The Stolen Story - Short Story

“I loved your story”

Aravind looked at his communicator twice to make sure that it was indeed, Aishwarya who was messaging him. He didn't expect that this would happen even in his wildest of dreams. He double checked it, only to substantiate the truth. It was the same Aishwarya, whom he had been following subtly for more than a year, had messaged him now.


He could not believe his luck. His friends wont believe that the most gorgeous girl in his office (at least according to him) did in fact message him. To add to the pleasure, she also added him as a friend in the communicator.


“Friend in the communicator – this is just the first step”, he said with in his mind, and started to think of a terrific reply, that would catch her off guard. He wanted his first reply to be some thing that she could never forget. One, two, three, minutes passed busy, but he couldn't think of any proper reply.


Meanwhile she went to “Away” status, and he started cursing himself for the missed chance. With his brain not able to conjure up any mesmerizing reply, he typed a mere “Thanks”, and waited eagerly for her to come back and reply to it. Time passed, and he was continuously staring at the communicator, to make amends to his earlier hiccups once she returns back. In the interim, he had also declined his friends invite to go and have a cup of coffee, citing end of day work as an excuse.


“I loved your story” – he reread the message in the communicator. Your story – Now this was an issue. It was not his story. He, a lover of prank right from his childhood days, had stolen his friend’s short story (who was on maternity leave now) and posted in MCT INK for the sake of fun. A week later, he was all set to post an apology mail in INK for the same, when Aishwarya had messaged her. Now he was in a dilemma.

Inside his brain, the moral ethics - his parents, grand parents and teachers inscribed in him for the past twenty five years of his existence - wanted him to tell the truth to her. However the basic animal instinct in him, that had always understood, that to evolve as a species, one needs to keep attracting the opposite sex, was forcing him to tell this one simple lie. At last the moral ethics got disseminated, and it was the basic instinct inscribed into his genes, millions of years ago that won. He deleted the apology message that he was about to post.


“I enjoyed reading the story very much. One of the best stories I had ever read”, the blinking of communicator made sure that Aravind returned back to present, from his dilemma. Though he knew, he couldn't show it openly, he tried to steer away the conversation away from the story as quickly as possible. As Aishwarya, was also more interested in chatting about the latest movie she watched with her friends last weekend, it was only a moment of time, before they moved away from the story.

An hour later, he was still chatting with her. He knew he would miss his 5.20 shuttle, but he was not bothered about it a bit. “Tight Schedule; lot of work to complete”, he would later say to his mother in the night. That night, he couldn't sleep properly, as he was constantly thinking about her. He felt that was the best day of his life. However, deep within his heart, he couldn't avoid thinking, how she would react when she comes to know, that the story that made her chat with him first, was not his creation. He tried to divert his mind from such thinking but failed and spent a sleepless night.

Next day, he accidentally met her near the Steam Cart in FC2 during the Breakfast and introduced himself in person for the first time. Accidentally was how he described it to her. Reality was very far away from it. He met her only because, he knew exactly at what time and where she takes her breakfast daily and went there at the right time, without being tagged by any of his friends. From then on, he continued to have breakfast with her, and not only his breakfast companions changed, but also the amount of time he spent to eat breakfast tripled.

Week later, they also started having lunch with each other, and for couple of days, dinner also, as they had to stay late, not because of project work, but because they were sitting in CCD for nearly two hours to have a cup of coffee. He had earlier made fun of all those who chat for hours sitting there, but now with her close by, he didn't even realize that he had spent nearly two hours there. He realized it only when his friends showed his communicator status as away for more than two hours.

He initially thought he would get bored with her gradually, after few days of chit chat. But what happened was that, he started to think of her more and more with each passing day. Some of his friends called it as Infatuation, but then he was not so sure; he was really confused. He decided to let it go on like this for some more time, and then make a decision.

It was over a weekend, when he went to his relatives house in a remote village to attend a marriage; he realized how much he missed her. When ever he had been to the place earlier, he used to love its climate, clean fresh air devoid of pollutants, and its fresh streams. But now, he hated that village, for he couldn't get proper signal in his mobile. It was then and there that he decided that he is going to propose to her without any delay.

But he knew he had couple of confessions to make, before he could propose to her. First to his friend, who was in Hospital then, whose story had been the precursor for this relationship; his friend was more than delighted to be of help to him, and didn't give a damn about his friend posing her story as his.

Next he wanted to tell the truth to her. He knew “All is fair in Love and War”, but then that was only until, you won her heart. After both of them started loving, he wanted to make sure that there were no secrets between them. So he decided to confess to her that he didn't actually write that story that made her chat with him in the first place. He didn't know, how she will take it, but he had no doubt what so ever, that there is no way that he is going to conceal it from her.

The next day, after breakfast, he took her to Leisure block. He was much tensed and the anxiety had made him sweat profusely. He tried to speak up couple of times, but air refused to flow through his vocal chord. As she was walking casually, without realizing the emotions he was going through, he called her out.

“Aishwarya”

“Yes” – she turned back as she replied, and the smile refused to go away from her lips.

“Aishwarya, I had been thinking of hundreds of ways of how to propose to you, but then, I felt all looked cinematic. I am not sure, I can live without you. So I just want to say, I wish to marry you, if you consider me worthy enough to your husband. But before you answer, I also have a confession to make.” - He then confessed the truth.

She listened very carefully. She knew Aravind was looking deep into her eyes, to find out, how she is going to respond to his confession. It was seeing the true love in his eyes, that she decided that she also ought to tell him the truth.

She replied calmly “I also have a confession to make”.

He feared the worst. He was sure the confession is going to cause him heart break. He prayed to the God for the first time after a long time. The last time he prayed was when the Internet page was about to display his seventh semester arrear results. But he knew this result from her, was more crucial than that one.

She continued, “I have never read a story in my life, including the one that your friend wrote. However I always liked the smart handsome guy, who kept following me every day, and only used the story as an excuse to chat with him.”

Aravind held her hands happily, aware that if he had not made the confession, he would have never known that she had been reciprocating his love for a long time and the “Stolen story” just served as a bridge for both of them to communicate their inner desires.