Real Friends, Indeed

Real Friends, Indeed

By: AWC



Noor Georgas thought hundreds of time. How did it happen to him but still, sometimes Noor thought, he was dreaming. No, this was not possible; he always thought.

Well over 10 years ago, they were school mates for about 2 years. They knew each other and said hello in the basketball team but the relationship did not develop and NG had to leave because his father got transferred once again to another country and that is how he got separated from Rahul Sharma after only knowing each other as the members of their school team. Good 8 years and at least couple of thousand miles away, they met again. Town Library was the place. Strange that 10 years ago, they both were to finish high School in 2 years and now they met after 8 years of graduation but they both recognized each other. A lot of time had passed, many an important life events had happened but they did remember each other’s face and although library was not crowded but they met in the line. One was to return a book and the other was taking out a video. What an incidence, they could have missed each other easily but now they were together.

Sitting at the coffee shop they refreshed every memory and renewed all they could muster back. RS [Rahul Sharma] was a salesman for a huge investments and savings fund company while Noor Georgas [NG] was working for a car dealer as their purchase manager. The car dealership and the investment company office was not far from each other on Route 72 East. They did not live very close by as they found out but they were both very glad to find each other. They had taken each other’s phone number and promised, never to get lost again. As they were to depart from the coffee shop, Rahul told Noor about this outing his office had arranged and invited Noor as his guest. Just making sure, it would be no hassle for Rahul, Noor very kindly accepted the invitation because he had nothing else planned for the coming Saturday and he thought, that he had enough days in between to be ready for the party.

Early Saturday morning, he was very upbeat to be spending the day with his old friend. Noor took a shower, changed into his favorite shirt and jeans. While buttoning the shirt, he glanced in the mirror on the bathroom wall, ran a comb in his hair, smiled looking at the youthful beauty of the man in the mirror and came out to the bedroom whistling. He stuffed his wallet in the jeans pocket and ran down to the kitchen where his coffee mug was waiting for him. He knew Rahul shall be coming very soon to pick him up and he did not want to be late. He knew, it was going to be a great day, it was a going to be sunny, warm day but not uncomfortable hot and a few games of basketball with Rahul would be very nice.

As he finished his coffee mug, the door-bell rang. Expecting no one other than Rahul, he yelled that it was open and Rahul pushed the door and walked in with a smile on his young face. His baggy t-shirt and shorts were unable to hide his fit physique. Rahul said, he would drive and Rahul walked out of the home after Noor. Again, recalling and reminiscing the old times, they reached the park. Soon they saw couple of Rahul’s colleagues from the office and parked the car. Rahul introduced Noor to several of his office friends, gathered around the drinks. Noor was impressed to find out that Rahul had mentioned about him to most of his office colleagues and the time they spent in school together. As some of the Rahul’s office friends started talking with Noor about their old school days, it was announced that there was plenty of food waiting and then everybody got in line. Rahul came and he told Noor that he had put his name and Noor’s name for a few basketball games. They sat eating couple of plates of pasta and consuming beer before going out to play the basketball games.

There were some really enthusiastic guys playing the game, making it very fast and competitive. Noor enjoyed the pace of the game as his team won. During the game he realized that Rahul bumped against him little more often than necessary but then, that was the way the game of basketball was played.