Someday a year ago, I got a call from my friend Ans asking me if I could help her friend with a short story. “The topic is- The man by the lake,” she said tensely. “You have to help,” she insisted, “It is for a friend and she said she can not think of anything to write!”

Firstly I could not see any logic in asking a student pursuing her MBA to write a short story. “What an oxymoron!” I thought.
Next, I was thinking out aloud, “What kind of a topic is this?!”

I still thought I should help and pen down a few words. For the next 30 minutes I was drowning myself in a weird array of thoughts. I did not realize that I was getting carried away by some strange wind of imagination. I pounded on the keyboard like it was an assignment with a deadline. When I thought I was sufficiently satisfied with the introduction, I re-read and realized this was a little too psychologically-inclined for an MBA grad. I raised my doubt with Ans and buzzed her online, “err… is it ok if it is a little…say… psychological sorts?”
“Relax with the heavy words. Jus send the draft of the intro across and we’ll tell you,” she said chirpily.

I sent it. It took them a while but she replied on the online chat. “:( no Vinaya. We can’t take this!”

Ans’ friend wrote that story on her own and passed the assignment (I presume).

I still feel bad about this story that hangs by its intro and is yet to be completed.

“It was the kind of evening I had dreaded since my return to my ancestral cottage at Wellington – chilly, dark and pregnant with the strong stench of death. I would have stayed back in the less dreary cottage if it was not for her promise. We had not met in a year and I was surprised to find a note awaiting me at the backdoor in the morning. It said “Wait by the lake”. No initial was needed. I could discern that handwriting in the darkest hour of the day. It was Alice.

Alice and I never loved each other. We could not look at each other and not feel a strange sense of hatred brimming over. We were never friends. But when I lost my family in a burn-out, the only person I cried to, was her. Alice knows my pains more than my own self and that is why I hate her. I hate her for knowing me so well. I hate to look at her when I am in pain, for when I do, I feel like my eyes had been yearning to tell her my darkest secrets all this while. It felt like the minute our eyes locked in contact, they would pour out to her what she needed to know.”