Monday, November 17, 2008

The Girl at the Library: A Short Story


It’s already getting late. I have to rush. Even if I catch the bus, the heavy traffic....phew. Oh hurry up, I am getting late.
All the rush is for a girl at the library. She is fair with blonde hair in her twenties. There is something special about her. I wish I had all the words to describe her beauty.
It’s amazing! How she picks the book, which I plan to read that day. I wonder how interests and preferences of two people match so accurately. I always get astonished as to how she knows in advance which book I am to read that day in the library. This is not about one or two days but each and everyday.
I always look at her but she always neglects me, sometimes I feel as though she looks at me as of “not her kind”. Every day, I don’t get the book because she reads the book which I planned to. And I am very stubborn by nature. So even I read the same book. How? Thing is that, I read the book but standing behind her. But never even once, she caught me reading her book from behind. May be she knows it, but keeps quite.  I think she likes me.
It’s been many months and I have read many of the library books with the help of her. Some times I get angry at myself and think why I am doing this. But I like it, the way it is.
But how long would it last this way. I wanted to say something to her. Like asking her for a date and explain her how I read many books with her help. She would laugh at me, even think I am crank. But I wanted to do it.
So the next day I decided to have a word with her. I dressed up neatly, combed my hair and polished my boots. It’s my day. I was standing for her waiting at the library. Time passed like hell, I started worrying why she is not turning up.
Oh may be, the way she knows my mind of which book I am planning to read, even she should have known my idea of asking her for a date. I started praying, “God, please don’t let her know about what I am up to, this one day.”
Suddenly the library door swings open, there she is. The moment I see her, my courage to speak starts diminishing. I start feeling nervous. I say to myself, “Come what may, I will speak to her today.” With this, I start walking briskly towards her. Even she is coming towards me.
I stopped at one point with a welcoming smile at her, who was fast approaching me. I thought for a moment, whether, even she is heading with the same intention in her mind. I stood boldly, the moment she nears me, I begin to say “hello…….” She hurriedly passed through me and was on her way to find a book.
I really felt very bad. She should have the minimum courtesy to respect others feelings. And the book she takes now from the shelf to read is “Ghost and its feelings”. Can you believe it. Any way, it was very harsh on her part to walk in and out of my body like that. I may be of different kind “non-human”, so what?