“What did she meant by that Spanish phrase ‘Viva La Vida’?” Caroline murmured tossing herself on the sweat soaked bed.
“But it sounds good, ‘Viva La Vida’”, she smirked.
Caroline removed the now – dried wet towel from her forehead and with her frail and feverish body walked out of her room and headed towards balcony.
She unlocked the balcony door and a chilling but a serene breeze embraced her. She leaned over the parapet of the balcony of her apartment on the twentieth floor. She looked upon the sky in hope to find the star she was looking for since she was eight but the dirty grey clouds from south west direction were busy covering the sky as if a famous pop star was going to perform on them. Suddenly, a drop of rain from that infinite high sky falls on her right cheek. Soon it started to rain and the clouds which were busy setting stage for approaching monsoon a while ago lowered their heights to mock at Caroline in for of ear deafening thunders. Caroline stepped aside, placed her hand out to feel the cold tears of cloud and enjoyed the petrichor.
“How I wish you’d be here with me to enjoy this onset of monsoon, Alex”, a tear slid from her smooth cheeks and fall on the floor.
This was the last thing she remembered before awakened by her grandma.
“How many time I told you not to leave room unless it’s very important but you never listened. Have you vowed that you’d never listen to me?” Grandma said angrily, sitting on a rocking chair placed beside Caroline’s bed.
“Its brain freezing”, Caroline murmured when her grandma placed an ice bag on her forehead.
“You don’t remember falling unconscious, do you?” grandma shot another question.
“No”, Caroline said closing her eyes.
“Take these medicines and don’t dare to step off from this room”, grandma warned her placing a dozen tablets in Caroline’s hand and was about to leave room when Caroline called her back.
“Granny, I want to go to college today”, Caroline said.
Granny stood at the door for few seconds and got out of room without uttering a single word. She knew that its waste of energy to argue with stubborn Caroline. On the other side Caroline too knew that her granny, though always try her best to be strict to her never deny her mundane wishes.
Though she took few minutes to fresh up, she almost took 20 minutes to select outfit and finally settled for grey sweater over white shirt. She spent next 5 minutes to admire herself in front of full length vintage dressing mirror. Though her face had turned little clumsy because of her long illness, her blue eyes still dazzled as bright as stars, determined to change the perspective of world around her from negativity to positivity, colorless to colorful and from lethargic to animated.
After quick breakfast and bidding farewell to her grandma, she left for college. Even though she lived at twentieth floor she chose stairs instead of elevator. She was confident that she can reach ground floor without using elevator but her frail body gave up at fifteenth floor, leaving her helpless to take lift to touch the ground. Mrs. Fernandez, wife of Deputy Mayor of Panaji closed her door as soon as Caroline waved at her. Caroline didn’t minded and entered the lift and pushed ground floor button.
The watchman of the building gave a weird look at her which she ignored as she exited the gates of apartments. She was amazed by the view outside of her apartment blocks. Every single thing soaked in rain. She jumped over from the water filled pot holes, enjoyed the chirping of sparrows and sounds of unknown birds, squeals of new born puppies sheltered under a rusted Ambassador car on her way. The choirs from Moira Church made her a bit more spiritual than before. She felt enchanted by nature’s beauty and fresh breeze from sea.
On the other side, may be couple of miles away from Xavier’s junior college where Caroline is heading, a guy named Alex was in turmoil whether to go to college AKA jail or just bunk as day before yesterday.
“I hate this route as well as this climate. Gloomy, selfish and mundane”, he sighed as soon as he stepped out of bus.
“Still, I’ve got a reason to go. A soul to take care of”, he murmured taking right turn from Raghavan green valley.
“I’ve already missed many classes. I have to attend the class “, he pushed himself into the Xavier’s college gate. Everyone around him was too busy preparing themselves for mathematics and physics exam they are going to write in next fifteen minutes.
“Revise that second problem from complex number and sixth, seventh and tenth from Combination”, he heard couple of geek girls whispering behind him.
“Nerds never change”, he thought.
“So you finally showed up, ha! I thought you’re busy drawing your another masterpiece”, Rohan, Alex’s class monitor chuckled and his friends joined him.
Alex turned back, returned an awkward smile, checked his roll number and headed straight to his exam hall. He didn’t want to reciprocate to those who teased him for his unconventional behavior and sense of humor. When he entered the class it was empty. He went to his allotted seat and looked out of its window. He took his sketch book out but found nothing to be lucrative to draw.
As soon as examiner placed question paper in front of him, he was hundred percent sure that he is goanna fail, again! So instead of checking out the questions he flipped the question paper and started to draw the scene of examination of hall. He added interesting elements to his creation such as adding hair to bald examiner, replacing green board with LED TV and roof with floating candles similar to that of Harry Potter’s movie.
He was in a trance of imagination that he didn’t even notice that examiner was standing right beside him.
“What are you doing, idiot”, examiner yelled at him.
The concentration of people writing exam was shifted from solving question paper to Alex. Examiner snatched the paper from Alex and