55 Fiction - #25

Hiya buddies! Well, as the post name indicates, here comes my 25th 55 Fiction! Its quite an achievement for me. All through this journey, all of you have supported me, criticized me which in turn motivated me to write quality posts (atleast according to me). So now off to read the 25th fiction!

THE LOST MESSAGE

The postman cringed as his drunken breath drifted through the half-open door. “Took us 6 months to find you.” He scratched his beard and muttered thanks. Ripping it open, a familiar handwriting said, “The wedding is on the 8th. Come, get me PLEASE.” With trembling hands, he noticed now, the street name smudged by a teardrop.

So guys, enjoyed? I really don't know how many 55 Fictions/posts/stories I can write anymore! After 10 days, I cant write posts damn frequently. I may get busy with my works which demand much of my concentration. You all can be relieved from my constant posts and fictions. So, have a great time and three cheers for everyone who supported me till date!

With Love,

Image Courtesy : Google Images

This is more than a Story..

This is purely a Fiction. Any resemblance of incidents or characters occuring in this story is purely co-incidental.

Guy's, this would've happened in our life at some point. This is just a post, that kindles all your emotions.

Time and time again, I forgave you. I've forgiven you for things that I swore to myself I'd never forgive someone for... and here you are, still hurting me, and I still forgave you..

"Ever noticed that the people who hurt you the most are the ones you tend to love more", she said as I finished my cup of coffee. Nandini was heartbroken and was madly in love with a boy she met in her college. She was badly hurt because the guy ditched her! She was hurt and demanded answers for some of the very obvious questions of life. She wanted to know why we all fall for someone. Isn’t it unfair on part of the God to first make us fall for someone and then teach us how to forget him? Tell me how can I forget him now? She asked me.

I sat there in front of her carrying a heart that has experienced love and loss more than anyone else I thought. Memories of my past just flashed in front of me and I couldn't help but revisit those memories just to tell her how love sometimes teaches you the best lessons you wouldn't learn otherwise. Sometimes - no matter how long, or how much you love someone, they will never love you back and somehow you have to learn to be okay with that. I began my story to pacify her.

I met this guy Rakshit in my school back in my 8^th class. He was one of my closest friends in school. We were in the same class till 12 when I moved out to pursue engineering at some other place and he continued his medical studies there itself. By the time I was in 12^th, we had spent enough time to know each other very well. We did some projects together in school that brought us more close to each other. I was sure that I had some very intense feelings for him but those never translated into words because I was not ready for it. I was a child back then, didn't know what love actually means. What I knew was that, there was a guy who makes me happy all the time, there was a guy whose happiness meant more to me than my own, there was a guy who impressed me beyond limits with his charm and intellect!

The time had come for us to part as the schools finished.
"I would like to thank you, for showing me a part of myself that I have never seen. Yeah we were young and dumb, but it still was fun and I guess these things just tend to fall apart and I hope you feel the same" was my message to him as we bid farewell to each other promising to be in touch forever!

I took my friendship for granted. I never confessed my love for him for I wasn’t sure. I thought it might be temporary like the one we term infatuation. I was sure I will move on. It was my confidence in my ability to find happiness in new days, new places and in people that desisted me from proposing to him that time and later, I knew I was wrong.

Life after school wasn't much easy. It was a new place, new people. As time passed, I realized I was missing him. There was vacuum in my life and something inside me wanted to talk to him, see him. I was frustrated because I couldn't tell if it was real. Mad because I didn't know how he felt. Upset because we couldn't make it right. Sad because I needed him. Aggravated because he wouldn't understand my feelings. Disappointed because we couldn't be together, but still I thought I loved him more than ever. A year had passed by then. I contacted him at times but mostly we were busy in our own separate worlds.

One day, almost a year later I picked up my phone and called him up
"Happy Birthday Rakshit" I said.
"Thanks Sreya, How are you?" he replied back. Formal questions followed the conversation and I sensed some change in his attitude towards me. I didn’t know what it was. I avoided reaching to any conclusion all by myself.

From someone I came to know that he knew I had feelings for him and he was upset and "angry", because I betrayed his trust(?) and friendship(!). I enquired this from our common friends but no one could tell me the reality.

I thought I might lose him if I ever tell him about myself now. Gradually, we both started settling in our own lives. I tried calling him a few times but every time he answered only my questions and the conversation was no more than a formality. I wanted him to at least tell me why was he angry? He could have cleared any misunderstanding with me because I was his friend first. But he never did that. Instead he started avoiding me. He tried avoiding me to such an extent that he wouldn’t even come for the annual reunions during Diwali just because I used to come there.

He never tried to contact me and it was me who tried to contact him. Years passed in this fashion. We had absolutely no direct contact. Sometime you just have to hold your head up high, blink away the tears and say good-bye. One day I decided to forget him and move on in my new life after finishing college. I spent my college life finding answers to some of the questions that life throws at us. I tried getting close to other people in my college but I was never able to come out of his thoughts. Some temporary phases of forgetting him, I diverted my mind in music, dance. But then again he used to resurface, his thoughts, his charm, everything in fact. In the process of finding my true self, I lost many relations including the love of a few very close friends just because I couldn’t love them back. After all, every relation expects love in return.

I think one cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: how far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him. My situation was also similar. Whatever I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about him. With passing time, the thoughts started changing and I got used to it.

Some 6 months later, I went home for a vacation. As usual, I was supposed to meet my friends during Diwali.

"Hi Sreya, Listen Rakshit is here too, He wants to meet you personally. Can you meet him tomorrow?" said one of our common friend ( his best friend) on phone. He told me that Rakshit wanted to meet me and he wanted both of us to be friends again (??!!?!). I didn't know what to reply .I could not find any answer and I agreed meeting him.

Next day I had to meet him.

The whole night I thought about my life - PAST, PRESENT & THE FUTURE. Someone had become a part of my life in those forgone years. 6 years was a long time. It took him 6 years to understand the basic fundamentals of friendship and love. So what if in the beginning he came to know I loved him, he would have told me if he didn’t have such thoughts on me, I would have accepted it gladly. We were close friends first and feelings developed later! He thought, we could still be friends.

I had achieved success in every field with the blessings of my parents and loved ones and in every happy phase of my life, my parents and friends stood by me. If I look back today, whenever I was sad, it was because of him. If I ever cried , it was because of him. I could find him in all the past moments of my life whenever I was in sorrow. Did he deserve another chance?? Or did he even deserve meeting me ever again? I asked this question to myself knowing that a part of me desperately wanted to meet him. But I knew, I had a clear answer.

The next day, I met every other friend of mine except him. Before leaving my hometown, I sent him a letter through my friend. The letter said

Rakshit,

You know I was not completely over you. You used to cross my mind several times a day, but with each one of those times, a feeling of contempt also used to pass through my heart. This happened enough, my heart became completely hardened to you, and I got to the point where you don't affect me anymore. Almost everything in life is easier to get out of, except when in love.

Getting out of love isn't that difficult too, if only you realize that the one who hurts you can never be the one who deserves you. I have learnt lessons in life over the years. There were reasons we met, reasons for the good times and reasons for the bad times, and most importantly a reason to end. We have more to learn, more to experience and more loving to do in this lifetime may be not together. I hope it teaches you some lesson!

Goodbye!

Sreya

And this time, Goodbye was forever! I never thought about him again the way I used to before this day.

I knew Love has taught me a lesson for life! Life moves on and you overcome challenges of love, attraction and obsession. I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer. However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names.. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things or friends. Things do not change, we change. Friends don't change , situations change. If you are destined to get someone, you will get him/her and if you are not , you won’t ,even if you try. So leave it to God! Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, Because the flow that has passed will never pass again. So never waste time for people who are not worth it!

If I had my life to live over again, I will not change it because the life so far has taught me some of the best lessons of life, love and loss!

As I finished my story, I looked at Nandini. She was wearing a heavy smile on her face. "Mom, I love you", saying this she hugged me and I knew my daughter got all her answers!

At one point of time, we all would've had a heartbreak/grief. But when we start learning the bitter truth of life, we will really start loving the life. In this process, sometime we may sit near a window with a hot cup of tea, watch the drizzles of rain hitting your face, think of all those incidents which happened in our past. That will make you understand, though your past changed your course, it would've given you the best. Love your life and live it.

P.S : Hey how is this? Liked it eh?!

With Love,

Image Courtesy : Google Images

The Price

DISCLAIMER : The characters and the plot used here are completely fictional. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited

"Psycho” was the only word James Peterson was thinking as he saw his unshaven face in the mirror. “James Peterson” the brain and brawn behind more than eighteen political murders was trying to recollect how he looked by seeing himself in the mirror. He had changed his appearance more than seventeen times and was wanted by more than forty-seven countries across the world. Even if he went to the chief of FBI and introduced himself as James Peterson the chief would give a generic reply of “How could I help you Sir” - that was the brilliance with which he planned his crimes.

As every man, he too had the ambition of becoming the richest, the most powerful and the most famous. Nobody knew that he was a serial rapist and killer “also” who committed those so called heinous crimes just to satisfy his self, that nobody equaled his brilliance in planned crime or covering up an unplanned crime. He was an orphan as he could recollect and was raised in the local city orphanage of the Los Angeles (did some body say crime- Yes Los Angeles the then crime capital of the richest nation on earth).But James was a brilliant student (as being a good student was the only way one can get out of the strict rules of the orphanage before he became 18) and he soon was out of the orphanage and was living on his own before he was 17 and was the leader of a gang of hooligans of his own age and worked for the chino family. His first killing/murder was at the age of 19 and that too of a famous senator. He couldn’t recollect any proper reason for the murder other than that he was paid 500 US$ for the job.

Now he was standing there in front of his mirror thinking about how to pass his evening for which he had many options. Just then the phone rang, that was a very bad thing for James as he never communicated with the outer world through this device. He picked up the device which had leaked the information of so many master planners to their enemies and led them to death.
“Hello, James?”
This was the worst shock he had ever had in his whole life. Somebody calls him and calls by his first name- his brain works fast and tells him that it is wrong number and is meant for somebody else by the name James.
“Sorry wrong number this is not James here”, and he kept the phone without even waiting for the reply.
Even before his fast brain could think anything about this incident the phone rang again, he picked it up and before he could say hello the other side shouts
“Son, Don’t keep the phone, I know you are James Peterson”,
“hickkkk” James skipped a heart beat "that's is not possible”, he blurted out.
“Who are you”,
“I am your father”
“My father is dead, I am orphan”
“No, I am very much alive”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I can’t tell you anything now, come to the Central park the second bench from the east gate 7:00 PM”
“I won’t come there”
“I know you will”
Beep, beep, beep ………the line is dead.
His brain told “This is the most foolishly laid trap ever, and you would be the biggest idiot if you fall for it”
His heart spoke for the first time after 27 years “Hear your heart for once and get to know your parent”
“Aaaahhhhhhhh” he shouted out falling on his knees not able to bear the two organs of his body which were waging a war against each other. MIND AND HEART

James was sitting idle on the park bench watching little kids playing as the sun was setting across the horizon. He never liked kids and never showed mercy towards them. Twice he had killed infants along with their parents who were the actual target. Even as he sat there looking harmless waiting to become the bait and thinking about that call – so absurdly straight forward as if his “so called father” knew every thing about him. This surprised him and left him totally clueless for the first time in his life.

The sun was setting and darkening the now almost emptied park, it was half past seven. A shadow moved across his bench, he turned but before the shadow had left but not without a clue a small piece of folded paper lie on his bench,
“Come to the 152-A, 7th Cross Harrington street”

He caught a cab and pronounced the address, the cab moved to the destination. He started wondering about his father to be a more brilliant criminal than him. Before his already confused thoughts could convert him from a psycho to a confused psycho the cab stopped. He paid the cab driver and got down, He was surprised by the villa standing in the middle of a street full of flats. He walked into the villa and knocked the door. His intention was to place a gun at head of the first person he sees there and get some reason out of this whole situation.

And before the door opened a gun was stuck at his back and by instinct he tried to use his twist and snatch technique one more hand caught his arms and cuffed his wrists. “Too fast”, He was searched, his Biretta taken and then his cuffs were removed and he was pushed into the door which opened with alarming sync to the finish of his search. He was just too surprised to see the disrespect shown by these people towards one of the most wanted criminals of the world. Angry, frustrated and cursing his heart which had spoken to him for the first time in his life and screwed him too, he walked across the large hall which lay before him, at the end of which was a stair case going to the other floors of the villa. As he neared the stairs a man in his early 60’s in a dark suit with a diamond pin walked down it.

“My son”, the old man gasped and reached for his sons arm, which his son just whisked off and moved farther.
“You Bastard”, James shouted “Who are you, what do you want?”
“I am your father, I have been tracking you for past 17 years, I can prove it”, the old man begged.
“Then why did I open my eyes in an orphanage”, James cried, surprised by his own reaction he covered his face with his hands.
As these two twisted characters spent a couple of hours with each other James found out the old man who called himself Dan Peterson had not married his wife until after 2 years of her giving birth of James and she had to put him away in an orphanage and she hadn’t informed him about that son until 10 years after their marriage. James after long time was feeling something other than criminality in his mind. After the stories were told by the father and son to each other and after their reunion which took some time, Dan called for dinner.

On the dinner table Dan sipping his soup pleaded
“Son, I know I am responsible for you being into the criminal world now and I am powerful enough to bring you out of it. Please join me and leave your business”.
“It is too early to think about it and it is too complicated to get out of that world, I am already aaagghhhh……” James fell on the floor and was rubbing his throat as if it had caught fire.
Dan got up from his seat on the table came near James walking as if this was what he was expecting to happen and as though he was satisfied with the timing.
“My son, sorry I had to do this, I am very sorry, god bless your soul”, James stared at Dan as if to ask him something.
“I know what you are thinking, Yes you are poisoned you are going to die within 3 minutes. Won’t you like to know why you are meeting this fate? Pity you are my son and I am not mourning for you, instead I am happy now. Do you remember Cathie?”, Dan smiled.

James’ mind flashed his remembrance of Cathie, Catherine the senator who had been his first victim, whom he had stabbed 13 times just for sake of making the count of 13 though she dint survive even the fifth cut on her body, those 500US$ flashed across his memory and again he stared at Dan as if totally puzzled.

Dan whispered “I tracked you down for so long and I came to know that you were my son two years back.” And then he shouted “You bloody bastard, Cathie was my wife, your damned mother” and kicked James in his stomach. “Remember the name you moron? Catherine Peterson” he shouted again and walked out of the dining hall and the lights faded off as James lie their withering in pain and unable to scream, with tears on his eyes pain his body and no hope of reaching heaven.

The next day’s newspaper read “Body of unknown person found in abandoned villa at 152-A, 7th Cross Harrington street”

He thought he was the best and presumed everyone knows him. But he died as an anonymous person. He paid the price, the price for all his crimes!

***THE END***

With Love,

Image Courtesy : Google Images

P.S : Excuse me for the language I used in this post. Certain words are needed for the story.

Technologically Challenged

Anyone of you believe you are technologically challenged? Take to your heart guys, after reading this article, you will exclaim, "Ain' t seen anything yet". This is an excerpt From Wall Street Journal.

Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "Send" key.

Yet another, Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and invalid." The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses ..... shouldn't be taken personally.

A confused caller to IBM was having trouble printing documents He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find
printer." The user had also tried turning the computer screen to face
the printer -- but that his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.

An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get
her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was
plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked, "What power switch?"

Another IBM customer had trouble installing software and rang for support. "I put in the first disk, and that was OK. It said to put in the second disk, and had some problems with the disk. When it said to put in the third disk, I couldn't even fit it in." The user hadn't realized that "Insert Disk 2" implied to- remove Disk 1 first.

A story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:

"Hello, is this Tech Support?"

"Yes, it is. How may I help you?"

"The cup holder on my PC is broken, and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"

"I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"

"Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."

"Please excuse me. If I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am Did you receive this as part of a promotional at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"

"It came with my computer. I don't know anything about a
promotional. It just has '4X' on it."

At this point, the Tech Rep had to mute the caller because he couldn't
stand it. He was laughing too hard. The caller had been using the load
drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder and snapped it off the drive.

A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
The tech asked her if she was "running it under windows."
The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a
good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window
and his printer is working fine."

Howzzat??! Enjoyed eh?

P.S : This is a mail i received few days ago. Real coincidence of the happenings are doubted.

With Love,

Image Courtesy : Google Images