The Grand Theft

Disclaimer: All characters and places appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Larceny is not a luxury but an impulsive necessity. It might be the comeuppance of one's lavish attraction to the product at hand and an immense desire to be in its possession, or an attempt to insinuate an abrupt fillip to resurrect one's dwindling self-confidence, or an endeavor to impart anguish to one's tormentor, or an enterprise to seek puerile amusement.

But, I purloined to gratify my quasi-literary inklings.

I graduated as an Engineer half-a-dozen and twain years ago from a technical institute of great repute in India. Four years in college flew by like a breeze. I learnt more about joint engineering, weed cultivation, dope marketing, booze distribution and porn publication than I did about computers chips, e-commerce, data compression, cryptology and bio-informatics put together. All in all engineering was a smashing experience but for that incident during the penultimate week before the graduation ceremony when I decided to introduce myself to the college library and which has forced me to pen this narrative.

Being one of the top technological institutes in India, my college enjoys an astronomical inflow of funds each year from the government. The then Dean made it his obligation to channelize the influx into college's welfare projects. His main area of interest was to inundate the library with imported collector's editions and international journals. But for the non-academic types like me library was a place for exchanging dope and meeting singles.

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The art of relishing a tuna sandwich

Beside a bottle of pellucid water,

sits a lunch box, red in color.

A bunch of supple fingers stop tapping the keyboard
when the clock face announces lunch.
They drop inside a black Fendi and ramble listlessly
for a while. Dexterously, they rescue a limp sanitizer,
eventually.

Some of them hold the base and the rest,
smother the lid. With a palpable force,
the red lunch box pops open;
presenting a tuna sandwich
adequately wrapped.

The lissome fingers bend at the knuckles
and take a plunge in the red lunch box.
Deftly, they fish out the tuna sandwich
still wrapped, adequately.

They fondle it amorously and let its softness sink in.

The thumb and the index finger exfoliate
the plastic wrap carefully, while the others
wait impatiently at the base of the sandwich
to get the job done.

Finally,
the lips part.