Social Short Story – Killer Smile
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
It was Sunday Afternoon and the trains were empty surprisingly. In Mumbai, you would rarely find such empty trains. I was in Thane when a young couple had boarded the train. They came and sat right in front of my seat. They were talking in a language which I don’t understand. However, I was able to catch few words and deduced that they are arguing over something.
The boy, supposed to be girl’s boyfriend, was talking loudly in an animated manner and was using words like sincerity and faithfulness. It appears one of them has cheated or is being suspected for cheating in the relationship. The girl was neither looking towards her boy nor towards me but was looking towards a direction where nobody could look at her face. Anybody could tell that she was trying to suppress her tears. What had she done to be treated in such a manner? Surprisingly, she was also not trying to defend herself. Her face was full of innocence as well as guilt. The face you would feel sympathy for and would want to help her.
When she turned to talk to her boyfriend, I felt that she gave me a faint smile. I was not sure whether she actually smiled at me. I did not want to act rude or impolite. So I smiled at her in return, though I did not want to. This exchange of smiles did not go unnoticed by the boyfriend. He frowned at me but did not say anything to me but was still talking to the girl in a loud manner. All the time, I kept smiling at girl even though she was not looking at me. The girl was still in tears and was, I think, trying to convince that snob that it was not her fault. When she turned her face to me, she again smiled, this time distinctly.
Through her smile, she wanted to me tell me that tell me that she is strong enough to handle this and need no sympathy. She kept replying to her boyfriend while smiling though her boyfriend was shouting at her. We kept smiling at each other for at least a minute and I was able to feel that she had become a new person as I can see the tears in eyes had got died up. Now, she was replying to her boyfriend in a more assertive manner. Her each reply was making her boyfriend irritated and more annoyed. The smile was still on my face but this time it was directed at the boyfriend. He knew why I was smiling at him but had no idea how to stop both, my smile and her arguments. His look said that he wanted to tell or explain me something but he couldn’t.
Now the girl’s voice was becoming loud and demanding and the guy had no answer to her. Suddenly he lost control of his senses and all of a sudden raised a hand to slap her. He was able to restrain himself and apologized. I felt it was too late and he also knew it was.
This time, she showed no symbol of weakness and instead smiled at me. Her smile told me what she was going to do next. At that moment, Ghatkopar station came and she silently got up and went towards the door. Her boyfriend also ran after her shouting (in English)
“Come back now, we need to get down in Kurla, not here”
She did not listen and alighted from the train, forcing him to do the same. I also went towards the door to see whether is it happening what I thought and wanted to happen. She went towards ladies compartment and boarded it.
She smiled at me for the last time and looked towards his boyfriend and said,
“I hate you, we are done. Don’t call me or follow me. Good bye”
Boyfriend turned ex-boyfriend was confused and shocked and had no idea what had hit him and did not react to her statement. As the train started to move slowly, he climbed back the same compartment he just alighted and came towards me and said,
“I don’t know what your intentions are. However, I am relieved it happened. We were in a bad relationship and had no courage to come out as neither of us wanted to play the role of bad guy by initiating the breakup. She started the fight just before we boarded the train. I was expecting this to happen today in a different way. But thanks to you and your smile, I became the bad guy”
I smiled at him and went inside to see that my seat was taken. I went to the opposite door so that I could avoid him. He may have said that to salvage his pride after making fool of himself or maybe the relationship was actually in doldrums. I will not know and don’t want to know the truth.
In either way, that relationship was meant to be doomed and I am not to be blamed. My killer-smile has added one more victim to its list with the first being my own relationship.
__END__
