She hung up. He remembered the dialogue from the movie, “The Town” – I know I will see you again, this side or the other. It wasn’t surprising for him to relate every event of his life with a scene in a movie he had seen, ever since he had become a movie maniac.
He dialed her number again. This time, it wasn’t answered at all. He rued his missed chance. If only he had this courage to talk something other than a formal Hello in his first attempt. Blame it on his nervousness. He did hate that awkward nervousness. He always did. He ran the past few minutes in his head for umpteen times. Every time he did, he came up with a way he should have handled the situation. It was too late, he knew though.
When he thought of the call few minutes back, he wasn’t any more interested to call her again.
He dialed her number exactly at 8:25 A.M. after ensuring, quite a few times, that the numbers added up to an odd number. It was how he wanted it to be. The previous night, as he was struggling to come to a conclusion of whether or not to call her, something struck his otherwise sane mind. He decided, if the numbers of the time he sees first the next day morning added up to an odd number, he will call her. He, in his normal senses, was not a person of superstitious beliefs. But it was long since he lost his senses. Unlucky, he was. When he woke up and unlocked his mobile, the time was 8:14 A.M.
He dialed her number. Though he hadn’t been in talking terms with her for more than three years now, her number was at his fingertips. It was carved in his mind, pretty deep, after all. As the line was getting connected, his heartbeat increased drastically. He became nervous. Before even he realized that he should be normal – and that he was just going to talk to a person who is close to his heart, and that they had this divine, inseparable friendship between them few years back – he heard her voice at the other end.
“Hello,” she sounded as fresh and energetic as she used be from the time he knew her.
“Hello,” his nervous mind struggled to talk nonchalantly.
“Hello,” her energetic voice was slowly losing its charm, he could sense. He assumed that she was slowly recognizing his voice.
“Hello,” he knew he was lame with his repeated hellos. But the fact that he repeated the same word was because he could hear a male voice at the background. Don’t judge anything wrong here. He couldn’t hear the exact words, but he thought she was either out shopping or was in the middle of something at her home, maybe talking with her dad.
“Huh, hello,” her voice this time assured him she had recognized his voice.
“Hey, Sham here,” he didn’t want to repeat the hello mode, time and again.
She hung up. He dialed her number again. This time, it wasn’t answered at all. He knew this would happen. He had thought of a way to avoid this kind of situation. He felt bad that he didn’t use the words he had been rehearsing for a week then. He had decided to start with, “Hey, please don’t hang up. Just listen to me for a couple of minutes. Please.” He had a hope that those words would work out. He had practiced, in every possible way, to say the last word, please, with sugarcoating.
He kept on staring at the mobile as his dejected mind was busy calculating the numbers again and again. It was 8:14 A.M. when he woke up. It added up to 13. It was odd as expected, but not when added further. 4, it was, he realized. It was 8:25 A.M. when he dialed her number. It added up to 15. Again, an odd number as expected, but not when added further. So it was all wrong from the start, he said to himself. Not to blame him. He was still being lame, reveling in the superstitious beliefs. Will he ever recover? Only time will tell.
