NEXT SEMESTER
“I must attend today’s lecture. I can’t miss Strength of Materials’ class, that’s all I understand this semester.” This was all that the Hippocampus in my brain was storing and reciting back to me, as I rushed from the bus stop towards the bank.
“The class starts in 15 minutes but I got to get the money to pay my rent today”. Landlord’s demand.
The fastest sprint since I made it into this college.
10:04
I’m in front of the bank and a lady at the entrance stops me. The metal detector checks. It doesn’t detect books. Jon Wick killed a man with a book. A smirk on my face and I was in, rushing to get the token as I wasn’t in the hold of a debit card yet.
E175 was my token number. I looked straight to the LED board on top of the counter. It was E160.
“Oh God, no.”
I threw myself on the sofa, tired and angry. “Thirty minutes at the least till my turn.”
Didn’t have a proper breakfast, nearly got hit by a bike on the highway and now this.
10:06
“Token number E161. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”, the robotic voice came out of the speakers on the ceiling.
My eyes stretched wide and the eyeballs rolled around in search of something amusing. The employees were mostly women, beautiful and well-dressed.
Had they used a small amount of the dressing artistry in typing, I wouldn’t have to wait for those thirty minutes that were seemingly going to last through eternity.
10:08
“Token number E162. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
The glass-top table in front of me fogged up as I exhaled, in apathy. I drew a happy smiley on it irrelevant to the internal emotions. Hypocrisy everywhere.
I returned to my contemporary job of gawking and noticed everyone’s footwear. Security personnel with their black boots sturdy on the floor, sporty guy with his Nike and rich girl with her burgundy velvet boots. You could tell a lot about a person from their footwear. I looked down at mine only to realize the laces were untied. As I stooped down tying them “Ouch!”, there came the sixty-year-old back pains for this 18-year-old me.
10:10
“Token number E163. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
The other counter opens making it two working counters at the same time. A tiny ray of hope touches my soul, I’d be in class on time.
“Token number E164. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
Ten more people.
I suddenly remembered I owned a smartphone. Though, a bit sluggish and out of memory space, the phone worked fine for calls and texting.
Also, if I deleted a few apps, I could go through the gallery and explore the myriad of memes I saved for crucial hours such as this.
“Let’s see what I can delete. Messenger? No. Facebook? No. Snapseed? Well, a handsome guy like me wouldn’t need editing anyway. Uninstalled.” PRIDE (+100). You could find a variety of memes, Greta Thunberg to Spongebob, women yelling at the cat to Drake, racist to logical. World War III was undoubtedly the best collection at this time of the year. I clicked a few.
10:12
“Token number E165. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
“Token number E166. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
Three minutes left for the class to commence. Eight people were still ahead of me. The lethargic aura induced a state of trance inside me. Out of the blue, I was in the MCG. A hot summer day in Melbourne, Australia with jam-packed stands, barmy army singing “Ale, Ale!” and on the big screen was Joe Root approaching his double ton. “What’s your ticket number?” the sun-tanned guy in my left asked. As perplexed as I was, I checked my pockets and there it was. “E175”, I said. It was Pat Cummins who was bowling from the Great Southern Stand end. David Warner from the covers region pointed towards his pockets as if he hid a chunk of sandpaper there. Pat Cummins ran ghastly, gripping the seam a little more towards the shiny outwards indicating an outswinger. As soon as he hit the crease, the color of the sky faded, the sound got clearer, “Token number E175. Please arrive at the counter. Thank You.”
10:25
It was a sad moment, I couldn’t continue the lucid dreaming into a Root’s special 200. But, yet there I was in front of the counter supplying a cheque to the inept employee who took three more minutes to verify and provide me with the sum.
“If I walk down the way to college, it’ll take 5 minutes. If I run, it might take 2 minutes. Anyway, I’d be around 15 minutes late for class.”
Suddenly, the phone rings. Call from the class representative.
“Where are you?”
“Around the college. You?”
“At the Basketball court. The SOM class has been canceled today.”
Being a successful human will always stay second in the happiness index of a student. The first one will always remain “The classes have been canceled today.”
I ran towards the college, towards the court in ecstasy with the hope of studying well in the NEXT SEMESTER.
