...

15 views

The Companion
It's way past midnight and a girl is standing outside her office building waiting for her cab to pick her up. She is on a call. She is frustrated about something and looks angry.

"I just took a deep breath...! Ok fine, I'm doing it again."

She takes a deeper breath.

"I am okay, thanks."
"You know he is always like that, he cuts in between when I'm saying something and starts blabbering without even listening to my issue. I'm getting sick of him, seriously!!"

Her cab arrives. She takes the backseat, where a man is already sitting.

"Yes I'm in the cab now."
"It's a share cab. Yes there's a man with me.. ok listen, I'll talk to you when I reach home. Bye."

The man takes a look at her and then looks away out his window. There's a pop song playing in the cab which begins to irritate her.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I ask that driver to turn off the music?", She asks the man.

"No no, please.", He replies.

"Can you please turn it off?... Thank you!"

Both of them stare outside their windows. As minutes pass by, he looks at her and asks,

"Long day?"

"Yeah, it was."

"It was not hard to guess, you look stressed out."

"My face says it all, huh. I'm not surprised."

The man's phone starts ringing with the ringtone playing 'Blue' by Yanni. He rejects the call and puts his phone back in his pocket. She notices it and says,

"You are a fan of instrumentals?"

"Ah haha, yeah I am and I'm guessing you are too!"

He looks at her smiling and she too replies back with a smile,

"It's not like you are the only one who's interested in instrumentals."

"Agreed. So are there any other genres you like?"

"Well... I can listen to anything that is not hard on ears."

"Right."

After taking a pause for few seconds, he asks her,

"Do you wanna talk about what's going on in your mind?"

She takes a glance at him, grins, takes a deep breath and replies,

"I work in a advertisement firm and from past couple of weeks I'm working on this big project which is supposed to give me a new chance if I could just finish it, but every time I share my ideas with my boss, she rejects it. I'm so tired of trying and I'm running out of ideas and patience."

"And you generally work this late?"

"Mostly, yes. I try to finish as much as possible in a day which turns out to be my whole day. I don't even remember when was the last time I slept more than 4 hours!!"

"I think you are pushing yourself much. You need to relax a bit."

She smirks, turns herself to him and asks,

"You don't know how much pressure there is in my work. Let me guess.., you work in a 9-5 office with a defined work and you don't have to deal with deadlines like I do!"

"Well you got most of it right. I'm an analyst and I don't have that much load on myself. That's why I'm saying that you must take a break, your mind needs some rest."

"If it were that easy..." She replies with a sigh.

As the cab crosses a bridge, he looks at her. Her window is open, the winds is playing with her tangled hair, she closes her eyes and feel the cold wind on her face. He smiles looking out the window, turns to her and asks,

"Wanna sit at the sea for sometime?"

She smiles like he read her mind.
The cab drops them off and they walk some steps until they reach at a point near the sea and sits there. They talk with each other, vibe the view and enjoy each other's company.
After spending about an hour there, the girl suggests they should head home as it's getting very late.
They walks up to the road where he waves to a taxi. The taxi arrives and he offers her to take it. She shakes his hand thanking him for a lovely time.

"Thanks for today, it actually helped me. I'm feeling a bit at ease now."

"It was totally my pleasure. I'm glad I could be of help. I'm Ishan by the way." He replies with a smile.

"Oh sorry I totally forgot... I'm Renu and thanks again!"

She comes closer and gives him a warm hug before she enters the taxi. Ishan closes the door after her.

"Try to take some rest soon. All will workout eventually." He says.

"Yes sure, I'll try to." She replies.

They wave each other goodbyes as the taxi leaves from there.


© IshanGautam