Same Old Routine

This morning would be different he told himself.

It wasn’t.

He awoke with the ringing of his alarm. Without further ado, he got up from his warm bed, grabbed his uniform and changed into it; he then brushed his teeth and washed his face with a cold burst of water. A chill went down his spine due to the sheer coldness of the water. He shrugged it off and rubbed a towel against his face. He proceeded to make his way downstairs and entered the kitchen where warm food awaited his arrival. He devoured in no more than a few bites and soon after, gulped a whole jug down of orange juice. He rinsed his mouth and then went back up to his room where he drowned his clothes in his favorite cologne. Last but not the least, he grabbed his watch and wrapped it around his wrist. He was now ready to begin his day.

The ride to the school was quite uneventful. There were no accidents, no mishaps, no anything. Everything went pitch perfect. Everyone followed the rules and not one person went out of his lane. Today this country didn’t seem like the country it was, full of liars, backstabbers, rogue agents and dishonest people.

He reached his school’s gate and sighed a deep sigh. He then closed his eyes, prayed to God and then looked onwards towards a better, prosperous future.

The task for today was to again collect money for donations for a Non-Government Organization he worked for. He knew that if he didn’t do well today, he would be kicked out of his team.

He began to go around and made his intentions clear by announcing it out loud. All those who listened at first just snickered and went away and the boy started losing hope that he’d again face failure today but there was something different about today. Maybe it was the chilly cold winds of the autumn season or the beautiful sun which spread warmth and shone the light and didn’t itch for once, but people actually started listening.

Within minutes he had students upon students hoarding onto him to give donations and he could barely keep up with writing the donation slips and collecting the donations. He presumed that this would only last for a short while but that short while turned out to be the whole day and by the time he was done, his hand had swollen up from excessively writing faster than he normally did and his pockets were bursting forth with more cash than they had ever handled.

He smiled in joy and that day he went home satisfied and proud. At least now he won’t be kicked out of his NGO.

When he reached home he went straight to his room to put the donations aside.

Out of the Rs.7500 he had collected for donations, he put Rs.2500 aside to give to the head of his NGO as the number of donations received: exactly Rs.50 per page; then he proceeded to put the rest of the Rs.5000 in his wallet.

No one would ever know he mused to himself.

The guilt trip finished before even beginning, once again.