pointing his finger towards and sees the clock. Then he opens his eyes further more and sees the time its needles are pointing at and realizes he is late for school. The fat boy gets off his bead hurriedly and starts getting ready as fast as he can, which is still very slow. But luckily, for the fat boy, the school bus will be arriving a little late today, because of the traffic it is caught in some other place.

A pretty lady, looking very attractive and much too young for her age, approaches the dining table that has the breakfast on it, while the fat boy and his fat father are waiting there already, having empty plates on the table in front of them. She resembles the two fat men in not a single way, though she is the mother, to the fat boy and wife, to his angry fat father. Her face lacks happiness and it seems it hasn’t been any different over the years. She serves the two men their breakfast and sees them eating and she says nothing.

Some years ago, when the fat boy’s father was much younger, but still as bigger, he comes across his now pretty wife, who is very young and even more prettier then. The fat boy’s father instantly falls in love with her and thinks of her all the time for the next few days and vows to marry her at any cost and make her his. The fat boys beautiful mother, though blessed abundantly with beauty she is unfortunately very poor, without a father to take care of her needs and with a lot of debts to repay worry about. So she marries her now fat husband, though she never likes him, to just stop her mother’s heart from breaking any further.

The fat boy eats his breakfast slightly more slowly than he usually eats. His father sees him eating and senses something is not right, but still he eats without expressing it, like nothing’s wrong, though he knows for sure what it is, that is bothering his son. The fat boy for the same reason carefully avoids his father’s eyes and walks towards the hall after breakfast, very quietly and as calmly as he can.

Inside the hall, the fat boy’s father comes walking slowly and sees his son waiting there for the school bus to come, looking very nervous.

He asks him calmly, “Why are you not waiting outside? You might miss the bus sitting in here”

“When the bus comes I can hear it from here”, says the fat boy in a slightly choked up voice and looking even more nervous.

“Are you hiding from those boys from that government school again?” demands the father in a harsh tone, now starting to express his anger slowly.

“No, it’s not them”, says the fat boy panicking and avoiding his father’s eyes.

“Don’t hide inside the house like a girl. Go outside and face them”, shouts the father angrily. The anger makes his body shake and the sweat on his face makes his cheeks and his forehead shine.

The fat boy is quiet and he is waiting for his father to finish, so he can run out of the house and escape his father’s presence.

“Go”, says the fat boy’s father finally in a sharp tone, while pointing his finger towards the open door, after scolding and advising the fat boy for a few minutes.

The fat boy runs out through the open door his father is pointing his finger at and after he is gone, his father drops his hand and sits on his expensive sofa to relax a while.

“Learn to stand up for yourself or the world will eat you for sure”, the fat boy hears his father’s loud voice still coming from inside the house, while he is standing outside in the garden. Now the fat boy knows it is impossible to go inside the house and hide there again, because his father will be waiting in the hall now.

In the garden the fat boy waits for a second and takes note of his surroundings carefully. He sees a tall tree on the left side of the garden and he quickly walks towards it and hides behind it and from there he sees the road expectantly.

A group of four tough looking schoolboys come into the view of the fat boy, while he is still hiding behind the same tall tree. The four boys are dressed alike, in khaki pants and white shirts. Their mere sight gives the fat boy a fright and while he sees them, his fingers tighten its grip on the thick barks of the tree he is hiding behind, without him even noticing it.

“What happened to that fat pig? I don’t see him anywhere”, asks a dark skinned pimple faced tallboy.

“Proverbially hiding inside”, says the boy with broad shoulders, pointing his finger towards the fat boys house.

“The rich kids are all the same- fat and cowardly”, says the shortest one of them all, expressing his disgust in an exaggerated manner.

“I’ll break his teeth the next time I see him”, says the boy with a calm face angrily, as the four boys passing the fat boys house.

The fat boy sees from behind the tree, the four boys walking past his house. His face starts to show signs of relaxing. The fat boy sighs in relief and his fingers starts to loosen its grip off the barks and he comes out of his hiding, from behind the tree.

A yellow school bus with full of school children in it comes slowly and stands in front of the house. The fat boy walks towards the bus and then into it and sits next to a small boy in the first row on the right side, where the two usually sits. The atmosphere inside the bus is animated, but the two boys’ remain silent without speaking or even making too many movements. The two boys simply keep gazing through the window and see the usual scenery, while each being lost fully in his own thoughts.

The fat boy starts to think of the pretty girl again and she in another forty minutes will be writing exams with the fat boy, sitting right in front of him. The fat boy loves her even more when she is writing her exams, because that’s when her face turns even sharper due to the concentration the exams demand and that in the fat boy’s opinion makes her look even prettier and he is waiting eagerly for the movement to arrive. But strangely, the fat boy during all these many days of loving the pretty girl, never for once even thinks of expressing his love to her.

As the bus stops, it puts an end to the thoughts that occupies the fat boys mind till then and he gets out of the bus along with the other children in the bus and slowly a small crowd starts to take shape near the bus, before it quickly disappears in no time, as the children starts to spread out in many different directions towards their own respective class rooms. It is usually here the fat boy parts with his little friend.

The classroom is only partially full, the fat boy observes as he walks inside it, to get to his seat. The fat boy tries hard to not let the pretty girl catch him when he looks at her, as he walks towards his seat, which is just behind where the pretty girl is sitting and in the process he manages to see the girl just partially. But that is enough to keep the fat boy satisfied. The pretty girl though, takes no note of the fat boy passing her and the whole while she simply keeps reading her book as part of her preparations for the exam that will start soon. The fat boy sits on his chair, opens his book and now without fear looks at the pretty girl from behind her, the side of her face.

It is now; a fair skinned boy with good physical features enters the classroom in a way that looks to some extent suave, and his manners looks slightly more mature for his age. The way the boy walks for some unknown reasons seems to suggest that he is a bit more important than the rest in the class, though he too is just a student. The boy is also extremely confident while he moves and the pretty girl as she sees him gets visibly excited and smiles at him in such a way that she reveals her teeth’s as many as she possibly can, while he gingerly comes and sits next to her. The two, as time passes starts to converse more joyfully and the liking the pretty girl shows for the fair skinned boy starts only two months ago and it has only gotten stronger ever since, to the fat boys disappointment.

The happenings the fat boy sees happening in front of him makes him feel sad. He realizes how well the pretty girl loves the fair skinned boy and the realization, though in itself is nothing new, it is still a realization that is very different from anything he has realized so far and the it makes him feel sad too in a different way. The fat boy now starts to think if the pretty girl will love him if he scores well in the exams, though deep inside he knows how impossible it is.

The classroom all of a sudden becomes quiet while the fat boy is still thinking about the pretty girl after a grey haired lady enters the classroom.  She is wearing thick glasses over her tired eyes and she looks old and experienced. She sits on her chair and places her clasped hands gently over the table. Through her thick glasses she carefully absorbs her class and her face expresses very little.

The grey haired teacher stands up suddenly and looks around for a second and tells her students, “It is enough. Close your books.” And after giving the class a stern look she says, “Your exam starts in two minutes”

She says no more because she sees her students obeying her like they do usually. Unlike other teachers, the grey haired one speaks very little and the fat boy likes her for that. She often reminds him of his pretty mother, who speaks very little too.

The fat boy as he opens his question paper notices in front of him the pretty girl praying and when he starts going through it, he finds he knows answers only for a few questions. The fat boy understands it’s a tough question paper and his attention again deviates towards the pretty girl and this time he finds her answering the questions by seriously writing on her answer sheet, wearing the same sharp face the fat boy loves seeing her have.

The fat boy continues seeing the pretty girl face from behind and soon he forgets completely his surroundings and his face gain turns sad. The fat boy now manages to catches the attention of his grey haired teacher and she calmly absorbs him for a few seconds, but the fat boy being too deeply engrossed in seeing the girl lovely face, fails to notice himself being watched and continues seeing the girl. The teacher walks towards the fat boy and gently touches his shoulder. The touch takes the fat boy by surprise and brings him back to his consciousness and makes him quickly turn his head away from the pretty girl and he starts reading the questions again. The teacher stands by the fat boy’s side without leaving and sees him for a few second in a concerned way without saying anything.

The school bell rings to mark the finishing of the exams and the children almost instantly start to come out of their classes walking noisily and looking more relieved because the exams are over. The fat boy also comes out of his class and walks towards the school bus, where a small crowd has gathered in front of the bus, while trying to get through the small entrance of the bus. In the crowd the fat boy finds his little friend who is also trying to enter the bus and they both look at each other for a brief second. The crowd then soon disappears and the yellow bus starts to move, with the children now packed inside it.

The bus, after traveling for some distance, and after stopping in front of many houses, and after dropping many children, stops in front of a big house with a tall gate and with a neatly maintained garden, from where the fat boy is picked in the morning by the same yellow bus. Here the fat boy gets down and opens the gate and as he walks through the garden to the house inside, a cool wind caresses his face gently, while also making the leafs of the neem trees to rustle. As it happens, an urge to stay there for a little while longer arises somewhere inside of the fat boy. So he sits on the cement bench under one of the neem trees and as he sits there, the fat boy thinks he is lean and handsome and the pretty girl loves him. The thought gives the fat boy a thrill, like it does usually and he sits there smiling all alone, while tucking in his two clasped hands tightly in between his big fleshy legs, as the sun slowly sets behind him.

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