Classtime fiction

I am sitting in a class right now. An Economics class, though I would rather call it a statistics class. Of course it is boring the shit (read this piece of crappy fiction) out of me. I had thankfully done my homework before coming to the class, that is to say printed a few Jerome K Jerome stories for classtime reading. Unfortunately, I finished them even before the halfway mark, and hence, to amuse myself, I have taken to writing, inspired by Jerome that I am!

Our story has at its base, a conventional oft-repeated tale of the gallant who woos and rides away, leaving the maiden to weep. Just that in our story, the gallant doesn’t really manage to woo the maiden, though he does ride away leaving noone but himself to weep (figuratively of course, for he is a gallant!). He nevertheless leaves a little packet for her containing the most precious thing he ever possessed, just to be as faithful to the clichéd story as possible, hoping that if he plays his part of the fairytale story faithfully, his real story would somehow manage to become the fairytale, complete with a ‘happily-ever-after’ ending.

He writes to her as often as he can, being as romantic as his unacknowledged love permits him to be, always getting a reply which makes him fall more in love, but also cementing the fact that there lies no hope in the morrow of his story. The correspondence shrinks as there remain less and less ways of writing the same flirting-with-romance letters. He always gets replies, but he never recieves an unsolicited letter out of the blue, though he checks his mail everyday hoping for one of them.

To repeat the phrase used in oft-repeated stories, ‘seasons come and change the time’. The gallant hero is no longer a gallant hero but more of a middle aged man who has seen his share of the world, but still has the lovely maiden he once left at the back of his mind. One fine day, for its always the fine days which move the stories forward, acting on a whim, he books tickets to go back to the place he once called home, more importantly, the place where perhaps, though logic dictates otherwise, the love of his live (for he never came around to love anyone else, though hard, he did try) still resides.

He goes back to the neighbourhood he once resided in, and though much has changed, he is still able to sense a sense of belonging to it. He is somewhat scared of being in that place, of accidentally meeting old acquaintainces, even his ancient love, though he cannot figure out why? He somehow finds the courage to check out her house, or the house she used to reside in, all the time hoping for the latter. It’s perhaps the Beatles song playing in his ipod, thinks the writer of this story, but that is irrelevant.

[Knock Knock]

fem. voice : Who’s that?

The no-longer-gallant-hero-but-a-middle-aged-man (The Man from now on) : me

fem. voice : me who?

The Man : erh…

The door opens anyway, and the eyes are unmistakingly hers, or well atleast at 99 % confidence level. Our man is at loss of words, Part of him wants to run away, Part of him wants to faint, and the remaining majority is wishing it did not exist.

Anyways, the class is about to get over, so I will cut to the chase. They catch up with their life, the man learns that she always remained single, and when he quizzes her about the reason for that, she says she didnt think relationships last, and if they dont, she was scared for the guy involved. The man goes to the bathroom, just to see the look in his eyes.