Mistress of Evil

1

27 years old Lucifer, a young man dressed in white sneakers, blue jean and a white T-shirt with “ GANGSTERS ” written with blue text on the front part but slant to the left, is walking on one of the major roads of Bhopal city. Several people who are passing by him from the direction where he is backing and is coming from to the direction where he is heading and facing, and so are some people passing him by from the direction where he is heading and facing to the direction from which he is backing and is coming from, greeting a lady coming from a close distance, right behind him ….

“ Hi Neha! ” Person A greats and

“ Hi ” Neha responds

“Hi Neha” Person B greets and

“ Hi ” she responds

“ Hi Neha ” Person C greets and

“ Hi ” she keeps responding to every person that greets her

So that it is as if people from different directions, her left to her right, her front and her back, people inside cars, people on bikes, including people trekking, are all happy to see the 25 years old Neha. Lucifer gets too high on his curiosity and suddenly turns back to see the Neha that people have been recognizing with so much joy from seeing her around. “ Holly s**t!!! ” He roars because his turning results in a collision with the Neha who is not that far from behind him and is at the same time looking backward to respond to a police officer who drives past her towards the direction from which she backs and is coming from. The collision also turns out that the cup of coffee in Neha's hand spills on Lucifer's chest, warm coffee. She spills the warm coffee in her hand on Lucifer. “ Argggg ” Lucifer yells in pain inflicted on him by the warm coffee. He stands still on his toes as a result of him stopping his motion immediately after colliding with Neha. “ Oh my God. I'm so sorry! ” Neha begins to plead to him and she quickly removes an handkerchief from her shoulder bag at the same time, with which she keeps cleaning Lucifer’s chest, the left part of the cloth where the “ GANGSTAR ” text is written, where the coffee really poured. “ Gosh!!! You really spilled coffee on me?! You spill the warm coffee on me and you even spoil my T-shirt for real ...... Oh my God, you are so crazy! ” he dreams, but not on top of his voice.

The incident is not really Neha's fault, and neither is it Lucifer’s entire fault too. But Lucifer keeps putting the whole blame on Neha who keeps pleading to him as well. “ If you don’t mind, you can follow me to a nearby boutique or you please wait there for me while I quickly go and get you a new T-shirt ”. She points to one of the  roadside shed under which is a long chair made with wood. “ I will wait instead. I can't afford to walk around with this coffee spoilt shirt ” Lucifer replies her and she turns around shamefully and runs off to the boutique which is few meters away from the spot where she and Lucifer had the collision. People keep looking at her and they keep wondering why she is running and her eyes show she is troubled. Lucifer stares at her as she runs, until she eventually disappears from his sight. He suddenly thinks of following her and so he stands, looks at his chest where the coffee spills, shrugs it off and then begin to trail Neha to where she is going to. On getting to the boutique called “ Play On Boutique ”, he stays behind a black car that is packed at the other side of the road, right opposite the boutique, observing what Neha is doing in the boutique from the long distance. “ Can I get a white T-shirt please? ” Neha asks the boutique attendant “ and if possible, one with “ GANGSTAR ” written on it ”. This is because she aims to buy exactly like the T-shirt Lucifer is wearing. “ I think so ” the attendant replies. She takes Neha to the stand where the gangster T-shirts are but Neha begin to wonder which size is that of Lucifer ......

“ Excuse me please. Which size would you advise I pick for someone a bit tall like Amitabh Bachchan? ” Neha asks the attendant

“ The height alone is not enough to conclude ma, how wide is the person’s chest as well? ” Neha in order to figure out how wide Lucifer’s chest is, she recalls when she was using her handkerchief to clean off the warm coffee she spilled on him. “ Oh! Yes! The chest is somehow like that of Akshay Kumar ”. “ That’s fine then. You can have this ”, the attendant removes one of the medium size T-shirts, “ Your boyfriend must be very lucky ” she says to Neha. “ He’s not ……. Never mind ” Neha says and then takes the T-shirt to the cashier. Once Lucifer sees that she is paying for the T-shirt she came to buy already, he quickly gets out of where he is hiding behind the black car and begin to run back to the shed where Neha asked him to sit and wait for her. Neha, after settling the bill for the T-shirt gets out of the boutique and begin to walk back to meet Lucifer under the shed, but as soon as she gets out of the boutique, and then turns to the right side, she meets a friend of hers,  called Flora, her female best friend, at the base of the boutique's stairs .......

“ Neha, I am actually heading to your apartment. I have a seminar to attend tomorrow and I will like to discuss some things about the purpose of the seminar with you so that we can both come up with a kind of well composed speech for me to present ” Flora says to Neha who is restless and mostly concerned with how she will get back to where Lucifer is waiting for her

“ Alright then. That’s not a big deal and you know that. But I need to get to somewhere as fast as I can ” Neha replies her

While replying her, she dips her hand into the pocket of her trousers and brings out a pair of key .......