Long Time No ……

So that’s your exercise. “Long time no..” is your prompt.

Fiction, poetry, essay, vignette, character study, script, whatever comes easiest to you. Better still, whatever comes hardest; extend yourself and try a genre you’ve never attempted before.

- Up to 1000 words.
- Not more than one contribution per member per week.

MY STORY

She stomped in angrily muttering expletives under her breath.  I looked up from the Ludlum I was reading and asked “What’s biting your ass now”

 

“That bloody cow!  She made me get up from the seat.  She thought I was a boy.  I had to stand in the bus all the way from Defence Colony to Maurice Nagar”

 

I threw her a bottle of Bisleri and bookmarked my page.  This was going to take time.  She gulped down the water and plunked her skinny ass on my armchair without removing the clothes kept on it.  I suppressed a groan and looked at her expectantly.

 

“Effin bitch!” she said throwing the bottle at the dustbin and watching it bounce away from it.

 

“Who?”

 

“Some fat woman on the bus.  She told me that the seat was meant for ladies and made me stand.  Dammit I am a woman!  Bitch!  She probably would have noticed that I am a girl but she had fat instead of grey matter in her brain”

 

I sighed and looked at her.  She was tall, dark and beautiful.  Her 5’7” frame was skinny and this is North India where girls are supposed to be short, fair and curvy.  She was normally clad in jeans and tees and had short hair like Kajol in the first half of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.  Her parents had named her Madhulika, but every one knew her as Mads. 

 

“Mads you need to look and feel like a girl to be treated like one.  You know what?  You need a girl bra.  Burn your damn sports bras and get a girl bra, wear shirts with jeans and see the difference”.

 

She looked at me as though I had lost it. 

 

“Ritu, I am a girl and girls do wear sports bras you know.  What’s wrong with Tees?”  The tone was extra patient as though she was humoring a mental retard.  I gave her an irritated look and got up from the bed.

 

“Okay lets go out” I said giving my Ludlum a wistful look. 

 

WTH, I hadn’t even approached the issue of lipstick as yet…  Girl bras are good and feminine – at least one doesn’t have to squish parts of your body into one sling that leads to back fat.

 

Mads was ecstatic with our trip to the mall even though she had to do the old lady thing of hooking the bra up front and then twisting it around.  She even bought a couple of shirts.  She preened in front of the mirror and then said to her reflection

 

Long time No See

 

“Talking to your feminine self?” I asked

 

Nah, to the two of them.  Dammit I always thought I had a uniboob you know, I actually have two boobs.  Oh Ritu, you know what, my shirt does that thing you know – gaping hole between second and third button.

 

I cracked up.  We both started giggling like demented females.  I somehow said between giggles, “Pay your bill and let’s move”

 

She looked at her reflection again and said

 

Long time No See, the two of you.  See you soon.