Just friends - The Endless Journey

" Mr Alan P'smith, this way please. Your transit lounge is on the third floor. The connecting flight to Moscow will fly at 23:00 hours.", the attendant announced.

Waiting at the London Heathrow airport seemed liked eternity with hoards of people rushing for their destinations and dozens of planes zooming past us, every minute. Four more hours, I sighed. The transit lounge was already overflowing with people and I was running out of ideas to kill time. I was never a music person and the laptop was out of charge. I quickly glanced through some weeklies. "The Endless Journey", was still at top of the Times best seller list. I left them aside and decided to take a nap.

"Is the seat taken", interjected a female voice, waking me up from my sweet slumber. I shook my head, and offered the vacant seat next to me. I didn't care to look at the voice bearer and I went back to my sleep.

"Hi, have we met before. I have seen you somewhere but can't really place you", remarked the voice again. "Oh it's not your fault, I have that familiar face. A lot of people are mistaken", I remarked, without even opening my eyes.

"Psmithie from Wisconsin, the tall boring guy next door, extrovert yet lonesome and the last person on earth, a girl would ever go out with. You never change".

I woke up startled. I hadn't heard the voice in the past ten years and immediately recognised her.
"Heya Karen, still the thin, lanky, bossy and arrogant as you always were. Even you haven't changed at all. What a surprise, meeting you here."

"Likewise, old pal. What you upto these days. You completely disappeared after graduation. No mails, no calls. Everyone was looking for you. We were all so worried", Karen asked.

"Nothing serious. I just wanted some time out to regroup and focus on my career. Anyways leaving me aside, So how are you and Keith doing. I read about Keith in the ACM journal. Always knew he would do something great. He was always into research n stuff. And where you guys staying."

"Man, you always asked too many questions. I am doing swell. Haven't seen Keith for ages. He must be somewhere working on his dumb robots. I relocated to Florida, few years back. I am an investment Banker now. All work and loads of money", she remarked slyly.

"I thought you and Keith..",
"It was complicated. Different lives. Different interests and different goals. We finally agreed to move on".

I felt sad for them. I had always felt they were so perfect for each other.

I recollected my old days, Stanford life was so much fun. The sororities, the dorm life, the backpacking trips to the countryside.. such a wonderful time.

It wouldn't have been the same had I not found these amazing bunch of pals - Nick, Karen, Sarah, James and Elliot. People would always find us together and I really liked the bunch, a lot.

An interesting bit of information about Karen. She was the Cheerleading squad captain, and the most popular girl in the batch. Every other guy wanted to ask her out but she was already seeing Keith then.
Now, don't assume Karen wasn't smart. She topped her cohort without a miss, year after year.

Keith was the local prodigy. Exceptional in computer science, track athlete, dancer, lead singer of a popular band, president's scholar..etc. He was good at everything. And It wasn't a surprise that Karen and Keith won the best student award each year.

Keith and Karen had this love-hate relationship. Both were highly ambitious and driven. They were always right, no matter what. And this was so much fun to watch, when their arguments would go on forever and finally Keith would succumb to her arguments.

I was always the geeky yet cool guy of the group. Never serious about anything in life. Always ready to party and get drunk outrageously anywhere.

When I wasn't partying, I would always be found immersed in my cyber world. I was Zirkin, lord of eternal damnation in the World of Warcraft. I was the nice coder-next-door who would develop websites for the local food joint for a years supply of free nachos. I was the model example, which all the profs referred to, of a computer science student, gone waste. I was never interested in the theory or research that Keith was so much into. I was the creative, free-spirit who realized pretty late, that he was in the wrong school, where everyone else was smarter and way better than him.

And my carefree attitude towards everything in life, didn't win me much laurels at school. Profs had given up on me. And each and every time, friendship with Karen would help me get some extra help from Keith, enabling me to pass those tough exams. I still remember how Karen would push me from sleeping off, and make sure I studied.

I have a confession to make here. The very first day I met Karen, I was so much in love with her. She was smart, lively and beautiful, always making people around her laugh. I loved her company and it added spark to my otherwise boring time at school. Karen liked the fact that unlike other guys, I never made a pass on her. For a long time she even thought I was gay. I had to ask Sarah out, just to prove her that she was wrong. Keith and Karen were going strong, and they were so perfect. And I really wanted to keep the special friendship that we shared. By the time I graduated, I was an emotional wreck and decided to take some time off and start afresh. I traveled around the world, did odd jobs to make ends meet, helped in refugee camps, climbed the tallest peaks, caught fish with local fishmonglers, discovered new worlds and kept following my dreams.

"Hey, Al, where you lost", Karen asked breaking my chain of thoughts. "My flight leaves in 5 mins, do call me once in a while. It would really mean a lot to me", Karen hugged me and slid her business card in my pocket.

"You still haven't told me what you really do", Karen asked rushing towards the departure door.
I took out a book from my bag and passed it to her. "This is for you". Karen looked puzzled but saw the name on the cover, and waved back at me from the departure point. And soon she was gone.

[Inspired from my uni days - K,K and A's story]