Friends & Foes

The Unexpected

I rolled over and snuggled in my pillow. I was partially awake, deep into dreams, trying to complete it. The birds wake me up from my date with that girl from college. We were on a date, a dinner date and that's all I could remember. But I could hear her voice as if it was reality.

"Wake up!" mom's voice echoed in my ears. "If you are late today, you will make me late;" She kept screaming. I looked at the clock, it was 7 already, but I didn't have enough energy to carry my body all day. My body was dead.

I woke up and took my brush, I saw mom making my bed in haste. She was late for her office, where she would work ten hours to get paid enough to raise me. She spent most of the life struggling for me, fighting for me, whether it was in day to day life or in a court for my custody.

My father left us when I was ten years old, ever since my mom raised me alone. I only have few memories of him, which were good. He was kind and generous. He would take me every Sunday morning to a park; buy me new clothes even though I had plenty, fulfil all my demands without my tears.

It seems very irrational to me that they two separated. From what I heard from mom, it was his fault all the way. She won't talk distinctively, every time I would ask her about their separation, she would become very cold and shut the topic.

My mother is a fierce woman; it's hard to argue with her any time of day. But she loved me enough that she decided never to get married again. The idea of a step-father to her was very unconvincing.

"What if he won't love my child as I do? Or even if he does it still won't be forever, someday we may have our kids and then partiality may come up." She would always say to my uncle, her brother, who constantly tries to convince her to get married.

I packed up and left for college. After struggling in the rush of local trains, I was standing out of class, about to enter. "Wait up man!" Kamal called.

I knew I wouldn't be the one to enter the class last. After doing the 'you-go-first-dance', we both entered the class. We both sat together; after yesterday's incident I was very grateful to him.

He was funny and all my prejudices seem to negate now. We laughed all day, sometimes it was even hard to control between the lectures.

The more I got to know about him; the more I understood that we were alike. We disliked the crowd in our class, we liked the same music. We even had a common friend, Mukesh.

It was midday and in the lunch break, Kamal and Mukesh, were with me. We talked football most of the time.

"Who is that girl?" Kamal pointed out.

After dreaming about her for 2 days, she was finally standing right in front of my eyes. The girl who saved me, motivated me, and gave me different perspective, entered the class.

"She is cute" Kamal added. I was too awestruck to notice any of his comments.

She seemed to have been sitting in wrong class this whole time and now she was finally landed in my class. I was never been so happy before. I was looking forward to talk to her.

All the dreams seemed to have a chance to become reality, It was extremely unexpected.