He was walking towards the stairs with a lunchbox in his hands. Al his friends were left behind after all he was in his own world.. He couldn’t stop noticing a group of people. Ok that wasn’t a group of people but rather a group of birds chirping and scream to the top of their lungs. Wished he had their remote with a big mute button on it.. Why do people talk so loudly, he could never understand.  Darn they were waiting for the elevator. Why isn’t the elevator coming up at least it can carry half of that bunch. But, who are these people, never saw them before. Who gives them a damn anyways.. 

Suddenly someone in that crowd shifted foot and there…a face with an aura of simplicity with a beautiful pair of eyes…hidden behind the mob just like a pearl in an oyster, like an angel she stood quietly, her beautiful eyes making fruitless efforts to follow the conversation. She looked like a doll. The hair has fallen on her forehead making two arches. Probably she had a pony tail as well.. Oh! someone moved again made that face disappear  Touch Me Not (Chuimui). He doesn’t know why but that was the first word that popped up in his mind. He felt as if an angel has been put into a cage with lot of noisy wild beasts. Felt like if anyone ever tries to  …….. she might just withdraw herself into her own little world just like the way a touch me not plant does.  He suddenly felt a chill in his spine similar to the one he felt when he tried to lift a new born baby. He was always afraid of making the baby cry. The fear surfaced for a moment and then disappeared. Not sure where it went probably it has gone away for good, probably it hide itself somewhere deep inside him.

He wanted to keep the news of seeing an angel to himself. He didn’t want anyone else to see what he has just seen… an angel. Or he knew that noone is going to believe him Slowly his friends began to show up and started climbing down. In between all those useless friendly talks and laughters, he tried to forgot about what happened just a few minutes, thought of it as a dream. Either way it was a small thing and such things keep on happening. It’s a part of life. And moreover he never took any interest in such things. He was immune to any such feelings. Useless stuffs, There is certainly more to life than getting into such things. But perhaps he didn’t know that the stage was being set and the actors had already been chosen. 

He tried to shake off her thoughts from her head and he never saw her again.He was asked if he can give training to a bunch of people for a certain technology. Oh man com’on. I have been here for what like 2 months. Shouldn’t they be reserving trains for more experienced folks?Reluctantly he said yes. Although that time was his project delivery time and devoting a few hours for this trainings are going to be hell of an effort. Never knew that later on he would end up thanking this guy.

 There were hardly 15 people in the training room. All were unfamiliar, someof them are still so. But there…there she was.. Chuimui… sitting in a pink suit in the first row left to her friend. This was the first time he had a complete unobstructed view of her without any fear her getting disappeared again. She asked just too many questions and all of them made sense. Thanks to the guy who had made that presentation, all her questions were answered in the subsequent slides otherwise his first impression would have been unrecoverable. He still remembers her free flowing smiles, so pure and so wonderful. There was an aura of purity, honesty and simplicity around her and probably that was making her so special. He never dare to pretended that but somewhere deep inside him just wanted to see her face smiling and he was subconsciously making all the efforts to make sure that the smile never get a moment to leave her face.

Before he could realize the training was over. Since he was too busy that day he had to rush back to his work. He had to stay back till 10:00 p.m. something he had always hated to do, but today he in spite of reaching home at 11:00 p.m. he was still happy, at least now he knows her name.. 

Now that group started making appearances although untimed ones.. but certainly better than not seeing that group again.. He tried sometimes to go and talk to the people in that group, specially her but was afraid to make it so obvious. Now slowly that big group started to shrink. It got divided probably into a few smaller groups. Now there were still about 5-6 people in that group – among them one was her.

In that group she was the least talkative one at least that’s what he observed. Sometimes he would get a chance to go and say hi, but almost every time the most talkative ones shoot forward to talk and it was too difficult to get past them and reach her to even say hi. He didn’t know how to make it obvious without making it obvious that he wants to talk to her… please let her do that…

continues…

http://whenlifeisyourplayground.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/a-short-story-2/
http://whenlifeisyourplayground.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/a-short-story-3/
http://whenlifeisyourplayground.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/a-short-story-4/
http://whenlifeisyourplayground.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/a-short-story-5/
http://whenlifeisyourplayground.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/a-short-story-6/

Video for this posts can be viewed by clicking the link under video on the right hand side http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37uByAEUKhU