War!
We are ready, war ready.
Everyone was warned but no one listened.
With the rise in heartbeat, the knot in the
stomach and the sudden change of behaviour; everything changed. For some, it
grows and ebbs like the tide; while for others it comes in like a storm,
leaving only destruction in the wake.
They called it extreme emotion. It being
the highest high.
Well, I didn’t know what extreme was!
And then it hit me on a starry night of
Winterfest.
***
I think it's
cute and I think it's very sweet but yet utterly foolish on how I let my
friends encourage myself to go try and talk to her.
“It will be fine. You have to start somewhere”
Yeah right!
Her name is
Anastasia. People called her Annie.
I heard from faint whispers that she had another
name, for which she preferred more to be called by; but somehow people never
called her by that name and hence I never got to know about it yet.
***
On a summer of freshmen year
All we could
think of, was how to get into the decorated school football team; but there
begins a class of geometry which completely creates the yard scale calculations,
a pretty boring affair. The teacher continued to teach with much vigour and
passion even though there was a definite digression in the class.
A sudden knock
on the door and the imminent arrival of the principal silenced the class
altogether. But the principal was not alone, he was with a girl, the girl whose
face was partly hidden with the thick locks of her hair engulfing her face,
continuing till her shoulders.
The principal
took a glimpse of the entire class. Perhaps he was thinking that we had no hope
and this girl is here to save us all. With an intake of a brief breath he
spoke.
“Class, meet Anastasia. She will be your new classmate
from today.”
This, this
girl-Anastasia; she didn’t even look up or respond. Perhaps she was cursing her
luck to be dragged down to a wretched place; to delve along losers.
The principal
continued: “Anastasia, why don’t you
introduce yourself to the class?”
She finally
looks up and finally says “Hi” while she
moves her hair slowly using her fingers, from the temple of her head, adjusting
it on top of her left ear. This girl wore glasses and she was continuously struggling
to keep hair stay at one place. She tries to rest them again.
That sight, I
felt something was happening around me. I was oddly looking at her since I
found her interesting and she noticed that. I looked into her eyes, there she
stood still. I felt to go straight and talk to her, but perhaps that would have
been awkward in the class right away.
There is never
much a thought when it comes to getting attached to a person. Perhaps there
isn’t any. Because it just happens, like the sudden breeze of cool air flowing
in a scorching heat of a scathing desert. You do feel nice, because that is the
moment when you start thinking that it
is all that you were waiting for; for that is what you ever wanted. That is the same time when you start to lean
on the feeling, its warm embrace and also start to get a liking to it and hence
wanting more out of it.
Am I thinking too much? Hell yes, I am!
She settled down
on a seat diagonally before me towards the right. Soon the teacher continued the
geometry session. I didn’t like the session again.
Football trials were four hours away.
Football trials were four hours away.
***
Five more rounds!
The coach was
fired up in the trials. We were informed in the wee hours that the trials will
be a month long affair instead of a single session. Though it came as a relief
but we did not know what was in store for us.
The school hired
a new coach to improve their chances of winning the state championship and to
restore a balance in the side. We heard that the coach himself is an alumni of
the school and was considered one of the best strikers the school and the state
had ever seen during his time. Though we felt good that we would be tested and
trained by one of the best, but it soon grew up as a tiresome thought in
our minds.
“I said five more rounds. Pick up your speed. Don’t
walk…jog, run” the new coach says while we just
completed seven rounds of the huge school track. It was day fifteen of the
Football trial month. Most of my friends
had been dropped out, either from selection or from sheer exertion of the
schedule.
While sulking on
the coach and my dreadful choice for being happy for the trials, I saw
Anastasia coming in the playground taking her seat in the stands with a
notebook in her hand. She brought a notebook to the playground? She started
scribing on her notebook, seemingly uninterested.
By now, I think
everyone knew Anastasia. Her act of settling her hair locks to her ears had many
fans including me! Obviously!
At the same
time, Anastasia was categorized as a nerd
and it did somewhat seemed true. She had very few friends and even with the
friends she made eventually, described her as being awkward, since she spoke so
less. One girl even called her rude. Apparently she asked too many questions
when Anastasia was working on an important assignment.
“Bitch” she says while
storming across the library hall. Anastasia didn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t
care or she didn’t even listen to her, considering she wore one huge Bose headset around her ears.
I was sitting
two rows back from her desk in the library with my friends, watching the whole
episode while the librarian was asking everyone to maintain silence and then
went on the tell the girl to behave properly in school.
