It's difficult to choose

2

The bell rang, joy and happiness spread everywhere, and the devil’s strike was over after fifty minutes. I was watching him leaving the class, suddenly someone slapped my neck creating a shrilling sound, “where have you been, it’s just because of you that thermodynamics was fierce today” the most idiotic topper of any class was smiling at me. “Aatish dude, how many times I have told you not to slap on the neck and what a nuisance you are creating” I cried Aatish “what”? “About my ‘self honeymoon’,, dude seriously you really need to use your brain only on your studies”. “Then tell me where were you from the past seven days” he smiled. “I know where he was, c’mon! Show us your phone, I want to see your phone browsing history” Prateek exclaimed. Aatish, “Dude how you can be so horny all the time? You took a holiday for a week just to touch yourself”. They both were laughing at me with a bunch of others. They were just waiting for the thermodynamics to leave and there was this session for my welcome hosted by these two c***k heads. Everyone was leaving the class, roaming, jumping, laughing, shouting, and chatting at the same time. That was the usual thing one could see after the end of every class. It’s just like a gas cylinder with highly compressed gas inside it just burst with the bell ringing sound and the gas molecules started to disperse in every possible direction performing different sorts of motions. The voices started to be louder, not in our class, it was Shreya and her friends starting their day with their usual bullying session in the corridors. Her voice was in my head for a long time, slightly bold but very attractive. The girl was in the commerce stream, just next to my class. I did not want to go out and see what new show she was going to perform. But everyone was moving out, it was library class, I wanted to return the books which I borrowed and today was the date; it was necessary, otherwise I would be fined for that. But I didn’t want her to see me outside, maybe because I was still feeling awkward about what happened between us six months before. I asked Aatish to look outside whether there was any teacher outside, unaware of the fact that I was not actually looking for any teacher, he peeked out the doors. “No one is outside”, he answered. “What’s the noise outside?” I asked. He replied, “Nothing, just those freaks are shouting like hell”. I took my books and started to follow Aatish and Prateek out of the door. I turned my face just to have a glance at her, and she was looking on the other side; that was the best chance I had, so I pushed both aside from my way and ran towards the stairs at the end of the corridor. That thing was really stupid; I was the most mature kid according to my parents, but this incident clearly proved them wrong. “Tell me what you had today? Was that ‘g***a’ or something cheaper, dude trust me next time I will definitely call an ambulance” Aatish approached upstairs. Prateek, “but I will dial 100, you are a wild boar”. And that was my argument, “Dude I didn’t want the headmaster to see me” yeah that was quite clever.                

The stairs upward approached towards the direction of the library and a wooden board hanging on the edge of a pillar showing the sign of the library with wide bold words on it. We pushed the wide door, having a cartoon character telling us to enter quietly by his finger on his lips. This air of the room welcomed us inside; it was one of the places in school which were fully air-conditioned. Through you could see a wide-open hallway with a systematic seating arrangement and a perfectly organized library containing long wooden bookshelves, big wardrobes, glasses through which we can see all the book titles, different sections of books having history, sci-fi, politics, that looked like that you entered in a world of knowledge where you could spend all time gazing at the pages of treasure, founded and written by some of the greatest minds. Though different sections were divided for teachers and students, highly advanced books for extra knowledge and future point of view books with career options magazines were always available. The library was my favorite place in the whole campus. The place was a reminder of heaven’s existence on earth for me. But it was not only the structure or collection of marvelous books that made this place best for studies but also the person who was running it. I had spent my whole time of that year’s summer vacations reading books and solving questions in that hall with Aatish and her. She was a totally different person as everyone thinks about any librarian. That year was her last in the school as she was retiring. Every day when I used to come she always told me a quote, which would make my day brighter. But she was getting older, her face looked wrinkled and pale with the time. She used to wear a pair of glasses, which sit on her nose, she had black curled hair, she looked like a small Humpty-dumpty even many used to c***k jokes on her height by giving her nickname because for many she was rude, strict but very few students know her from within the heart. She was a lady full of lively thoughts. The bond of sweetness we shared when once I and Aatish helped her out while rearranging books, she always thought we were those children who would trouble her in the workplace, but that day she was amazed to see us helping her in every way possible. And that continued every day, we used to come and help her and she gave all the time to read whatever books we wanted, even the closed section of books which was accessed by the senior teachers only. “Good morning ma’am” we wished her and she replied with a smile, “Good morning, I was waiting for you guys, they’re at the back shelf some new question banks are arranged. Go, Have a look”. The books we wanted were there and she did that for us.

When I was a child, the library for me was the place of reading comic and picture books. Those books fascinated me because to read them all I wanted was a language, no logic, no pen or paper, no calculations just and understanding of colors and figures. The famous books of that time were in craze in every boy’s life, the storybooks, and the stories that had morals behind them. At that time we just looked at the pictures and imagined building our own story.

But in higher standards, I only went to the library to search advanced mathematics, physics, and chemistry books to learn each and every concept from it. Now I hardly get some time to peek my head on those comic books, because I had lost interest in those things with time, fiction, and picture stories were no more a part of my life. The books I used for this in the final standard were not thin but thick and did not contain pictures but diagrams, figures, and graphs. There were no jokes or morals but questions and answers. The better the thickness means the more the questions and better illustrations with examples. The books with a variety of questions were on my top priority list. All the well-known books H.C Verma, books of Pradeep publications for chemistry and Physics, R. D Sharma, and R.S Agarwal for Mathematics. These books were known by their writer’s name; even the book title was unknown. The more powerful names, the more stress they would give you. This was the common belief within every student who was a scholar. My time was only dedicated to solving those books and discussing every question with my friends. And even that day I was searching for a chemistry book to recall all the structural formulae.

I noticed something fishy, there was something beneath the table and something was going on, I was a bit unsure that my friends also brought their cell phones to the library because many students were there to use the free campus wi-fi to download the recent uploads. Of course, our school network system has the highest internet speed. The purpose of visiting the library was not common to everyone in my class. Some students came for a good reason to read all sorts of books like many bestsellers, different people have different taste about books, some love to recall all their childhood memories by reading storybooks, some were fond of frictional character as well as their story, so they love to read books like The Hobbit, harry potter, a song of ice and fire; these book show some of the greatest knowledgeable, as well as fantasy stories, also includes in it.