Fiction in f Minor - Post 3

[continued from <<Post - 2]

Neel wolfed down the rest of his dinner, barely noticing the abominable cooking, the daily butt of unending sarcasm of all but the most diehard of mess-diners. Even Head-Cook’s infamous “mix-vegit-evil” wasn’t evil enough to distract him this evening anymore. Barely pausing to rinse his mouth, he bounded up the stairs two at a time to his room, put pen to paper, and embarked on a note:

“Dear Alyssa…” he began.

That was as far as he got before coming up short. He cast a critical eye on his penmanship. Nah! Not good enough! He’d have to come up with something a little less familiar. He tore out the sheet and started afresh.

“Dear Ms. Ahmed…”

Too formal! Damn! What was a dude supposed to do?

Neel sweated over this particularly vexing problem of female salutation for an agonized half-hour, with the wastepaper-basket rapidly filling with wads of balled up notepaper. He was all but ready to give up in despair, when finally, like all simple solutions of genius, the answer stared him elegantly in the face. Putting his head down, he began to write:

20th September, 19XX
Bengal Engineering College
Sibpur, Howrah.

Alyssa,

Here’s your lost letter back. I found it in a book at the British Council Library. I’m returning it in case it’s something important. By the way, it is most unwise to use your letters as bookmarks if you’re going to leave them in before returning your books.

– Neel.

He signed his name with a flourish, and was just leaning back to admire the simple brevity of his handiwork, when he was startled out of his skin by a quiet voice whispering softly in his ear:

“My, my, my! Getting fresh, are we? Yeh Alyssa madam kaun hai?” *

Neel looked up to find the familiar visage of Deep-C grinning down at him from ear to ear.

[continued in Post 4>> ]

* Translation: “Who is this Madam Alyssa?”

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