A Time for Everything

Posted by wannabauthor on October 21, 2010 · 20 Comments 

It had been 2 years and frankly, I hadn’t thought about him in a while. But then we met at the library last week. Just like that. One minute I was flipping through some novel wondering who had agreed to publish this stuff and the next minute I looked up and…Oh god…look down, look down.

I looked up again. LOOK AWAY. NOW. Ok, this was not working. I left the sappy novel on the shelf and walked away.

And that was that. Or so I thought. But ‘A’ brought up the question of ‘Got anything good at the library today?’ over dinner. And all of a sudden the room got colder.

Did I mention about him to ‘A’? I mumbled vaguely about meeting an old acquaintance, not saying who exactly.

Over the next few days, I thought about him. A lot. The effect he had on me 2 years ago was astounding. The thing is he had been different from the rest. When we were together I was clinging on for dear life but at the same time wanting to escape. When we were apart, my hands and eyes constantly sought him again. I ended it after 2 days. We were in bed and I just decided that he was going to kill me slowly if this went on.

But I hadn’t liked the way things had ended between us. I needed closure. So I went back to the library one evening. Took a lot of guts, I can tell you. I knew where he would be. I walked past shelves marked with alphabets. A-B-C-D-s. F-G-H-I-Js. I stopped at row K.

KAY, KAN, KER, KIN. KIN…King. Stephen King. I took the book out and stared at it. It had a hazy picture of a graveyard on it.

“OK now I am going to take you home and read you till the last page. Don’t scare me like last time. I have never left a book unfinished before. And I don’t want to start now.”

So I walked out of the library with Stephen King safely in my arms. I am determined to finish ‘him’ this time.

Author’s Note: My little affair with a Stephen King novel never went beyond a few pages. I was too much of a coward and abandoned the book soon enough. This was the first time I had ever let a novel escape me unfinished. I had even endured  through Aravind Adiga’s ‘ White Tiger’ and Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight Children’ solely for the purpose of reading it beginning to end.

I have finally mustered up enough courage to attempt a SK novel again. After all, it’s been 2 years and let’s hoping this time round I do succeed.

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Filed under 100 % Fiction, Stuff which I notice and more often don't · Tagged with affair, aravind adiga, book, feelings, Fiction, ignore, library, Midnight's Children, novel, Salman Rushdie, scared, white tiger