Me,my teeth and Angie

Kapil keeps looking at Shivnaraine, not knowing how a man can smile

after his whole business has been reduced to ashes I lost my balance and struck the forehead of a girl standing nearby with my inch-long teeth

just don’t understand people sometimes, perhaps it’s just the opposite; they don’t understand me. I am just an ordinary guy with shiny cage like brace Of my teeth which some people find highly amusing. Maybe It’s because of the divinely structure of my teeth — never reluctant to expose itself - that I sometimes feel extremely bad about it.But when I was a kid my momma used to tell mc that it was the sign of a good person in fact, a happy person1 always smiling, and so when I used to be sad, I would sit in front of the grand mirror in my house and see myself all over. I would try to smile. I felt something. I still don’t understand the feeling) but it always made me believe that I was a good person.

One day in school I was playing dog-bone with my friends. As I was getting away from Phil, carrying the hone, I lost my balance and struck the forehead of a girl standing nearby with my inch-long weth. The Tiflin she was carrying flew off her hands and she started cryi ng. I was worried when everybody saw that her forehead was bleeding right where I had launched my unlucky ‘teethy’ weapon. Friends of mine ran away but I kept my cool and quickl y covered her wound with my dirty handkerc hief. I pressed it hard.

She cried ‘ah, you’re hurting me’

“Oh. I’m sorry”

I pressed gently and asked, is it okay now?”

“Yes”, she said.

We stayed for about half an hour there under the shade of a tree and while I was pressi ng my hanky I was just feeling nice and soothi ng and maybe it was same on the other side. She didn’t talk much but she wasn’t shy, I knew it. llwn after sometime, I don’t know what she SaW or felt, she took her empty lifTin box and ran away from me. She didn’t look back.

The very next day she came to me, smiled and said. “Iii, I’m Angie!” She didn’t stop by, just to ask my name. I knew it. She sat beside mc and from then on we were friends..,

As time passed, we started getting along very well. 1 gradually started to know her and understand how she felt. Angie was sweet; sweet at least to me hut some people simply

don’t like sweets, her father being oxw of them. Angie’s father was always rude

his hate was his wife’s death who had left the world just after Angie was born. So my Angie was a little, innocent girl craving for love.

I had no idea how quickly time was passing as we spent most 1)1 our time talking, playing and planning our lives. We shared almost everything, all the joys and sorrows, and faced become my best friend. Angie was sweet and ambitious. For me she was the only one I could count on after my mother’s demise. She always wanted to be a movie star, but she hated all those hippie songs and crazy guys, who were mere duplicates, maybe that’s why she never got along with any guy. It in our college as the crazy. psycho. pathetic, unduly, matching couple. Angie never cared about these things but I always wished people would call us a couple, yet I pretended to be unaware of the buzz. Our graduation day was coming near and I was happy as the dream of my momma was going to come true. I had been thinking about proposing her at our graduation day. This would be my moment.

It was this day. a gloomy-gkx)my day in fact, that after sitting through an elaborate form al ceremony and dean’s speech, we had finall y managed to throw our graduate caps in the air. It felt really cool and for Angie it was freed om from her studies once and for all. I was really nervous but I summoned my courage and called her to mccc mc, the same place where we used to hang out often. I reached the spot early and practiced three-four lines of my dialogue hut to no avail. Here she was right on time. When I saw her lace it was glowing like it never did before, while I was holding my breath and was getting cold inside. She came close to me and said “hey oldie, what’s the story?”

“Umm. I need to tell you something.”

“Tell me, what? You’re an alien?” she

chuckled.

“Come-on.. .1 just want to tell you what my heart.uh.,.”

“Now don’t tell me you love me and want to marry me,” she laughed

I was awestruck. She was caricaturing my solemn words. Suddenly I felt I had lost somet hing valuable, that I had believed was mine. It was just a matter of time before 1 claimed my possession. I felt hollow. I just couldn’t see her face straight but she saw me and in a moment she put on a devastated look.

“No... no, it can’t be, please, don’t”, she cried

I dared enough to look at her face; she was literally sad. Thai glow on her face had suddenl y disappeared and her eyes “gosh!” it was filled with tears.

“You know oldie,” she sighed and paused

for a while. Then alter sometime, I don’t know what she saw or felt; she ran away from mc, she didn ’t look back. Now that I’m stranded in this condition with shiny cage like brace in my teeth, I think of her sometimes these days but I know, I can’ t stop here. I need to keep walking,

(kathmandu post, 5.sept.2010)