Smelly Thing Called Love
The Crush
I had started to believe in her, when Gina called up, “How
are you doing Mandy,” I hadn’t heard from her in 10 days and my last
interaction had been a positive albeit a cautious one, I had been flattering
myself that she would take an interest in me or my work, after all I was in
love with a woman with a ring on her hand.
I had known Gina and Martin for 2 years and only recently realised that
I might have fallen for her, apart from having won the “Woman of the Year 2014,”
she was a softie, an angel and a die-hard Gene Hackman fan.
Ever since I had met her, we had seen a dozen Gene Hackman
movies on her large screen Plasma TV which was Google Chromecast enabled. Two years of being intern in her company and
I was feeling a distinct heady buzz in my brain whenever she turned up wearing
her Gucci perfume, smallish earrings and the large blob of a wedding ring that
always gave me a headache when I saw it nowadays. Martin was a great guy and I could see they
made the best possible couple, they were smooth, the two of them and could glib
talk, woo and entertain any of their guests at the regular Saturday night
parties. The social media was abuzz
about their relationship and it turned out every time I turned on Twitter,
there were at least 100 mentions of them making news.
I was jealous for the
first time in my life, this goddess who was so close and yet so far away
, who
took my breathe away was way beyond my reach.
Angrily I had decided that I wouldn’t go to work for 10 days and not
call anyone at work, it was April 2007 and New York was glistening with the
slightest dews of summers, they said the weather was changing and the summers
would come in earlier, global warming and all the gossip mongering we thought
it was in those days. Stories were ripe
in my ears from glaciers melting to terrible catastrophes touching planet
Earth, and my mind was dizzy with the thought that this one woman had never
shown even a hint of affection towards me, “Gene Hackman be damned,” I thought
as memories of Rio filtered in, an older woman but so much of class that she
could put pretty Julia Roberts into the kindergarten.
The Squeeze
Seven days went by and not a thought or a phone call from
her and on the eight day I decided that I was not going to have a bath for the
next three days, in penance to Jesus that may be, I was even willing to call
upon Satan to further my cause, at least a call, a message, something to keep
my heart ticking, I was sure I was going to be heard somewhere.
I spent the first day of unhealthy tenor thinking of her and
writing my heart, love letters that would never be announced to the world, I
wrote 10s of them and then suddenly I changed track on the second day, my mind
slipping into an angrier frame of mind.
I thought of ways I could kill Martin and elope with her, Martin the
gentleman he was would have died of heart attack if he had ever heard these
thoughts that were ringing in my head.
Then suddenly on the third day, smelling of something I couldn’t fathom,
my thoughts started targeting Gina herself, as I began by writing out an out
and out hate letter to my Juliet, through the day the tenor of my letters
turned blinding and singing in their intensity, there was lose paper littered
all around the bed and since I chose to write with an ink pen there were blobs
of ink on my clothes as well.
The Juice
I was smelling, this room was telling me and every time I
ventured out of it, the blast came to all the other occupants of the house, I
hadn’t gone out of the house for 3 days and hadn’t taken a call either and
smelling like a load of goo, when the call came, it was Gina, “Mandy, are you
alright, I haven’t heard from you ever since you went on leave,” I sighed
relief and spoke to her for 5 minutes and then put the mobile down. My mind
snapped back at me, “Mmmmm, I hope she hadn’t smelled my unheralded body odour #whatsthatsmellboss over the phone,” and then another thought pushed it aside, “Of course she
couldn’t have, Oculus had been bought over by Facebook and they weren’t virtual
yet.” I quickly put the lights on my Racold Geyser and decided to have the
first feel of hot water in 4 days, the water was already at 45 deg. C, just the
right temperature for cool evening, smoke rose up and the water came down
stinging my body in pins and needles, my Racold Solar Geyser, always got me
home with zero billing, it had been worth the wait.
“Don’t go by the Name, They Serve
it Hot at Racold.”