I Have Never... Dialed The Happiness Hotline

Word Count : 600

An expensive mobile phone lay on a steel sheet with its innards spread. The technician poured over it, while a young boy, possibly an apprentice, watched in either rapt attention, or sheer boredom. I leaned over to get a better look at the powered-up electronic entrails, fascinated at the tiny parts the guy was poking at.

I jumped a bit when the store-owner barked crude Hindi at the boy, who promptly swiveled on his stool and disappeared behind a filthy-looking curtain. Ambarish Bhaveshamjibhai Champak was the pan-chewing stereotype, his name typed in runny ink on a certificate issued by the Commercial Tax Office hanging next to his fat sweaty face.

The apprentice was back at his attentive act after placing a glass of yellowish water on Shri ABC’s ancient counter. I idly wondered if it was the glass that was dirty, or the water itself. Christ. How could they drink from that? Shortly, the oily bastard handed over my just-repaired mobile, and rudely thrust a crumpled paper with an exorbitant fee at me.

I was flicking through my wallet, when a raucous buzzing from the technician’s counter sent both the boys jerking back in alarm. An unexpected incoming call had the phone’s loose vibrator jumping like crazy over the steel plate, and the repair guy looked sheepish.

He picked up the violently errant electronic in his fingers, and held it up for all to see. Predictably, he made a slow to and fro motion with the still buzzing vibrator that would’ve been understood the Universe over as meaning only one thing.

Men will be men. But I was flush with embarrassment as I hurriedly left the oppressive store closely hounded by the sounds of their lewd laughter. I fumbled with the mobile phone attempting to switch it on as I negotiated steaming puddles, careening rickshaws, loud vendors, over-flowing drains, and the thronging public.

Now home, alone, stripping out of my sweat-sticky clothes, I realized that I’d been thinking of only one thing during the tedious walk back. Old jokes and one-liners on the topic suddenly seemed unfunny. I shivered slightly in the mild air-flow of my ancient air-conditioner.

Even the strongest dams of repressed desire need but one trigger to create a flood. And mine happened as I sat cross-legged on my bed, a meager meal in front of me, and the TV remote in my hand – an eager advertisement in the middle of Grey’s Anatomy had just sent me spinning with unbridled lust, and my palms were sweaty.

A little into the next hour, I lay awkwardly in bed and surveyed the chaos around me – the tired air-conditioner thrumming on maximum, shredded condom wrappers, a mauled tube of KY Jelly, tons of tissues, the now lube-slick landline phone that came free with my broadband lay by my side, and the sheets in terrible disarray, stained as they were with the excess lubricant oozing from my greasy nether region.

I was perspiring, panting mildly, and I felt weirdly stiff. Heaven. Right here in my 10 by 10.

Grunting and barely able to move for fear of hurting myself, I rolled over carefully to reach for the landline again, grinning wickedly to myself. Even as I dialed my own cell number for the hundredth time in the last hour, the TV blared out the advertisement for an Italian invention based on too much cheese, too little meat, tasty olives, cleverly disguised calories, taste-bud-approved joy and free home deliveries - my trigger on rerun:

“…delivery in 30 minutes, or free! Dial-in for a slice of happiness. Our Happiness Hotline number is…”