Little Black Book

I was sitting inside a cafeteria, looking out the window and I saw this girl right outside. Initially I thought she was peeping in, to take a glance but soon I realised that she was just looking at her own reflection using the tinted glass window as a mirror. She brushed her hair and rubs her lips to spread the lip-gloss. Then she froze for a couple of seconds, thought of something, brought out what seemed like a book but enveloped in a black cover that said “The greatest life”. She glanced through a page, kept the book inside, removed her lip gloss with a tissue and tied a hair into a bun.

It was confused.

And then she came in. She took a table, right adjacent to mine on the left and started looking at the menu. She ordered a Latte and a sandwich but before the waitress left the table with the order - this girl brought back that same black book from her bag, opened and read and asked the waitress to change the order to a cappuccino.  As you can imagine, she had my complete attention.

I was almost done with my meal but I waited to see what comes next. She finished her cappuccino, paid her bill and moved out. I followed her but very carefully so as to not make her feel threatened. I was really curious of what that book was.

She went a little ahead and went inside a shop. I stayed outside first but then followed. She looked at a blue jacket; seemed like she liked it very much. She opened the book, read something and kept the blue jacket back into its shelf. I felt she is either a terrorist or insanely nuts. She started walking outside towards the door and her eyes were stuck to that blue jacket. She went out and so did I.

We, although not together, walked a little further up. There was a street artist playing guitar and singing. A big crowd has gathered up around him - clapping and singing along his tunes. The girl stood there for a few seconds, smiled as if she liked his singing and again, went inside to grab the book. She looked at a page and started to walk again.

It was driving me nuts now.

I kept following her although I wanted to listen to the music on street. She stood outside a book store looking at the book. Then she took a few steps ahead and lost in the curiosity, I took a few steps myself. I didn’t realise the distance between us shortened as she paused again and turned back. We bumped into each other and her little black book fell on ground. I apologised quickly and grabbed the book from the floor and gave it to her. By now my curiosity had risen to such an extent that I didn’t care for anything and I said “nice book! What is that about?”

She smiled and said - “oh this one! This is a book given to me by someone very close to my heart and it speaks of things one should or shouldn’t do, in order to have a great life. I refer to it all the time.”

I don’t know why I did that but in the spur of that moment, I said “That’s completely insane” She grabbed the book back and started to argue with me. In a few seconds, that rose to a heated argument.

Suddenly there was a thud, we were both knocked off by a running man and we both fell off onto the ground. People were shouting “thief” “thief” and few ran after him. I pulled myself together and helped her to get up. We dusted off the dirt from our clothes. We both looked down; the book was still on the floor with the cover torn. 

From the torn cover, one could read the original title underneath and know what was written on the black cover was a printing mistake.

What showed underneath the torn title “The greatest life” was the original title “The greatest lie”. We both looked at each other, didn’t speak a word and went in opposite directions.

It’s not just the story of that girl but we all have a book of rules someone gave us to tell us what we can or cannot do. But that’s a book written by someone else.  And as we continue to live our lives, never having to dare open the black cover, we miss out on so much life because of someone else's mistake.

You are only limited by the lies you’ve been telling yourself.

- written by Bhavish Ahuja