“Love
her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her. If she wounds you, love
her. If she tears your heart to pieces, and as it gets older and stronger it
tears deeper, love her, love her, love her!”- Allen poured down his thoughts over this
unusual text message for the fifth time, which made him nearly forget to
partake into his usual events in the morning.
While he was getting himself ready for his office, his mind kept busy elsewhere, partly wondering who could send him this text message and partly making a short visit to his university life spanned nearly seven long years, which came to an end five years ago.
“Hey Allen,” Omit blocked his way through while blocking his thoughtful mind and thoughtless eyes, as Allen was getting into to his department, late, as usually as he always was.
-Yah, but a little less than the last hour of my morning sleep, needing a little more time to touch the finishing line.
-Hmm, probably Sophie was there just outside the finishing line. She was asking me about you. You might find her in the tea stall behind the library.
- Let’s track her, then.
- I’ll join you before the next class. Have to go to the hostel, I forgot my texts again. I don’t understand how come it always happens to me. Mahib Sir never misses to get me standing whenever I miss to bring the text to his class.
- Very sad indeed. Probably Omit without text books is more easily noticeable than Omit with text books. And surprisingly enough, it happens with the teacher who is more interested with the girls. I just don’t understand how he can always manage to get away with so many rumors of sexual harassment. Okay, See you than.
It rained last night. Having had a shower with the drops of heaven, the campus was giving a refreshed look. Refreshed enough to synchronize all those young looks dangling around here, there and everywhere unreasonably yet making sense to the hypothesis that youth goes untamed, youth thinks sporadic, youth splatters colors.
Allen stepped forward, feeling the beams of sun, escaping the rejuvenated leaves of the long trees beside the narrow walking street. The shadow kept brushing away the rays twinkling on his face. And he kept giving his looks. And his looks went everywhere while he himself was missing his own heart, beating so hard. One more thing his eyes got missed; the pair of eyes which could get his heart stopped beating.
-Won’t you ever change?
Allen’s
world actually began melting, with the sweetest question in his world of beauty
and imagination.
- Why can’t you get up a little early, even for the sake of such a beautiful class? Oh! You can’t believe it. He is the best. How easily he can fly us all to some other world! How lively he can bring down the characters so close to our souls! You must know, Mahib sir is taking Great Expectations. Charles Dickens’.
As soon as the music started from the lips of Sophie, with the very first word she pronounced, the world around Allen started dissolving into a great void housing only two living souls. One is stunningly beautiful with the nicest pair of eyes which sparkled and glittered while she kept saturating Professor Mahib Hasan and commenting on his last lecture. And as she went on coloring her favorite teacher, the other one started relocating the color of the things which were being faded away and losing their existence before her enthralling beauty. The drum insight him stopped playing. The ever enchanting music, produced by her beautifully dancing lips, suddenly lost its melody and Allen’s wings of poesy to get to world of nightingale crash-landed. She would never understand actually why he always nurtured the deliberate reluctance to attend Mr. Mahib Hasan’s lecture.
Oh! Shit! I should have been a little faster. Going to be late again for this this damn traffic jam. Allen felt disgruntled so much as to feel like kicking his back with his own leg. In a hot summer morning on the eve of ushering in the New Year, Allen kept sitting idle and sweating, never minding calling the name of fourteen generations of Dhaka city, in a jam-packed bus, painted as it seems like, on a painted road. A little boy carrying newspapers in miniature form got on the bus. Not unlike many others, he took the chance to get himself updated, spending only five bucks, once again appreciating the cheapest luxury of the metropolitan. The text message, fluctuating between his subconscious and unconscious level of mind, once again peeped out, as he came across a well-dressed- imposing rather than attractive lady- on the front page showcasing a New Year Collection from a famous fashion house.
The trio Allen, Omit, and Sophie were brain storming new ideas to celebrate the first day of the New Year. For the last couple of days they kept painting their plans with more colors and shades to make sure how well and artistically they would observe the day. To Allen, the day was indeed going to be a very special one as he took the day to unearth the hidden layer of his heart before Sophie. His courage finally stopped turning against him and he conquered on making his mind to declare the words he cherished and nurtured ever since the drums insight him started beating at the sight of Sophie.
In the last morning of the dying year, Allen came to the department late enough as to make sure the first class was already done. It was scheduled to be conducted by Mr. Mahib Hasan. To escape any accidental encounter with the teacher, a little conscious Allen somehow managed to catch Omit who was holding a mixed gesture- more worried, little surprised and a bit confused.
- Is there anything wrong? How was the class? Where’s Sophie?
- The lecture was a shortened one. Sophie left for hostel. I just saw her stormed out of Mahib sir’s chamber. Seeing her rushing out in a devastating look I tried to talk to her. She said something, but I didn’t understand the words laden with tears.
Allen’s imagination found its way through spreading its branches towards every possible and impossible idea, which finally turned out to be the locker of his heart. There were no more moments of joy; no more New Year celebration. Just some untold words buried deep down his heart. Sophie flew to London to complete her M.A without bidding goodbye.
Having been back from his office, a little late than usual, at his lonely apartment, Allen threw himself onto the couch, switched on the TV, kept shuffling the TV channels with the blank pair of eyes, which was trying to focus on something at far far away. He finally managed to get back to his bed room and come close to his mind. Does the text message quoted from Great Expectation push forward a question whether he was really in love with Sophie? The quotation once he learned by heart to answer a question in his final year exam is back again to demand an answer from his own self. Contemplating a response he got to the message option of his cell phone and wrote:
A message tone sprang up to his ear. He had a new message from the same number which had his heart got one more electrifying leap.
A smile, hardly understandable, played on Allen’s face. Now he knew it was she.
Allen deleted his response, switched on the darkness, and lit the light of his own world where she walks in beauty.
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