42 Quirks

He stepped out of the auto-rickshaw, and paid the driver in a hurry.

“I don’t have change!”

“Keep the friggin’ change!!”

“Hey thanks! You might smell funny, but you have a golden heart!”

The funny smelling guy made his way to the café entrance and was about to step in when the importance of the auto-rickshaw driver’s remark hit home.

******

It had been a really bad day.

The first thing he did every morning was wake up on the right side. Today, it had been the left. And then as he was brushing his teeth, she had called.

He really should have ignored that call.

“Hi, howey, Ah-b bwushib wight *slurp* wight wow..”

“We need to talk.”

The voice at the other end of the line sounded tinny.

“Fyo-ore, Whoa-awh-ead…”

“What are you doing?” It sounded irritated.

He spat the foam. “I said I am brushing. What is it?”

“Alright, finish whatever it is that you are doing and give me a call.”

Click. The line went dead. It was an omen.

But then, he never believed any of that crap.

His day in the office was markedly negative. Negative reviews, negative opinions, negative appraisals, negative colleagues, negative bosses, heck, even his bank balance showed a negative figure.

During lunchtime, he remembered that he hadn’t called her. When he did, she yelled at him left, right and centre. He didn’t understand most of it. Although, he was pretty sure he heard words like irresponsible, forgetful, pathetic loser. He caught three words quite distinctly – “evening,” “café,” and “meet.” Was that at six or eight?

Bad network connection – blame it on them. But then, omens do not really exist, do they?

And then things took a turn. For the worse.

He stepped out only to find both the wheels of his bike punctured. So what? There’s always Public Transport, right?

Unfortunately, for someone who’s never been in a bus, the first time is a terrifying experience, pun unintended.

He had barely managed to hang on to the foot rail.

Hanging on to the foot-rail is a thing of skill. You have to practice it for years, with a lot of rope and/or harness, or a trustworthy friend, before you can do that. Even the greatest of athletes tremble at the mere thought of attempting such a hazardous feat. And here he was, out on a limb, pun unintended, again.

No prizes for guessing what happened next.

The treacherous city roads existed for the passengers. They existed for pedestrians. They also existed for posterity. Basically, they existed for all mortals. And the bus-driver is no mere mortal.

The city roads, especially the pot-holes adorning them, did not exist for the bus-driver. There is no spoon, he muttered to himself and drove on.

One moment he was hanging on to dear life and the very next moment he was lying in a puddle that was probably on a vacation from its original residence in Sahara. Unfortunately, it had also brought along, it’s closest relative called Sand, and had turned into the Great Indian Slush.

And that was exactly where he landed.

What added to the discomfort was a cow had recently gifted the puddle some of it’s own precious water that it had made itself.

And that was how his day had been.

To Be Continued…

Arbit Observation:
The best part of writing a story can be expressed in three simple words:
“To be continued”

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 2:29 am and is filed under People, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.