The Lunchroom

A Story by green212

Short story about life

The lunchroom

A heavy-set, light skinned man sat at the counseling table filling out some forms as he approached the room.

The counselor stopped writing and looked up at him as he approached.

“Good morning, have a seat please”

The counselor sounded extremely pleasant and this made him somewhat comfortable.

“Yes, Sir”.

“What brings you here today”

He immediately thought of the scholarship being offered by the school. He was excited.

“Well, Sir, I realized that your school offers scholarships to the top five or ten percent of

students during the award ceremony.”

“That is true. Are you in this category?”

“Well, by my GPA, I would either be amongst the top four students or just outside of that range.” He had used the word four to transition the conversation and hoped the counselor would make that connection.

“Oh, so that would mean you might be eligible for the 16,000/yr scholarship. I have not heard of your name in that category yet. Are you sure of this?”

“Well, that is what I came to check. I have not been notified about anything and yet, it seems that my GPA is good enough to get one of these scholarships. I was curious as to whether I would get anything”

He sensed something different. The tone had not shifted to confrontational, but it was no longer pleasant.

“How long have you been at this school?”, the counselor asked.

“Two years”

“So you are a senior who has been here only for the last two years. Well, let me find out for you. Why don’t I invite you back to my office later after I have figured this out.”

“Ok”, he said.

He left and cleared his mind. This was supposed to be a simple conversation. He had expected it to go well and had hoped to find out which scholarship he had received. Instead, nothing had come out of it other than being asked how long he had been at the school.

He entered the large lunchroom and sat down next his friend. “Kaisa hain, man? Kuch thik nahi lag raha hai aaj. Sab thik? (how are you,man? You don’t look too good. Everything ok?)”, the friend asked. He just nodded. You guys gotta cut that hindi talk, man. Speak some American”, said his other friend at the table. He just laughed at that. He knew the guy talking was originally from Africa and just joking around. He had heard jokes a thousand times before, but today, something felt weird after that meeting.

And so it went. He waited for over a week until he could not figure out why the counselor had not called him back like he had promised. Finally, he could not take it anymore and decided to drop by the office.

“Hey, how are you? What are you here for today?” asked the lady sitting outside the counseling rooms.

“I was just here to see my counselor to talk about my academics.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, he was supposed to make one for us, but he hasn’t yet so I decided to drop by to speak to him”

“I see, ok, have a seat while I go get him.”

She left and he took a seat. He sat there staring at the walls. He didn’t really have a conversation plan. Heck, it was only four years since he had been to the country and he had spent most of that time with books. It was still awkward to have a conversation in English. As he sat there thinking, what he was going to say or how, the woman came back into the room. “You can go inside to see him”, she said as he stopped day dreaming. “Ok, thanks”.

Three years later

He sat in the library of his college. There were about forty-thousand plus students in this place and he was there figuring out what to do. By this time, he had enlisted in the army, finished a lot of his business coursework and was almost ready to become an army officer soon.

“whoa, I didn’t know you went here”, he said as a girl approached him.

“hey, I can’t believe you go here too. It has been some time since high school, haha”

“What are you upto these days?”

“I am studying science, hopefully go into healthcare. You?”

“Well, I am studying at the business college. Hopefully, that goes well”

“I am sure it will. Ok, well, I gotta get back to studying, just saw you here and said hi while I was studying.” She turned and started to leave.

“Hey, wait. Let me ask you a quick question.”, he said. “ye?”, she said.

“do you remember that award ceremony at the end where they handed out those scholarships to a lot of ranked students and we had a lot of different ones given.”

“Ye, sure, what about it?”

“well, they said you couldn’t get a rank at the school or a scholarship if I was only there for two years and I accepted that decision. But I remember something weird that I could never understand and never bought up cause I was slightly scared at the time.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, R* was in the line to get an award that day and for some reason I remember people saying he hadn’t been there the whole four years either…”

“Umm, R* joined us at the end of his 10^th grade, about two months before you came to our school. What is this about?”

“Nothing, I just didn’t know the guy that well. I am not sure how he pulled it off and got a scholarship…”

“Not sure, maybe two years was the cut off.”

“Maybe you are right. Well, it is in the past I suppose.”

“Ye, well see you”

As she turned, he once again said “wait, hold on”. “What now?” she sounded slightly annoyed.

“Do you think I would have learned a lot more if I had sat where he sat in the lunch room?”

She paused for a second and thought carefully,

“Yes, you would have learned how to accept it and let go sooner.”

© 2017 green212

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matrixmark

A piece which moved at a good piece. You built up the guy wanting to see if he had been accepted really well. The sentences which you used were at the right length and were consistent throughout, which is always good when reading a story/chapter or even a poem.

When you started with the second dialogue part - Put in capital letters at the beginning of the first 2 speeches. Also just a suggestion - bring tones of voices when the characters speak. I know its only little things, but it will add so much more to the conversations and give a better idea of what mood the characters are in.

It was a good piece and structured well.
I enjoyed the read.

Mark.