Anwin – Me Myself and the World Around Me

She always sat beside me in the classroom. We shared a desk with my friend Ram on the other side. I always wished that he did not exist, when inside the classroom. Outside the classroom we were inseparable. I always cursed the heavens that I had the worst luck to be put in a classroom that supported 3 people on a bench. I also thanked God that I had the fortune to sit next to Leah.

Oh Leah! My one and only love!

Once Leah and I persuaded Ram to find another seat so we can have the desk all to ourselves. But then Ganesh took this as an opportunity and flanked Leah during the next class. With so much space on left on the bench with both of us sitting as close as possible withour getting an uproar from the class or the professor, we could not deny Ganesh the place either. So back to Ram, myself and Leah on the desk.

All the classes and so many lectures went by everyday. She took notes in alll the subjects. But my thoughts always revolved around her eyes, her nose, her lips, her hands, her fingernails, her dress, her legs, her ear rings and so on. Only my eyes looked at the black board. But I was lost in the land of puppy love.

I was the happiest when a lecturer did not turn up for a class. She would talk about everything under the sky. And I would look at her and listen to her, happily, with no other care in the world. The noise made by my classmates was not a disturbance, because I never heard it consciously.

One day we decided to go went mango hunting. It was  high mango season and we decided to cut class one day and go to the mango groves nearby. What was going to be a private thing turned out to be a threesome (again). No snickering or wild imagination folks. It was not what you think it was.

So Leah, Ram and I went to the mango grove. Ram and I were pretty soon downing mangoes from the trees by the dozen with stones that lay nearby.  We were in a frenzy with Leah keeping a count of the number each of us have downed. It was a pretty tough competition between us. And we stopped only after the guard woke up and chased us away with a heavy stick. We barely managed to escape with just a handful of mobiles.

After a good laugh at the nearby tea shop we divided the mangoes and it turned out to be just 4 each with one extra, which we graciously gave to the shopkeeper’s wife.

A year went by, then two went by. Classroom romance went on to become labroom romance and then the day when the final exams were over. Three years in college which seemed forever was over in what seemed like a flash.

It may not have ended there if not for my cowardice. During goodbyes and address exchanges I had a panic attack. I don’t know why or how. I just gave a fake contact adress and I tore up her address in secret.

Now I wish I didn’t. Now I know what pain really is. Why, I ask myself a thousand times a day, did I do such a despicable thing? But no, she’s lost forever in a wave of fond memories.

PS: Again, this is not a story from my life. Not even a single sentence. And thats a disclaimer. Again, I had a small dream of 3 people in class – one girl and two guys. It was a very small dream with nothing special inbetween. But I thought it was very interesting (atleast not in the dream). And the story got spoilt because I have been writing this for almost 10 days now (in the meantime forgot what I wanted to write about). And finished is just now.

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She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my whole 26 years of my miserable life. Her hair was black as the darkest midnight and her eyes always shone with a heavenly light. There was dancing and laughter in face always reflected by the moonlight.

I saw her first on summer night 2 months ago. That night I felt stifled by the heat and disturbed by the endless drone of musically inclined mosquitoes. I tried hard to attain nirvana through sleep and failed. Restless and annoyed I went to the terrace with a cigarette on my lips.

As I was standing on the terrace with a gentle breeze soothing my body and mind I saw a flicker of movement at a corner. And there she was standing looking towards the church spire with a solemn look in her face.

I couldn’t help myself from staring at her. I racked my brains and could not place her face anywhere. She wasn’t from this building I knew for sure. Or maybe was she? A relative of someone who has come here very recently?

Then she turned towards me and smiled at me.

Did I say that I was floored? Yeah I was. I wanted to say something (anything) to her but found that I had got a speech impediment.

She came near me and again looked towards the horizon. She was comfortably close enough to me that I felt uncomfortable. I could not feel any discomfiture in her. So I followed her gaze towards the horizon.

When the sun broke free on the distant horizon I realized she was no longer there beside me. Wondering where she was I went back to sleep.

The next night I was there again on the terrace hoping to see my Angel again. I had come to associate her with an angel. Just when I was about to leave after an hour or so I found her standing beside me again. She smiled at me. I smiled at her. By daybreak she was gone again.

The next two nights she was not at our usual place at the terrace.

The third night when we met again I gathered up enough courage to speak to her.  She never answered me about a few questions though. She wouldn’t tell me exactly where her house was. She always answered that she lived quite close by. She never told me her name. I always called her my little angel.

The angel did miracles for me. I was always happy. I was always smiling. I was always helping others and I thought there really was a God and He loved me.

Two months flew by. It felt like the longest ever high one could have ever had without side effects. We always seem to talk forever during the nights but I knew precious little about her. We talked about everything possible under the sky and beyond. The happiest days of my life.

One fine day she never turned up. I waited in despair and anxiety for a week, but no Angel. After a week I even started calling out her name out loud in the vain hope that she will hear me and come back. I wondered if she had gone back to the place where she came from. I wondered if she had come here only for summer vacation. I wondered if she could have had an accident. Maybe she just lost interest in me. I was in turmoil and pain and disbelief.

I decided to find who she was and where she lived. I tried all the flats in my apartment building to no avail. I was desperate now. I enquired at the nearby tea shop. The owner did not know she was. I was perplexed. I asked the nearby grocery shop, they thought I was weird asking about a girl without a name and only with vague descriptions.

As I was walking out of the grocery shop I was stopped by an old man. He told me a story about a girl of the same age and extraordinary beauty who was murdered a couple of years ago in the building where I stayed. I stood transfixed. The old guy nodded understandingly and walked away.

That night I waited again on the terrace. Within a minute she materialized before me. She asked “Why Anwin, why? Why did you have to find more about me?”

With reproach in her voice and accusation in her eyes she disappeared. I’ve been waiting for her every night. Sometimes I can feel her beside me. But she has never spoken to me or appeared before me again.

But I still wait. I know she will come back one day. I know it as sure as the sun sets in the west and rises in the east. She will come back for me. I will wait for her until my dying days.

Note: This is not a horror/love story. Some people who read this blog or know about me know that sometimes I get the vivdest dreams. You may remember one more story I wrote some months ago after having one of those dreams. This story is also like that. I saw this girl on the terrace (in my dreams of course) who seemed to float towards me and speak to me. She was all white and glimmering with goodness. The gist of the story came to me then. So I wrote it now.

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