The Last Bencher.

He was one of the back-benchers,not because He was not interested in what was going on but rather because He got a bird's eyeview of people from where was sitting.There she was on the first row of chairs,the sunlight catching the beautiful shade of her brown coloured hair..He liked the way the earrings in her ears scintillated in the soft sunlight.His hands invariably picked up the pencil and before He knew it He was sketching an indelible image of her,as much on the paper as on the untouchable canvas of His memory in colours that were known only to His imagination.The professor was going on about torques,tensors,vectors and what not..He could'nt wait for the class to end.He had decided-he would speak to her today,come hell or high water.But somehow every time he made up his mind and his courage,something or the other would happen that shot all his plans even before they took off.Like for example last week,she was standing right in front of him in the line at the canteen.he had just opened his mouth to utter a hello when his mobile rang,some officious upstart from an obscure bank wanted to ask him some inane questions and by the time he had ticked him off,she had made her purchase and moved to join her friends.Her friends..how much He envied the girls and was downright jealous of the guys..especially that two-faced,pretentious fellow who acted holier-than-thou in her presence,but he knew what he was really,what his true image was.How much it pained Him to watch her respond to his comments,his jokes,his "innocent" demeanour.Well it was true that he was rich,had a bike,was good looking and knew how to play people's emotions with his conduct.And that was what made him an adversary,a very dangerous one too...Because whether He liked it or not,he lacked all that,he was neither rich nor was he an Adonis,he could not manipulate people,but he had a good heart,a heart that sang true for people he cared for and would go the extra mile to help them...But the problem was,she did not know anything of this,her world and mind space was occupied by that devil with an angelic face and a mind to mismatch.The bell shattered his reverie and people started tob make a bee-line for the door.He got up hurriedly and stuffed everything pell-mell into his satchel and followed his classmates' example.He caught up with her just as she was reaching the first steps of the building.Thankfully she was alone,but there he was waiting at the gate leaning sauvely on the hood of his car..The monster within His bosom gave a mighty roar of indignation and bared its fangs..He had to move fast,he could not loose a single moment,his heart was racing as he closed the distance between Him and her.He was right behind her now."Excuse me",he said,"you dropped your pen back there".She looked back at him and took and blinked in the sunlight.She vaguely remembered his face but could not place it."Thanks",she said and was gone before he could say anything else. He watched with ever increasing rage as she practically ran to him and got into the car.He must have been lost in those thoughts for quite sometime and was brought out of his red haze by a piercing pain in his palm,and as he looked down he noticed the pencil in his hand which he had strongly enough to snap it into two.Gathering his senses,he moved away and slowly started walking towards the library.There was a Maths olympiad coming up and he wanted to do well in it.He shook his head as he walked to clear his thoughts and decided to get over his feelings for her,it was going nowhere and leading him into bouts of depression.He had enough on his plate already.He threw himself into the preparation and kept his mind occupied with a fierce dedication.It was a few days before the olympiad when it all started happening and looking back now he wished he had never went down that stone path.
To be continued.....