Engineering a surprise ...

scene finale:

You hear footsteps outside approaching the door. Languid, lazy setps. She has been moody through the whole day. The thud of a bag being put down on the parapet, riff raff noises of foraging inside it, mettalic rattle of a key.

The key starts clicking inside the door lock.

The music starts flowing, mellow and feeble as it starts.

Slowly the door opens, she enters with tired but suspicious eyes; she has detected the music, feeble though it is, now.

Time stands still for some immeasurable parts of a second.

Her mouth opens wide. Shes trying to take in the whole scene and interpret it, overwhlemed.

Yellow light seeping in through the blinds flooding the room, reflecting off the walls and the hanging ribbons and confetti; balloons on the floor flip flopping in the gentle wandering wind; you standing with a mesmerising smile; the huge blossoming flower basket ... the cake ... the music ...

The music, it starts building up, slowly rising through the crescendos ...

You can see emotion rising inside her, like transparent bubbles from a champagne bottle when its about to be opened. Her eyes are shining brightly, beaming, bubbles, rising ...

And it bursts out.

You sense the incredible ripeness, a ripe and mellow thing you feel inside the orange vapory warmth engulfing you.

---

well now, rewinding ...

You start planning days in advance, forecasting and trying to pick the suitable day when it can work. You also have to make sure that not a hint slips out even by chance at any circumstances about your devious plans. Things change dynamically and you doubt if the day you have picked would work or not, but then you decide to go ahead with it anyway. Its difficult to buy stuff and hide them at home, so you have to wait till the very day to get everything required. All this while you keep speculating whether it will work or bomb.

The day arrives. You see her off on her way to office.

Download the music. Mmm, iPod file system has some errors, google, fix, does not work, google, fix, ah, works. Download to iPod, test, yeah works. Phew!

Now there is a chance that she might come back early and direct to where you work; so you think up some excuse, call her up and tell her that you have to go on an important off-site stuff and would be a little late from work. You plot the plan to sneak out of office and get everything and set up the show before she comes in the evening.

Oops, midway through the day she calls and says some big problem at her work and she feels all moody, mmm, ...

But you stick on with the plan, hoping things would be fine ...

Again, she calls at noon and says she's going home early! Awh! You are almost out of time to do everything now!!

Get out of office; run around; order the flowers; run around; order the cake; run around; get the ribbon, confetti, balloons, candles ... almost there, run home.

Plan, plan time efficiently, oh yeah.

Mmm, you can't park the car in front of the house. She will see that something's not right. Get all the stuff out, take the car to some bylane and leave it there.

Stitch and stick up the ribbons, one by one; Oh! only half an hour left.

Balloons, oh, balloons ... after a few, your lungs are just not able to cope up with the will of the mind and you have to give up and say, enough! should be.

Bring everything together, iPod for music, set up cake and candles ... stand there ... and wait, for footsteps outside the door.

Oh almost forgot!! lock the door from inside with key and don't bolt it!! and yeah, remove the key from the hole ...

and wait, for footsteps outside the door.

A minute ... nothing happened .. a few minutes ... and then quite a large number of minutes .. nothing continued to happen .. mmmm ...

Text her, say just checking whether you're home, I might also be able to come back early!

Ayyo! She says she can leave only in the evening!

Grrr!

Now what, hmm .. put the cake back in the fridge .. stand around, sit down .. read something .. time seems to be going extermely slow, ah, curse general relativity and speed of light .. continue reading.

After a large amount of text has been read, it would appear that time seems to have caught up ...

wake up, wake up! .. now.

Bring everything together, iPod for music, set up cake and candles ... stand there ... and wait, for footsteps outside the door.

and then,

You hear footsteps outside approaching the door. Languid, lazy setps. She has been moody through the whole day. The thud of a bag being put down on the parapet, riff raff noises of foraging inside it, mettalic rattle of a key.