Anindita's Escapade Part 1 : Soul Corruption

Anindita walked up to the girl standing in front of the ATM, involuntarily humming one of the latest tacky numbers that the FM fed her. She stood in line behind the girl and wondered if the girl had heard her song and was judging her.  She would stop if she could. But no respite.

The girl was now waiting in anticipation. Instead of cash, a slip came out. ‘She is checking her balance, this will take a while’, thought Anindita followed by ‘excellent deduction, Sherlock!’

That’s when it happened. The girl picked up the slip, looked at it and let it fly. The slip landed on the otherwise clean floor, some inches from the trash can. The song in Anindita’s head stopped and was instantaneously replaced with an all consuming rage. Her mouth flew open to say something utterly nasty but nothing came out. Like so many times before, whenever she wanted to yell at people or at least say something rude her brain went on verbal lockdown. ‘Great’ she thought, ‘now I won’t be able to say anything, because you know, be nice! ’

But even if her vocals had decided to elude her, she was not going to let that girl just walk out of there. Anindita silently bent over, picked up the slip and put it in the bin. This had caught the attention of the girl who was now pulling money out of the machine. She looked at Anindita, who passed her a pleasant smile and stood up straight. The girl did not reciprocate the smile but she crumpled the next slip that came out of the ATM and stuffed it in her pocket, turned around and left without a word.

After Anindita’s consultation with the ATM and doing a minor damage to the available balance, the machine asked her to have a nice day. “Thank you Miss” said Anindita. “Frankly you are much nicer than some people I have the privilege of being around. You come with simple instructions, slip out money, say nice things and well what do you know, I am talking to myself again!”

  

She turned around to find another guy standing behind her, looking at her quizzically. “Cats are nice, have a good day” said Anindita. With a roaring laughter inside her head she wondered if he would ever relate cats to being light footed and go ‘Oooh’.

Anindita turned the corner, went and sat on one of the empty food court tables. She pulled out her book to avoid looking at the mall she was in. She hated malls. They all looked the same to her. She resigned herself to a long wait for her religiously never on time friend.

The words “How’s the Royal Subject?” floated on to her phone’s locked screen.

“Not bad, My Lord. How’s your side of the planet?” she typed out and hit send, smiling.

“Good. Well what is she doing?” asked her phone.

“You know, good deeds, clean thoughts, the usual”.

“We can’t have that now, can we?”

“Why? What did you have in mind?” Anindita tried to relax her jaw in the fear that she might creep someone out on the nearby tables. Since when was not smiling so hard?

The phone said, “a little conversation with The Devil so that I could check ‘Soul Corruption’ off my list for today.”  

“One would think The Devil would need some rest after all that soul corruption from last night. In fact, was n’t it well past 4am when you finally typed ‘Gunnyt Ani’?” inquired Anindita. “Plus, I am at this food court table smiling like the mentally unstable Joker, thinning the crowd around here. Not good for business.”

“Smiling is good. The smile can work wonders, you know.”

“For whom, smile-er or smile-ee?” asked Anindita.

“Haha… for the good hearted, Little Miss.”

“Lol.. yeah, nothing’s little here” said Anindita

“You shall have to substantiate that with evidence.”

“How does one give evidence of a big heart?” Anindita hoped her friend would be indefinitely delayed.

“You have a very nice ‘heart’ from what I recall, would not call it big.”

“Well everyone’s entitled to their opinion. By the way, when I say heart, I mean heart. Don’t go drifting with the quotes” Anindita shot back.

“Damn! I always thought ‘heart’ was a euphemism” the phone replied.

  Anindita proclaimed, “You are going to the dogs! There's your euphemism.”

“And I always thought it was best described as an idiom.”

Anindita Googled ‘euphemism’ and then typed out. “Euphemism : The act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt or offensive. Thus, 'going to the dogs' substituting 'a pervert' is as good a euphemism as any in my books”. Then she hit ‘Send’.

“Alright, alright, you have a big heart. Happy?”

Just when Anindita typed out “Very” with a smiley and sent it, she was brought back to the mall by a voice that said, “I can’t believe you are so late! It’s been hours since I have been sitting here waiting for you! Time is money my friend, haven’t you heard?”

Anindita just stared at her friend and smiled, “I am extremely sorry for your loss, Chiti. How can I make it up to you?”

Chiti took the chair opposite Anindita, clearly bemused at the lack of an expected outburst.

“You are shamelessly happy! Who were you talking to?” asked Chiti comprehension slowly dawning in her mind.

Anindita locked her phone and slid it into her purse, “No one”.