7; Cynthia

Cynthia

                                                                           Kishalay Sinha

 

When I was a graduate student in the department of physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there was an American girl, by the name of Cynthia Katherine Hammonds, also a graduate student (in the department of architecture), who stayed in the room opposite mine in the multi-storied hostel for graduate students. Do not be alarmed: the arrangement of rooms in the hostel is shown in the adjoining diagram, with two women sharing a common bathroom, and two men similarly sharing a common bathroom:

 

[DRAWING]

[My room in the UIUC graduate dormitory was a single-occupant room, My washroom shared with one or two Korean-looking male(s) in the adjoining room; sometimes I HEARD the Korean guy (one of the two Korean guys?) COUGHING in the WASHROOM - sarcastically?]

  

Now it so happened that Cynthia grew fond of me. How did I know? She must have noticed that I was a “shy”, serious student who never spoke to women on the campus, nor in the hostel. One day, when all the rooms on my floor were closed and nobody was visible in the long corridor, I happened to notice that she had written:

                                               

       Oops!

 

on the message-pad on her door. I was curious. I read the name on the door: Cynthia Katherine Hammonds. My intuition told me that “Oops!” was addressed to me.

 

I looked up the telephone directory in my room (there was a telephone in every room in the hostel, with a telephone directory listing the telephone numbers of residents of Urbana and Champaign and all graduate students in the hostel). I discovered from the telephone directory that Cynthia was a graduate student in the department of architecture.

 

Next day, she wrote on her message-pad [on the door of her room shared with a girl student]:

 

   After all, I suffered for you today.

 

Those were the sweetest words I had ever read in my life.

 

Soon, I received conclusive confirmation of my guess that Cynthia had fallen in love with me. One evening (it was a cold January evening), as I returned to the hostel after a visit to a bookstore, I opened my door and went in, but left the bunch of keys outside, forgetting to take in the keys. Soon there was a knock on my door. I opened the door: a young woman in blue uniform (a member of the hostel staff) told me, “Sir, you have left your keys on the door.” I thanked her, and took my keys. 

NEXT DAY, I saw written on Cynthia’s door:

 

    Don’t forget your keys!

 

Well, of course, I never spoke to her – indeed, I did not even know what she looked like. I left the university soon after, because my research interests lay elsewhere (not aging in insects, but resuscitation) and biology at that time seemed too un-mathematical to me. I went to Chicago and joined the department of mathematics, statistics, and computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a graduate student.

 

I regret to this day that I do not even have a mental picture of what Cynthia looked like. My wife is convinced that she must have been a fat, ugly woman. I hotly deny this. My wife is not convinced. Women can be so cruel. I feel so hurt and insulted. I tell my wife that I hope at least that Cynthia is alive (God bless her!), although I have no hope of ever locating her, never mind the Internet. She must have got married long ago, after all, and changed her suffix.

 

If only I knew what Cynthia looked like, if only I had a mental picture of sweet Cynthia … 

[Published many years ago in The Sentinel (English DAILY newspaper PUBLISHED from My HOME TOWN Guwahati, capital of Assam, India; the Editor was Mr. D.N. Bezboruah) SUNDAY magazine mélange. Two funny sketches were added by the magazine. When I wrote this story, I was not consciously aware (though sub-consciously aware) of multiple BODY transformations. Also, I did not think at the time that "Cynthia", whom I NEVER saw or met, COULD have been a Na. "honey trap" who FAILED BADLY to trap Me... Oops!]

A Bengali "uncle" neighbor who read the typescript of My "short story" entitled "Cynthia" exclaimed: "This story is a WORLD-class short story! Get it published!"

 

Kishalay Sinha [G] August 4, 2023