Message in a Picture

Dec 1992, INT. NIGHT

I found myself sitting next to this FPN in a poker game. I found her to be gorgeous and charming though no sparks flew in any directions. I was completing my Masters at Georgia Tech and by design I was geeky type, unsure of the complexities of life if they don’t result in a solve able equation on my calculator.

But the Nature has its own games to play. So halfway thru the game I started hearing some voices in my head. I ignored them, but the Nature was persistent. It started sending me the same message in the form of images instead.

I saw her in a white dress, a small town Baptist Church, happy faces, Rev Evans as Betsy, I saw Vintage Ford with those words and balloons, and I saw some Romantics Etc. Etc.

Just right then, someone knocked on the door. We all turned around to see a cop in uniform entering the house.  He was introduced as the brother of that FPN. He was friendly and fun guy, but I was from India. In India cops are suppose to be Judge, Jury and the executioners, and they carry the load of Indian Patriarchy on their shoulders.

Well, to cut the story short, the freshly downloaded images started disappearing one after the other in a hurry. The white dress was the first one to be erased.  The romance and Etc. Etc. hung on for a while, but in the end they too gave up and left. By the time the game was over I had no images left to review again.

Then life distracted me and I forgot about her.

After Maa, I went looking for my lost life in the form of pictures from the past, and found her again.  Life has written lots of stories on her face as it did on mine. We all get that. No exceptions.

This time I revived those images without fear or retribution. This is what I like about getting old and single.  No fear. It should not have been in those moments too, but we all are prisoners of our own devices.

Ps: My frnd who is a Bulldog fan says it’s my GA Tech influence that made me so cautious in pursuing her further. If I were a UGA grad I would have asked her out regardless of the outcome.

May be he is right!

Oh well!