Amber

(18) Raheja High

I woke up to a mild headache the next morning. Even though my bare feet became numb as soon as they touched the cold floor, my mind remained agile. I knew what to do. I calmly dressed myself and left for Raheja High, a skyscraper right in the heart of the city. Vaguely aware of the fact that it would cost too much if I took a cab, I boarded the train. It was strange how a few months back I would not be able to board a bus, let alone a train, without Grandma. Time taught me how individual is life.

The train was filled with all kinds of scents. Lavender perfume of a newly-wed woman going for work, a bitter smell of the deodorant of a stout middle-aged man, a strong coffee aroma possibly from a college-girl beside me. Not to mention the grumpy old man sitting opposite to me who smelt like fart. It wasn't his fault though, I thought.

I tried to initiate a conversation with the college-girl beside me. "Do you study at the Princefield College in the city?" I asked.

"No," she said blandly.

I waited for her to speak further, but she again dumped her face into her phone and started frowning.

"Okay, in which college do you study then?" I asked, suspecting that she was just as shy as me.

"Dunno," said she, without looking at me.

I spent the rest of the time fiddling with my hair and silently struggling to breathe with the regular stink-attacks of the old man. Besides, there was no scope of watching the sight outside the window. The train was underground. After about half an hour, I felt the train slowly escalating upwards. I found the indeed, the darkness on the other side of the window was starting to dissipate and the tracks were visible. Oh what marvelous sights! Such tall buildings! Everything was made of glass. Before I could fully consume the glory with my eyes through the window, the train came to a halt.

"Platform number 9. Raheja High Station." The robotic female voice announced.

The passengers inside my compartment seemed to have doubled. I struggled to stand up or even make my way through the exit door to the platform bustling with people outside.

I grabbed hold of the bag of the college-girl who turned out to be a lot taller than I had thought she was. Astonishingly, she seemed to make her way out of the fuss with no effort at all. After coming out on the platform, she took no notice of my hand frantically pulling at her bag. She could have easily been robbed by anyone, I concluded.

But more interesting was the view around me: People walking in fancy clothes (some with sunglasses on), men and women rushing through the place as if they had never been busier, some teenagers smoked in a corner and a long line of children seemed to be looking for an empty bench. I strolled through the platform, trying to find an exit banner when I heard a toddler crying to go home while her mother hushed her aside to complete a difficult level of a game on her phone. Mum would have never been like that, I thought, though her memory diminishes with each passing year. It is difficult to tell between my imagination or real memories now.

I saw a team of artists sitting near the cleanest dustbin I had seen in my life, which was only distinguishable when one of them threw a paper in it. It seemed to me they were trying to understand the anatomy and philosophy of passengers in a train. One of them was a tall boy with thick kohl in his eyes and his hair were as long as mine, tied in a messy bun right above his forehead. And with messy, I mean real messy. It seemed he had never washed his hair before. An unusually tall woman was coming in my direction, her 6-inch heels making a loud clattering noise on the polished platform floor.

And that was when I finally spotted the exit sign. My patience slowly giving way, I slid through the diverse people on the platform, took the stairs downwards (I avoided the escalator because it seemed scary) and finally reached the road.

Unlike the platform above, the road was much silent, with one or two cars zooming past the zebra crossing. Interestingly, there was no traffic signal, nor was there a sight of a traffic policeman. Across the road stood Raheja High.

A/N:-
No one's reading it anymore(xD), but I'll still complete it to satisfy the 13-year old author who was too excited to start it in the first place.