Alone Chapter 3: The Surprise!

This story is a part of the series called Alone. Please read the last chapter here: Nothing Lasts forever!

I was very ambitious. But, I grew up to do normal things. While I could relate to the unrealistic heroes and their unrealistic dialogues, I had a fear. I was really afraid of the dark, gripped by anticipation and reminders of scenes from horror movies that I had ever seen, I have always looked at the darkness and thought, what might come out of there. I remember a night I was reading a book lying in my bed, when through the sheer curtains in the living room, I could something or someone like a kid standing. Mustering a bit of courage and murmuring to myself that curiosity kills the cat, I walked slowly up-to that spot, finding a beautiful bronze statue there, which my mother had bought recently. I didn’t enjoy the thrill but, I was not too scared of that. I was scared of failure. Failure because that might sadden my parents. They see me a product of their hard-work. And I am. But, I cannot go wrong. I wouldn’t have been worried about hurting myself. That never mattered so much, to me. I couldn’t have hurt them. So, in every step in my life, I thought if I was doing right by them. My yardstick of achievement or failure was the happiness I could see in their eyes.

I built a life which was better that most. According to some statistics, I was among the top 2% of my country, economics-wise. But, I haven’t been that wise anyway. I was never happy. It had everything missing that I wanted, but, was full of the small things that everyone else, I knew wanted. A very good friend, whose opinions I have always valued, who, like me has a philosophy in life,once asked me, “But, what is wrong with your life? Life is good, you and I are doing better than many others… I know, it doesn’t matter, but, we are comfortable and will make it in time” The words were similar to what I heard people say earlier, and slowly not say and just feel, when they would look at me. My discontent was known, known to my parents, even to my dismay, my colleagues and employers.

While everybody said I had huge potential and I would do something, less to my face, more to others, less as an appreciation more as an expectation now…

It hadn’t rained this beautifully in a long time. The trees looked greener, decorated with bright coloured flowers, like someone had repainted them. The drops were knocking the windows constantly asking me to come out and play. They know how much I had loved them and missed them. But, I hadn’t gone out to play since… I can’t even remember when. But, it didn’t matter anymore. No, it didn’t! As days, months and years had passed, things that mattered had changed too. Small things were big then.

Looking out my window, I would often be lost in my world. The rain had drawn me away from the small things at office, which had become bigger. Years ago, since the days at school to the ones in college, it didn’t matter what people think or say. But, now small things, a glance, a smile or lack of one, a ‘good morning’ or the lack of one mattered. They really matter. They were like small cues. Sometimes, they remind me of the blind man’s stick. They are a guide to avoid the obstacles at your workplace. But, I was a blind man who is too much of an egoist to pick the cane. So, I was looking out the window away from everything else.

I felt a beautiful fragrance crawled through the air and tapped my shoulder. I looked up to find a beautiful girl standing. She pushed my chair, smiled and said “excuse me” in a sweet voice and slipped though the space to the other. I knew she was smiling and waited to see her turn and catch a bit of that smile. It was infectious. I smiled too.

I could not muster up the courage to ask my colleague sitting next to me, who she was. It wouldn’t have looked right. I am sure he would have asked that why do I want to know: a scandal for no reason. So, I turned back, caught another glimpse of her walking to the last corner. I looked around to see, if I was caught. I wasn’t. I turned my face back to face the laptop screen.

She was different. Really! Did you know that a face has nearly 10,000 different types of expressions. Hers was different, not just one in a 10,000, actually one in a trillion. Exquisite. That smile. I don’t have anything against the smile that Julia Roberts has but this smile was better. In a crowd, on sultry hot day, after a bad meeting with the toughest client, and with almost nothing in your pocket, it could put a smile on your face. Her eyes were bright and animate like there could do most of the talking. But, once in a while, if you caught her eyesight and you looked into them, you would find an ocean. My theory is the deeper those eyes are the more that they have to say and the more interesting their backstory is. All this knowledge from staring at strangers on the street till it gets awkward! You would blame it all to my condition, the difficult condition that a guy gets into when he meets a girl her. Well, I will meet her. And my, no, our condition is a little different than the others.

I cannot be sure, if I had observed all of this from just watching her with all my love or was this just my imagination of her.

She wasn’t a girl from the fairly tail, so beautiful that you cannot believe that something or someone like that even existed. No she wasn’t like that, but she had an air of confidence combined with a smile inviting you to start conversations, beautiful conversations. She was a little detached, maybe, it was not her, just that a normal mortal would mistake her confidence and purposefulness for arrogance, like they deem the peace borne out of knowledge to cowardly silence. She dressed simply, not making a fuss, unlike, the most beautiful of women, whom you would admire for their right out a storybook beauty but also for managing to handle such inordinately complex flow of clothes, that it might even look right out of the Victorian era. Well at least in that era, everyone had help dressing up in the most exquisite manner.

The simplicity, confidence and the disarming smile brought a charm to her, giving a glimpse of an amazing intellect, visible only to someone who would bother to see through the walls of seeming arrogance and detachment.

I think she heard the ‘Hi’ or she saw the fool standing there, staring at her and smiled looking right into my eyes. I think she saw me, me!

This story is a part of the series called Alone. Please read the next chapter here: A new beginning!