Spoilsport

Nothing much to blog about today. An interesting fact about king’s circle is that if you wait for the signal to change, and walk around it, all the signals change in time, allowing you to walk around and round the circle without ever stopping. Cool eh? Anyway, here is my first attempt at what can be called a short story that has anything remotely to do with romance. All my other short stories were hideously different. And yeah, this is a total fabrication.

And yeah, you people can be particularly critical, because as I said, this is my first attempt to write a story like this:

Spoilsport

The first time I saw her was in a bus. She climbed on, and my first impulse was to look away. Not because she was ugly, I didn’t even see her face. I just noticed that she was a girl, and I looked away, conscious of my gender. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was one of those guys with a male gaze. I was resolutely considering my own shoelaces, and suddenly, I noticed that they were tied in the shape of a heart. A pair of thin, slender legs in tight fitting black jeans edged up the aisle, and the figure that it belonged to rested against the handle of my seat. If an old man wasn’t dozing off beside me, she would have sat down next to me. The thought made my heart race, so I looked out of the window. I told myself to come to my senses. There was no scope to maneuver. I peeked at her face just as bus gave a sudden lurch. She was pretty, but my eyes were on the city going by the next second.
Ten days later, I had forgotten all about her, and was going to sign myself up for a personality development course. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my personality, but the vacations were going on, and I was supposed to do something better with my time. My plan was to go there, and pretend that all the seats were taken and go back home, and spend my vacation in a more fruitful way than personality courses. I was surprised that she was there, more surprised that I recognized her, and even more surprised to see that she recognized me. Thank God for personality courses, we introduced ourselves, and for a good five minutes we discussed what was awaiting us in that course. There was a week to go before the course started, and I don’t want to recall what I went through. There was the anticipation, and the wild flights of fancy, and the wilder flights of… well, it will suffice to understand that there was a hell lot of anticipation. The days went slowly by, with me sitting in front of the television, but thinking only about her.
Finally, the d-day came. It was a Friday evening, and it was raining. I was dreaming about a set of warm shoulders next to me under my umbrella. She was there when I entered the classroom. She waved, I waved back, and walked towards her. Did I dare to sit down beside her? No, I thought to myself. I wouldn’t inflict myself on her. Take it slow I thought to myself. That’s the way to win them over. The bench behind her seemed to be a good idea. Yes, I thought to myself, it would be rude if I didn’t sit somewhere in her vicinity… and stupid. She moved inwards to accommodate me just as I crossed the bench she was sitting on. I felt like a dumb slug as I pretended not to notice, and slid into the bench behind her. My bag caught in the corner, and I clumsily tried to disentangle myself. I felt the blood rushing to my face, and her amused expression didn’t exactly stem the flow. At that point of time, I thought, would I ever dare to ask her out?
Ten days later, I still hadn’t got her number, hell, I still hadn’t even sat next to her. She had grown friendlier to other guys in my class, and I was feeling frequent bursts of jealousy. I had this feeling that she was going out with one of them in particular. This guy who had a pierced eyebrow, and walked around with a dog tag around his neck, and a chain around his wrists. I saw her appreciatively pat the shoulders of this boy after he had cracked what was undoubtedly the stupidest joke on the planet. She suddenly caught my eye, and as if she were goading me, twiddled two fingers at me, her elbow still resting on his shoulder. On that day, I confided in a friend I had made about the crush. He made some discreet enquiries, and found out that the girl wasn’t going out with anyone. My heart skipped a beat, and realized that something desperate had to be done. Somehow, I had to find a way to get her to say yes.
So my friend and I contrived this excellent plan so that I could ask her out – hopefully in a successful manner. My friend thought that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the fact that my birthday was around the corner. I would treat the class at a nice place. We even decided on the nearby McDonalds, because the evenings were crowded, they usually accommodated the larger parties in the terrace. This would be an excellent place. As soon as the venue was decided, I had to start saving up. A treat at McDonalds wasn’t something I could normally afford, but this was a special occasion I thought. The fact that I could finally pluck up the courage to ask her out was more special to me than my birthday. Other details of the plan emerged. Everything was thought out to the finest detail. The guy in the dog tag would be distracted by my friend, telling him some jokes. My friend and I would ensure that all the sauce on the table would be finished. I would then drag her along to get some more sauce, which involved going downstairs to the main restaurant for the sauce dispenser. This would also mean descending a lonely flight of stairs, which would be an ideal location for what we had to do. I would then present her with a red rose, after shaving off the thorns, and ask her out. It was my birthday, she would find it hard to refuse, my friend reasoned.
My birthday arrived. First there were the personality lessons. We had to catch each other’s hands and play a game that involved squeezing the next person’s hands to pass on the message. Her hands were suddenly in mine. They felt warm. If they felt warm, it meant that my own hands were terribly cold. I condemned myself to eternal damnation and burst into sweat. Suddenly, her hands were squeezing mine. I became ecstatic, forgot about everything else, for the benefit of the professor, who used this to teach the virtues of co-operation for the sake of effective communication. After the lecture, dog-collar guy startled me by walking up to me and saying “I hear you are going to propose to her…” I lost the rest of his sentence, and realized that the enquiries of my friend weren’t as discreet as I trusted them to be. I made a mental note to kick myself, and more importantly him. The massive hands of dog-collar guy tapped my shoulder twice, his eye with the ring hideously close to it winked, and he murmured “she likes chocolates.”
My rose was thrown into the gutter as I walked towards McDonalds with the rest of my class. Somehow, I managed to go to a shop, and they didn’t have a box of chocolates suitable for a presentation to a lady. I had to settle for a Cadbury’s temptation. Then I walked into McDonalds and requested the waiter for the terrace. He obliged, and part one of the plan went well. Seems that many people were in it, as the sauce disappeared with amazing rapidity. I hardly had any myself. Before I was able to mentally prepare myself, the sauce had run dry. It was on me to get the refill. She even got up on her own accord before I could gather up the courage to ask her to accompany me, as I would never be able to handle all the sauce.
Suddenly, I was following her slender legs through the door. The staircase was upon me! There were too many thoughts in my head at this point of time. Should I do it? How should I do it? What is the use? Why should I humiliate myself? Wouldn’t it be better if I would just get the sauce? This will be so embarrassing for me if she says no? Wouldn’t it be unfair to use my birthday to my advantage? Why the fuck was today my birthday? Why should I give her the trouble of refusing someone on his birthday? I rather just not do it? – No – too much effort had gone into this. If I didn’t do this now, I would never be able to do it. Such a good opportunity would never present itself again. I would kick myself later for not doing it. Birthday or no birthday, she was all that mattered. I had to ask her out.
I blocked out my head from all the voices that opposed this decision. I watched her skip down the stairs, her long hair flowing like thin threads of satin behind her. I made up my mind. I took out the chocolate from my pocket, completely ignored the fact that it had half melted. I drew closer to her in the staircase, became conscious of her smell. My heart began to race. I was about to do it.
She spoilt the magic by casually turning around and proposing to me.