Big Nothing
Mon, Sep 14, 2009
Evan kept on checking his watch. He tapped his feet in impatience.
“Excuse me. Do you know how long it is, before Bus 524 arrives here?” He asked the man standing next to him at the bus stop.
The man didn’t lift his face from the newspaper and grunted, “Five more minutes”
“Thanks a lot”, said Evan, “I was worried if I’d already missed the bus”
The man didn’t reply.
Evan looked at the sky with a gloomy face. The thought of yet another tiring day at office; doing work, he didn’t like, made his mornings sad. He said to himself, “Yet another uneventful day with nothing to look forward to.”
Right then, an old man jumped right in front of him and said “Don’t you feel like just thanking him for such a beautiful day? Ah, the bright sun… the clear blue sky.”
Evan looked at him wide-eyed trying to remember if he knew the guy somehow.
The old man grinned, “My-my, such sleepy eyes! Looks like you can use a coffee, young man. Here you go.
Girls always read your eyes, son. Better keep ‘em sharp and shiny.
Have a great day ahead lad.”
Evan stood openmouthed; his eyes following the stranger, who just came out of nowhere, gave him a coffee and danced his way towards the market.
All the kids in the neighborhood swarmed around him as he bought candies for all of them.
He then went to The Bouquet Store and bought two bouquets from the pretty girl who owned the shop.
He handed back one to her but the blush on her cheeks made it crystal that he didn’t want his money back for that. He took one bouquet, turned to next alley and was gone.
Evan still gazed the alley way hoping he would come back.
The man with the newspaper got up and said, “That’s Old Harry.”
“Who is he? Where’d he go?” Evan asked.
“He goes to the cemetery to see his daughter. He does this routine every day.
He’ll dance around shouting ‘Good morning’ at everyone he meets. Buy chocolates for kids, sometimes toys. Give away stuff to anyone he meets. It’s almost like he gives a hundred dollars everyday for NOTHING. He is just another big jerk!”
Evan looked at the kids smiling as they enjoyed their candies. He looked at the pretty girl from the store, smiling as she smelled the red roses, she still had redder cheeks.
He sipped his coffee, turned towards the man next to him and smiled, “Just another big jerk!”
Tags: Flash Fiction, Inspirational
I could use that guy. Old Harry, where are you??
I know. I need him to have something to look forward to each day. Some reason to wake up the next day…
This is beautiful, Aniket. It gave me such a bitter-sweet feeling…
I’m so glad that it did. I didn’t want to overdo things here.
i wish the conversation continued a bit more..
I didn’t want to dramatize Harry’s character. Was he or was he not crazy? Why he does what he does?
I was wondering about what makes me want to wake up tomorrow? What I look forward to in a day? And that led me to write this post.
There’s such a sweetness to this, Aniket. One man’s crazy is another man’s joy…
That’s the way the world goes, isn’t it?
Oh, and thank you for the nice green symbol!
Most welcome!
This is a lovely story Aniket.
Even if we only gave a big smile to everyone we meet, wouldn’t it make a difference to their day? I like to think that.
Yes it does. We get happy quite easily by small things. Its just that we have stopped paying attention to them.
Once I had a super hectic day and was cursing my job and life and just about everything. And then I saw a girl about 1 yr old waving from the backseat of the Car in front of me. At that moment I waved back and just smiled from the heart.
We just need those little nothings to get that big something.
Wow..aniket…..that was anotherm good piece from you….
been lost for weeks
and forgot to update the blog roll and think thats why missed lot of posts here..
gimme sometime…will read all your masterpieces…
Keep writing
There aren’t that many. I have been slacking a lot lately.
Am glad you found your way here though. You’re comments were thoroughly missed.
How do i add ur site in blog roll..its erroring out
any specific format 4 that?
Bingo…
done buddy
:):)
Very touching Aniket. I’m glad you didn’t dramatize Harry more. And I love his comment about Evan’s eyes.
I guess the challenge, when we feel like we need a Harry, maybe is to be that for someone else. I think you’re more like Harry than you think. Not that I’m calling you crazy or anything….
I have been called much worse. I like crazy… crazy is good!
I could have written more dialogues for Harry. But that would have justified his point of view or showed his grief.
I wanted him to be the saviour and not a victim. How many times we judge people we pass by everyday? Just after a single glance…
@ Aniket… we sure need more people like his
@ Aniket… we sure need more people like him
We sure do…
Thanks for finally making it here.
Thats one sweet, cute, lovely, touching story. Great job.
Too often we set wrong priorities in life and don’t like people with the right ones. Maybe every now and then we should stop thinking too much and start living life making ourself happy by bringing joy into life of people around.
We all start good and lose sight of the priorities somewhere along the way.
But then, its not too late, is it?
it is never too late
yeah he surely is a big jerk? spending so much on NOTHING? LOL
but what if I desperately needed someone like him to cheer me up??you know what i mean,,,
This could only be fiction,where else can you find such ‘JERKS’..remember we live in the PERFECT WORLD..right? *sigh*
Its so odd that i have kept a line ‘just for today let me not worry…’ line below my blog name and i never wrote something like this..I must read your blog everyday!!! a request to you Aniket..can you change your blog name to Everydayflashfictionsothatyouareremindedtoreadeveryday.in??
JUSt a small thing right??
I would change the name but then I can’t go through the hassle to bring all my friends to subscribe to a new URL again. Just too troublesome.
