The Conversationalist.

As she stood near the water cooler, filling her one litre bottle with ice-cold dew-forming-water, a usually jovial classmate of hers slumpily walked towards her. On asking her why she looked so tired, the protagonist was blown away by the un-inhibited manner and ease at which her jovial friend gave her every bit of information as to why she looked so down!

'How could one talk so much about personal matters to a person who speaks to her as rarely as I do?' thought our heroine, 'Why is it that I choose my words so precisely and perfectly whenever I speak to a collegue or rarely visited relative?'

There was once a time when all she did was talk... (The central character) Day in and day out... She'd spend the day at school talking to a million different friends about the same things...repeating them over and over again. Then she'd return home and talk on the phone all evening! The phone bills were so atrocious at one point of time that her parents forbade her to speak anymore!

What she spoke of, she could not recall anymore but she knew the magnitude was stupendous! But she did recall how, as she grew older and as her friends slowly left, that no one really cared much about what she spoke, no one listened to her and how she realized her subjects were trivial and actually pathetic!

So, she sub-conciously and unintentionally stopped all the blabber. She seemed like a listener, people enjoyed talking to her...but, rarely, even when someone asked her views..she chose to say little, to be sweet, to advise righteously, to stay diplomatic... More to keep her short-tempered, sassy, impolite thoughts and words to herself and avoid disrespecting or hurting anyone's sentiments.

As she lazily walked back to her room that hot breezy summer afternoon, she summoned memories of how she could, in an uninhibited manner and with ease, speak to people about their lives... She could speak to her father about his work, grandfathers about their daily routines, old friends about their present academic interests, with boys about other girls, with broken hearted girls about their heart-crushing boyfriends, ( with 'i shall wait for her forever' boys too!) with her little sister about the upcoming songs, with her rarely visited relative about their new born or their trip to Paris or Melbourne!

It delighted her! It delighted her that she could speak to people and get a smile on their faces. It delighted her that she could hide her troubles and take away someone else's!

She reached her room gulping down more than half of her chilled water directly from the bottle cooling her tummy while her thoughts warmed her heart... She then took a nap, shutting off all conversations, knowing and being very pleased that she was pretty good conversationalist!