“You think you can catch me? You think you can stop me while I’m behind the wheel? I’ll show you how to drive. Taste this.”
The area was filled with the sounds of sirens and engines roaring and wheels burning on asphalt. A flashy red muscle car with crazy graffiti on it drove swift on a wide road with several police cars trailing it.
Two police cars drove on either sides of the red car and began closing in with the intent of squeezing it.
The flashy car struck both the cars near the rear wheels one after the other, sending one off the road and the other into oncoming traffic.
A little further, four blue police cars were parked perpendicular to the road in a straight line blocking the road.
“Oh…”
Without any intention of slowing down, the red car sped up, the exhaust releasing bright blue flames which were absent earlier.
The car hit right at the rear end of one police car and the beginning of another, sending both the cars flying as if they were made out of cardboard. The red car leapt into the air after the collision and then it sped off.
“Now Razor, it’s time for my revenge.”
As it raced on, two blue police SUVs jumped out of a corner ramming the car. The red car started spinning around disoriented. From behind other cop cars caught up and parked all around the red car. A few seconds passed while the red car futilely tried to escape.
A huge ‘BUSTED’ appeared on the screen.
“I… I cannot be caught. It’s not yet over.”
Alt + F4.
All the cars and everything disappeared revealing a screen with wallpaper saying ‘Hakuna Matata’ in a stylized font with a cartoon of the famous boar and meerkat at one side. On the right side were a bunch of icons. An icon of a white car with two blue stripes was highlighted.
“Well, you still didn’t catch me.”
Cheater
The owner of the voice looked down at the time. It read 17:07.
Four hours? It has already been four hours since I started the game??? Dam, why does the time not go this fast in the social class? Well, now I need not worry about social classes anymore.
Sighing, he shut down the computer and got out of the chair he was sitting on. Looking around he saw his room completely dark and small. A tiny amount of sunlight slipped through the window giving the closed curtains a goldish glow. Walking towards the window, he drew them open flooding the room with sunlight.
Let there be light.
He picked up his phone which was lying beside the monitor, turning it on; he unlocked the phone by drawing a pattern which made sure to connect all the nine dots in a complex and an almost random way. He opened an online fiction reading/writing site and started going through it as he got out of his room and made his way to the kitchen.
KNOCK… KNOCK …KNOCK.
“I’m checking it, mom.” He shouted.
“Okay.” A female voice drifted from the living room.
Before he made it to the kitchen, he heard the knocking of his house door.
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Who is it at this hour? Is dad home early today?
Opening the door, he found his school friend Surya with all his hair on the head missing.
“Hi, Kateb.” Surya said.
“Hey!!! What the fuck? Your hair…” Kateb asked.
“Tirupati.” Surya said as if that was self-explanatory.
Well, that was self-explanatory, Tirupati is a pilgrimage where the pilgrims would tonsure their heads clean.
“My parents thought it would be a good thing to do before the college starts. Right before it starts. Of course, they did not think anything about how I would look in front of all my new classmates.” Surya said almost angrily.
“Hmm… you don’t look that bad… only, you like a rapist from one of that old movie.”Kateb said while griming.
“Fuck you, Kat.”
“Okay… Okay, come in now.”
“No, you come out.”
“What?”
“Let us go to a movie.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Fine, wait I’ll tell my mom and come.”
As Kateb gone in, Surya pulled out his mobile and started reading an e-book. As Surya was halfway through his second page Kateb was back with his clothes changed.
“Let us go?” Kateb said.
“Hell yeah.”
“Which movie?”
“Kantche.”
“Why? Let us go to some English movie.”
“Don’t worry, the movie is great you’ll love it and the theatre is nearby, if you want to go to an English movie, we’ll have to go all the way to Big-Theatres and by the time we are there the movie would have been already begun, so let us go to this one.”
“What about the tickets? We have no chance of getting it.”
“Worry not, Surya has already got it.”
Surya took out two tickets and triumphantly waved them in the air. Then they both started walking towards the theatre.
“What was that book you were reading?” Kateb asked.
“Hamlet.” Surya replied
“Why…How are you reading that book? That’s like…Why?” Said Kateb.
“The books great you should try it.”
“You should have chosen arts stream you know instead of science.”
“Aaah what to do, we all have parents you know,” Surya said waving it off.
“You can try speaking to them there still is time.”
“Aaa…never mind, so what about you, you are not joining any of those two institutes?” Surya said changing the topic.
“No, those two are not for me. I’ll be continuing in the same school.”
“Hmm…Think about it, while we are going to junior college you will be stuck in a school.”
“Yes, but we’ll be having more freedom in a school than in your ‘college’” Kateb gave out a mocking grin.
“You know almost 75% of our schoolmates are taking up MPC (Math, physics and chemistry) in one of those two while another 10% is taking up BiPC (Biology, physics and chem) and another 10% is taking up commerce, that leaves you all alone someone taking up MPC in not one of the two institutes.”
“Well as I told you that place is just two years of gruesome brainwashing for a slightly increased chance of getting into an IIT. So no thanks.”
What they were talking about was their higher secondary education, having recently completed their secondary education, 10th class; it was time for their two years of higher secondary education. 80% - 90% of the students in their state after 10th do their higher secondary education in MPC and then pursuing a B.tech degree.
The two institutions Kateb and Surya were referring to were Naras junior college and Sri junior college; they are junior colleges (prep schools) which made Welton Academy from ‘Dead Poet society’ look like kindergartens. Almost 80% percent of science students (MPC+BiPC) studied there.
Kateb and Surya continued talking about their school stuff, gossips and about the good times they had in school as they walked to the theatre.
“Here we are at last” Surya said as they took their seats in the theatre.
“Dude where were you the whole vacation? Certainly, you were not in Tirupati all these days.” Kateb said as the commercials started to play on the theatre.
“Oh, we made a trip to all my relatives’ houses.”
“Oh…by the way did you play…” Seeing the movie certification on the screen Kateb stopped speaking. The movie certification was followed by an anti-smoking campaign add, then the logos and names appeared and the movie started, a small WW2 propaganda film was being played as the narrator was translating the documentary into Telugu. At the end of the one-minute documentary the audience were revealed, they were Indian WW2 soldiers and then the scene changed to the hero arriving in a group of new recruits…….
“So how the movie?” Surya asked.
“It’s good. The heroine’s awesome.”
“I am going to watch it again,” Surya said.
“Cool. So did you play this game Witcher 3? It’s awesome.”
“Yeah, I’m playing it.”
They both walked back to Kateb’s house catching up on different games they had been playing.
“Been nice catching up with you, so when’s your college starting?” Kateb asked.
“Oh, it’ll start next Monday, what about yours?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Wow that’s great, so let’s be in touch. Bye ra.” Surya said.
“Bye.”
As Kateb walked back into his house a realisation dawned on him, in less than 12 hours his school would start, though it was his old school, all the students would be new, the faculty would be different. Throughout the vacations, he felt the Holidays were long and boring but now…..
Damn, why do holidays get over so fast?