| Fan Fiction |
by Shweta
For one, he fooled her. She didn’t understand how she could fall for it. She wasn’t a kid. Whoever heard that a plane crashes normally?
‘If you ask me, the plane isn’t worth riding on if it hadn’t crashed once or twice, and knocked over a building or two.’
How stupid was that? And she believed it? Of course, she hadn’t ridden on a plane before, but she did read the newspapers. September 11th, when the plane crashed the towers, didn’t they say it was a horrible incident? Did they say-‘Oh! It happens everyday; it is unfortunate it happened to the towers.’
How dumb could she be? She wanted to slap herself. The whole plane ride she spoke to him, until the he went to the bathroom. She asked the airhostess if the plane had hit a building yet, and could’ve died with shame at the look she gave her.
“Ma’am? What do you mean?” She asked her with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, you know, the plane hits a building or two on the journey...”
“No, it doesn’t.” She replied seriously. No sign of amusement on her face.
“It doesn’t? What about all those people that died?”
“Ma’am I don’t know what you’re pulling, or if this is a joke, but the planes have never crashed before. Well, at least, not of this airlines.”
“You mean...planes don’t normally crash?”
“I have work to do ma’am, excuse me.”
Suddenly, Ariel realized what Joe was up to. Planes didn’t crash! People didn’t occasionally die on planes. It wasn’t normal. She was dumb!
‘Argh!’ Ariel couldn’t stop her anger. She embarrassed herself, and showed how really stupid she was.
Sand stretched on for miles and miles, the bus was going slow. Ariel couldn’t stand the heat. She was so accustomed to the chilly breeze of Taiwan, she couldn’t bear all the dryness and heat. She could feel her nose dry. She made a face at the thought, and took in deep breathes.
“Ariel, if you don’t sit so close to the window it wouldn’t be so hot.”
Ariel didn’t reply. She didn’t want to. A little out of anger, and a little out of embarrassment. She couldn’t face Joe. What he must be thinking of her now. How dumb must he feel she is, to fall for that.
A normal intelligent human, wouldn’t fall for such a stupid story. Heck, a normal dumb human, wouldn’t fall for that story. But she fell for it. She used to pride herself about her high I.Q.
“Ariel...”
She still didn’t want to reply.
“Ariel...”
She couldn’t ignore him forever.
“Ariel, we’ve reached the hotel.” He said pulling out his baggage. “Take your baggage out.”
“Oh...” Ariel sighed. Here she was thinking he would apologise.
She followed Joe out of the bus, and into the hotel. The heat was killing her. She turned on the fan again, and held it close to her forehead.
“Hello.” A voice called after them. “I’m Akbar, you are Mr. And Mrs. Cheng?”
“Yes, hello...” Joe replied shaking Akbar’s hand.
“Well I am appointed by the hotel; I am in charge of showing you around this lovely country.”
“Oh, we didn’t know there was a guide.” Ariel tried sounding excited, but she didn’t know if she was really comfortable touring this extremely hot country with Joe, the horrible, and Akbar, a guy whose name’s pronunciation she wasn’t even sure of.
“Yes, well with the amount you paid, there will be quite a few surprises in this trip.” Akbar joked. Ariel didn’t laugh.
“Ha ha, well I think we’ll go to the room and rest for a while. We are pretty tired, it was a long...” Joe looked at Ariel and gave her a wink. “...and interesting trip.”
Ariel could’ve happily punched him on the face. What did he mean interesting? It wasn’t interesting at all. Ariel blushed a crimson red, and moved on along with Joe.
“Ariel, I know you’re angry, but you have to listen to me.” Joe said once in their room.
“Well, you shouldn’t have tricked me, you lying, mean, bad...” Ariel hated this part. She was never good at confrontations. In fact, she hated it. She could never fight. She wasn’t sharp, and witty. She had trouble expressing her feelings. She wasn’t a fighter. She believed herself to be a lover. A calm, cool, individual, who wouldn’t and couldn’t fight. She searched her brain for words and her eyes flew to his clothes.
“...bad...dresser!” She finished.
“Eh?” Joe made that face, Ariel knew he must’ve been making when he tricked her. The expression that irked her anger. One eyebrow was raised, his lips were in a conflict whether to laugh or stay serious. She hated that expression of his. “Well, I believe I am a bad dresser.”
“Better believe it, you with your...white suits with black ties, black suits with white ties, and black shirts with white pants, and white shirts with black pants. I mean there are other colours man!”
“Well, that really hurts me.” He mocked her.
“Well good! It should! I’m going to have a shower!”
“Want me to join you?”
“Shut up!”
***
The next morning at nine, Ariel was all dressed up in and in the lobby with a black-and-whitely dressed Joe.
Ariel couldn’t sleep the whole night because of Joe. Reason? There was only one bed in the entire room. This problem would’ve been easily solved if Joe and Ariel both weren’t so stubborn.
“I want to sleep on the bed!” Joe said firmly.
“Well, if you were any bit of a gentleman you would allow me to sleep on the bed!” Ariel said keeping her voice low, so it wouldn’t reach the other rooms.
“Well, who said I’m a gentleman?”
“Of course. You aren’t one, but I would like you to start today.”
“You know...this is a huge bed, we could both sleep here.”
“I do not want to share a bed with...with...”
“A bad dresser?” Joe teased.
“Fine! But we’re putting pillows in between.”
But the solution wasn’t so easy. Joe kept kicking the pillows in between along with Ariel’s legs. Ariel had never met a disturbed sleeper before. No one in her family snored or moved when they slept. They were all peaceful sleepers.
Joe on the other hand kept kicking the pillows and Ariel’s legs, waking her up every other hour. Thankfully he didn’t speak in his sleep, like she had heard people could do.
This morning when Joe finally woke up, he infuriated Ariel more.
“Oh, the pillows are gone? See I told you we didn’t need the pillows.”
Ariel could puke. She wanted to follow him to the bathroom and strangle him with his toothbrush, or shave off his silly smile. What made her more angry, was that Joe was wearing an all white sleeping outfit.
“You kicked the pillows.”
“Excuse me? I do not kick. It must’ve been you.”
“What?!” Ariel yelped. “I kicked the pillows? For your information, you kept kicking the pillows and my feet and I couldn’t sleep all night because of you.”
“Whatever.” Joe sighed and locked the bathroom door behind him.
“Oh I hate him so much!”
Ariel went back to the bed and closed her eyes. Was the point of this marriage getting irritated or irritating him?
***
Well, here's another chapter. It started out as something else and became something else. This was supposed to be a serious chapter.
Anyway I have a very proud thing to announce. A.R Rahman and Gulzar and Resul Pookutty won oscars making India very proud! I beg all of you to go see slumdog millionaire! It's the best movie ever! It won a few golden globes, some baftas and 8 oscars! It's a movie based on Indian slums and it's a story about love. You would love it! S;umdog millionaire. Go watch it =)