“I love you”
“Excuse me!”
“I said, I love you!”
He looked left and right, “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes”
He couldn’t think for sometime then said, “I don’t even know you?”
“Oh sorry, hi, I am Sonia and I love you.”
“Is she mad?”, he thought. She was staring his face. “What do you expect me to say?”, he blurted out.
“I love you too!”, she said happily.
“But, I don’t even know you, I have just seen you for the first time!”
“That is the point! This is love in first sight, and I don’t want to waste time.”
He saw the person sitting next to her, who was intently listening to his i-pod. He did not seem to be with her. He asked, “are you alone on the flight?”
“Why?”, she questioned back.
“You do not look in the correct state of mind.”
There was a stern look on her face. For the first time he noticed that she was beautiful, too beautiful to be interested in him. He said, “Is this your some idea of a prank or what?”
The stern look got sterner. He was trapped. A girl whom he had never met was proposing to him on a 2 hour flight and he had made her angry. ‘What can I do’, he thought. He said, trying to be apologetic, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, but this is insane!”
“What is insane, a girl proposing to a guy or, a girl proposing to a guy in a flight or, a girl proposing to a guy in a flight the first time she sees him?”
“Everything!”, he could barely speak. He was completely confused.
“It seems that you are confused, but still I love you!”
She was getting on his nerves. He had dreamed of being proposed by a beautiful girl but this was ‘X’, he even did not have the word to describe his situation. He said to himself, “This girl is either playing a prank on you or has completely gone mad.” He thought that the first one is very possible. He had heard of girls teasing guys but never heard of such a case. He thought -
“What are you thinking?”, she asked startling him.
“Hmm, nothing.”
“Then, say something.”
“Ok. I want to know, why do you love me? I mean to say what did you see in me that made you fall in love with me that also in first sight?”. He thought, if she is trying to make a fool out of him, she will not be able to answer that.
“Oh! Actually, I will not say that I fell in love with you on the first sight, it was after 3-4 sights of you that I fell in love with you.”, she answered thinking intently as if trying to remember.
Shockingly he said, “where else did you see me?”
“Well, lets see”, she adjusted herself and said, “I saw you first waiting for your turn to take your boarding pass and how you allowed an old lady behind you to take her boarding pass before you. Hmm, second I saw you waiting in the departures area and how you were explaining to a kid that he must throw the used items in the dustbin. Oh, wait, I saw you once before that also, when you were reading ‘Love Story’. By the way, that is my favorite novel. The fourth time, I saw you here in the plane, when you helped me putting my luggage in the cabin. After that, I was thinking that why was God making me see you again and again, and then I realized that may be God wants us to be together. So, I thought, I must not waste time and said I love you”.
He was blushing. It was rare that a girl, rarer a beautiful girl, praised him or noticed him, and here was a very beautiful girl who noticed him 4 times in a span of 3 hours and was even proposing him. He started to like her. Playfully, he asked, “You noticed me so many times and so you like me, agreed, but why should I like you?”, he was still afraid to use the word ‘love’.
“This is very simple to answer – because I love you.”
“But still, I will want to know more reasons for lov-liking you.”
She had blushed on the word beautiful. “You are so-so-so good, you do not want to love me because I am beautiful but because of how I am from inside. This is so wonderful. Thank you God. I love you sooooo much.”
His confusion was at his peak. He thought, ‘Why is she liking everything about me?’. He looked around, and saw that she was busy adjusting her hair, pinched himself to wake up from the dream.
She had noticed it. She said, “Do you think this is a dream? Let me wake you up!” And with that she pinched him.
It hurt like hell but now he was sure this was real. He started thanking his luck, for making this beautiful girl notice him at all the right moments.
“I was also thinking this was a dream at first, but I talked to my friend and told about you, she said that I must not waste any time.”
He thought, her friends are also like her and smiled a bit. “But-”
“Oh! I forgot to ask one thing. You are single, right?”, she asked with authority, as if he was already her property.
“Yes”, he answered truthfully.
“Wow. I am so lucky. Thanks God!”
She looked so cute.
“Tell me something about yourself?”, he asked.
“Why don’t you tell me something first?”, she said mischievously.
“Ok. I am from Delhi, I work for a software company in Hyderabad.”, he said honestly.
“Lovely. You know, I also work in Hyderabad.”, she sounded excited.
“Why are you going to Delhi? Home?” He had become quite interested by now.
“Naa, some conference.”, she said looking bored.
The air hostess announced that the plane was going to land and everybody needed to fasten their seat belts.
Realizing that there was not much time left, “can we meet sometime in Delhi when you are free?”
“So are you saying that you love me?”
He hesitated. She was quite interesting, but he could not decide. He said, “I need some more time. May be if we could meet some more times and know each other better.”
“I know you already. And I love you! Do you love me?”, she was looking really cute now.
“You can take all the time. You can tell me once the plane lands.”, she said smiling mischievously as if already knowing what he had in his mind.
He had really started liking her.
He thought for a few minutes and finally said, “Yes! I love you too”.
She seemed to be satisfied. But the look on her face was a bit of triumph, as if she had won a race.
The other guy sitting beside her who was engrossed in his i-pod till now, exclaimed “Shit!”. He said, “Sorry boss! This was just a game. We were standing behind the old lady that you helped. Sonia thought of this game that she could make anyone say I love you to her in 1 hour and you were the poor scapegoat. I have been controlling myself from bursting out with laughter all this time, I am sorry if it hurt your feelings. It was just a game. I hope its cool. You are a nice guy. By the way, what is your name?”
The End.