They were meeting after a gap of a fortnight.
He sported a stubble that day.
She stopped about two feet from him, looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘Your clean shaven looked bowled me over. And then bit by bit I began loving you. But this look…’ She paused.

Her pause was long enough for him to manage a stuttered word or two, ‘This is me. The dreamer in me.’

She did not smile and went on, ‘Yes, the dreamer in me loves the dreamer in you. But will your stubble accept the stubbles all over my body?’

He was stunned. He was, in his heart, expecting accolades for his beard. He thought she would moan and swoon on seeing his stubble and then then he would say, ‘Listen to the newest poem I wrote on you, for you, my dear.’ The stubble would make give him the sort of looks that poets have… he had thought. So he blurted out, ‘I thought you’d love my new poet look. I have even written a poem for you.’

‘Stubbles are weird. They are painful. They make you look like an outcast. They never smell good. They cause bruises and this is why I hate smelly stubbles!

There was silence for a while. Then she continued, ‘I love the poet in you. But I don’t like the stubble on you.’

He never wanted to pain her and told her he’d go and shave right then, but she said, ‘The poem first, dear. I am now aching to hear the rhymes you’ve written for me. Poetry always comes before looks.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Poets write, stubbles don’t.’

Poets write, stubbles don't

Poets write, stubbles don’t

 

 

This post is a part of the Protest Against Smelly Stubble Activity in association with BlogAdda.

My series of 10 posts on smelly stubbles:

ONE
Poets write, stubbles don’t

Poets write, stubbles don’t

TWO
Autobiography of that unclean stubble

Autobiography of that unclean stubble

THREE
There’s more to stubble than you really know

There’s more to stubble than you really know

FOUR
The stubble debate

The stubble debate

FIVE
The tricky twins!

The tricky twins!

SIX
Men in pursuit

Men in pursuit

SEVEN
Part and parcel

Part and parcel

EIGHT
Twenty-four years later

Twenty-four years later

NINE
We-can-we-will
https://passey.info/2013/12/we-can-we-will/ 

TEN
This happened at three in the morning

This happened at three in the morning

 

 

 

 

 

Arvind Passey
30 December 2013