High school diary 1 - letter box

How do you write about your school friends? Especially when the thing you want to write about is a well kept secret. More so when it involves an adventurous person who was ready to risk his life for a girl and he almost ended up doing so. On the other hand, the girl was more silent than a windless night.

It is such a restless thing in soul that you have to let it escape from your mind.

I wouldn’t have seen it unless I decided to toil that summer night to finish all my pending home works. It was 1 past midnight. The whole hostel was silent but for occasional snores of a few. The hallway connecting the dormitories was long and dark intermitted by islands of dim light from zero watt bulbs. But the darkness did not bother me as I walked through the corridor because I was almost asleep with only bit of my eyes open so that I don’t step on a wandering snake or go face down tripping on steps. So I missed to see the slick movement that happened at the other end of the corridor.

My ears did pick some thing and when I looked up the door of the partition which separates the student dormitories from the staff quarters was moving back and forth. Certainly it cannot be wind because that was quite a calm night. In a quick instant my senses were wide awake. My brain, running on all its eight cylinders, considered and rejected the possibilities of ghosts, god, son and holy spirit in that order in a quick second. The next moment I was hiding myself behind a wall, ready to leap and run at the first sight of the burglar. Newspapers were full of stories on ruthless burglers beating up people.

The next I heard was foot steps of the burglar running towards me. I leapt across from my cover to open ground. But soon I realized that I didn’t have to do it. The alleged burglar was none other than my class mate and room mate. From the corner of my eyes I saw him running towards our dorm door and dive in. It was dark and he was quick. But neither were enough to stop me from recognizing him. Some thing did smell fishy. No one goes to that part of hostel other than to post the letters or to meet the warden. Neither seemed an activity that had to be done in the middle of the night

That night I saved his face by not asking any questions when I went to bed. I cleared my throat a couple of times though. I plan to save his face now by not revealing his identity. I will call him Jackal – in memory of the Latin American smuggler.

Let me tell you a bit about myself now. I was to the warden what Carl Rove Was to president Bush. Except that in my case the warden could beat the blues out of me. Nevertheless, I had insider information. The next few days were eventful.

Jackal had his plans, to express his love to his sweet heart, more or less perfect. That until I came in as a meteorite and thrashed it to pieces on that night. He went to post his letter overflowing with love, when he was sure every one is asleep, especially the warden. Two post boxes were kept in front of warden’s room. One labeled IN and the other OUT. Any outgoing letters goes to the latter and warden cleared the ones in IN every day and passes the letters to the inmates after a screening. On that fateful night as soon as jackal entered that room, he heard the foot steps. In a hurry he reached the first box and dropped the letter in, and was air borne. Little did he know that the letter which will later draw his fate was in the wrong box. Or that the approaching footsteps were not of the warden.

The hell was to break loose next day.