My noise

Disclaimer:
All characters in the following story are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real-life persons is entirely coincidental.
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He burst into my room, well almost. For a moment his existence seemed to have escaped him but soon enough, he regained composure. With his head well below his shoulders, his hands outstretched, clutching the door-frame and beads of perspiration dripping down from the tip of his hooked nose, he presented quite a sight for the onlooker. If it weren't for the book upon my lap, I might have stood up and applauded his performance. But instead, I gave a snicker and hoped it would suffice. I gave him a full two minutes to regain composure before putting forth my amicable question, "Howdy, Jojo? Did the sky come crashing down again?".

Jojo was a piece of art. One of God's creations in His rarest moods. It wouldn't take more than an hour with this man to appreciate what I am trying to put across to you. God might have been trying to put together a flawless person. He had everything worked out. But just when he was about to put the brains into this creation of his, something must have happened that really pissed him off. Maybe His wife wanted him to take out the garbage or something along those lines. Something that involves stench, dirt and ya, plenty of garbage. Whatever it was, it made God forget all about the latest project he was working on, and stuff in garbage where the brains ought to have been.

No one had thus far understood why Jojo refused to play any sport other than fish-fish. He would tell anyone who would listen to him that it was a sport akin to water-polo but only without the water. No one knew why of all instruments that his parents offered to buy him, he opted for the cello. My deepest sympathies were with his roommate and everyone else who lived within fifty cello-lengths of him. Apart from these, he sang in his sleep and tripped nearly every time he went to the bathroom. Otherwise, he was a sound egg.

I ran into him on my very first day at the university. He had just tripped rather embarrassingly outside the common washroom, and I was the only bipedal soul around, so I had to help him back to his feet. "Thanks man," he had smiled. The next thing I knew he had invited me to his room to hear him play the cello and I regret having lived those moments of my life. I tell people over and over again that the man ought to be arrested for torturing life around him, but they simply laugh and think I am kidding. A few months later, I had realized he was a sound egg. One only had to graciously decline to be his audience during his cello practice sessions and stay away from him when he got drunk and seemed to consider the world his 'fish-fish' stadium and every other human being his opposition. I know people who have been subject to sledging and spitting by him in such a state. There was even a guy who claimed Jojo had tried to stab him with a toothpick with shouts of "You shalt never triumph, you filthy traitor!!"

I would do well to inform readers that over the past few days, he had been falling in love with one of the Hussein twins. The only trouble was, he never managed to figured out which one. "They are so similar!" he used to cry with anguish whenever he spotted either of them. "That's the whole point," I had told him one day. "They are not twins without reason." He gave me a I-wish-I-had-a-toothpick-to-stab-you-with look. "Thanks a ton, Einstein."

"When are you ever going to figure out which one of them you like?" Teja had asked him exasperatedly. Jojo brushed his hair out of his face and said, "I am going to try my luck with both of them. Either one isn't bad at all, is she?" Teja merely shrugged and got back to polishing his guitar.

So when he had burst into my room, well almost, on that fateful day, my first impression was that it had to do with Jojo and the twins. He didn't let me down. It did turn out to be about his twin trouble. But before he took off on his epic narration, he took time off to frown at the book I had on my lap.

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's a book." I held the thing up so he could see it in clearer light.

"I know the darned thing is a book. What is it about?" He stepped into the room and collapsed on the chair next to my bed. Before I could raise a voice of protest, he had slipped off his sandals and laid his soiled feet upon the clean sheets.

"Ah, nothing great. The title says 'What women want and everything else under the sun". So from what I make of it, it's a book about everything." I glanced up to see Jojo twirling a Natraj pencil with his fingers and staring away at a pile of junk on my table.

"Hmm" he said rather plainly. I didn't blame him. He was not a man of books. Nothing thicker than distilled hydrogen could seep through to his brain.

The book was put away. "Howdy, then?"

He turned back to me with an expression that showed plain surprise at the presence of another human in the room. He didn't have his glasses on. He always thought they made him look geeky.

"Where are your glasses?"

For an answer, he felt his face with his fingers. "Oh! That's what has been wrong! I must have forgotten them back at my room." He paused for a moment. "Dude, you have to help me."

"Ah, shoot. What may I do for my good man today?"

"Harry," he said for that's what he liked to call me. "I kissed a girl."

Every man who speaks such a statement has a typical set of follow-up expressions that he chooses from. The eyes brighten up, the ears prick up and are alert for the oncoming praise or congratulations. The body is tensed and the grin never disappears. Even if the kiss wasn't as good as one had expected, one still smiles. But I was totally unprepared for the expression that Jojo chose to produce after he uttered his chosen words. The shoulders were loose, the face appeared dejected and there wasn't even a hint of a smile on his face. I began to wonder whether I had heard him right.

"You kissed a girl right?"

"Yeah." He was markedly looking away and the lower lip was bitten.

"What's with the sulking then?"

"Err, Harry..." He was unsure about where his feet were and the loose strap on his sandal seemed to attract a lot of his attention. "You remember the Hussein chick, right?"

"Ya of course, what about her."

"I kissed her."

"Sweet! Way to go man! I am all ears. Tell me about it! Oh, oh, which one, by the way?"

The enthusiastic air around me quickly faded away. His eye refused to meet mine and I noticed his hair seemed to be more of his face with every minute that passed.

"Oh shit, dude! Don't tell me!" I cried exasperatedly. "Don't tell me!!"

He looked up with a hopeful expression, like a lost dog. But his lip was still being chewed on. Nodding slightly, he spoke the fateful words.

"You got me, Harry. I have no idea which one I kissed."