Chapter :An Alter Ego

"In that book which is my

memory

On the first page of the chapter

that is the day when I first met

you

Appear the words,' Here begins a

new life.' "

-Dante Alighieri

**********

E.H.

She made him smile that also after such a long time...

He had forgotten how to do it, yet the puny girl did it unknowingly.....Is it even attainable to shatter his icy wall???

He was pacing back and forth down his suite while pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was thinking hard.

His breaths were heavy with a stifling air crowding him.

"How is it even possible?" he stammered. How?

All these years of infliction of pain and torment taught him never to be emotionally dull. To be attached is a sin in his dictionary. And thus cursing under his breath he paced some more.

The thing that mesmerized him the most was the innocence that trickled out of the girl's presence. Hence he experienced the shrewd taste of envy and longing.

The girl was an ordinary one with a short mane of brown hair and a charismatic set of blue eyes almost black which shimmered like the starry night. Though clumsy yet classy in propounding a new topic with a wild view on it. She was a little girl who stepped out of the commotion and introduced herself like a Valkyrie woman.

Frankly, I was quite taken aback by her up to the point that I wanted to know all her secrets and just play with them. I wanted to dissipate the confidence she oozed and turn her into a broken mannequin. But alas, my swindle heart revolted and a smirk broke out.

I was completely bewildered to find myself quite relishing the company of a dainty girl and that one who dressed a bit lousily with a sweatshirt and worn-off jeans to complete her attire.

My heart is thumping distraughtly. In my accordance -She was like a wildflower and an ivy contaminating and marring one with an eccentric quintessence.

Ahh, has he lost it now.....thinking this nonsense? So he shook his head as if to break the trance and languidly treaded down to the balcony. A stormy night is approaching with a deadly silence. And indeed this felt similar to his state. His storms were long go bottled up and shoved in the abyss of his darkness...he thought.

Seldomly did he feel this jitteriness and fancied about his future and the what-ifs. While running his fingers through his messy hair, he looked beyond the horizon and sighed.

How could a simple encounter disconcert him so much...her bantering, her twitching, and her facade be conformist, her everything calls to him like a crack.

Thus he scolded himself again, "Moron, stop thinking of gibberish and clean up the mess before ...the old man gets to know."

--------

A week later,

I was back at my place, lounging leisurely with my limited edition bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and my blank easel gazing at me tauntingly as in mocking me over my haggard state.

For the past few days, I kept on thinking about that silly girl and somehow it felt like she had got under my skin.

Nah....is all I bite back.

But my foul luck still plays out, and my iPhone starts ringing. In a daze, I pick it up and hear my bestie's gruff voice. He called to inform me something, a formality, well if you ask me but thanks the heaven for it.

She made it.....

She made it through the screening round.....

Rest I don't remember that well, only my erratic act of mailing her ...

I even can't recall what I wrote, to which she replied swiftly. She replied to me.....really...she did.....ahh...I am getting mushy...

As a consequence of it though, all night I worked frantically with my colors and kept chorusing her response...

Later when the daze of alcohol cleared up at the crack of dawn, I sauntered back into my studio to find the fierce, tiny girl staring back at me.

And I just huffed out dramatically.

Only in the end, the diffused essence of her words lingered,

" Thanks for believing in me and in a way motivating me to look forward.....and by the way I do know who you are Mr.Representative.

Thanks, my friend:)

-With due respect,

Blue.

A friend...never was he anybody's friend...

Thus a smile broke out on his face, cringing his eyes and he gazed forward to the sunrise with a fresh spirit...

*********