Childish Tendencies

Impatience

Mia

The man in the corner of the Hospital Commons snored with an intensity that brought Mia to slow her pacing across the carpet. The man had a whitening mustache above his invisible lips that were slightly open, aiding to his snoring. His white tendrils were shaded by a dark green beanie. He snorted in his sleep, opening his mouth wider to showcase perfectly aligned white teeth.

Mia's impatient bare feet padded across the carpet in haste. Her clothes hung off her, a sign that she hadn't been eating a lot for the past week- probably in anticipation in news about her beloved girlfriend, Alia.

There had been no contact from Alia in the past week and as Mia paced, various scenarios replayed in her head of close to impossible things. She thought of everything from a simple loss of communication to the apocalypse and when she tired of that, she was left to her last resort- recall an endless string of memories.

Her favorite memory by far with Alia was when Alia had taken her to play Cricket in her backyard with the "guys". Mia knew close to nothing about Cricket, but she still decided to go.

The "guys" were all Alia's friends. There was Mack, from Jamaica, Chaitanya, Riddhi and Akanksha from India and Kajol and Kareena from Pakistan. When we arrived, everyone was split into two teams, and since there were two of them, they were naturally deemed to be split into the two different teams, however, Alia had whispered something into Kajol's ear, and she had let Mia take her place on Alia's team.

Before the game had started, Alia had pulled out a cap from her knapsack and pushed it onto Mia's head.

"Okay, first things first, you need to know how to hit the ball with the bat," she had handed Mia the bat, and had thrown the ball across the field to Riddhi. "Come on." Mia followed Alia to the center of the field, where a patch of grass-free land was located. On the ends of the land were three sticks, with a chalk white line drawn in front of them. "So, you stand in front of the line called the crease. These stick like things are called the stumps, your objective is to not let the ball hit the stumps. We're using tennis balls cause real cricket balls are really hard and we need gloves and knee pads and helmets and all. So, you stop the ball by holding the bat and swinging at the ball, a lot like baseball, actually. When you hit the ball, and if it goes far enough away from the fielders, you run to the other crease. That's one run. There a six balls to an over, after each over you change positions with the batsmen on the other side, okay? That's the batting part, give it a go, I'll help you." Mia blinked, "Aare, bowl karna par dheere sai, nai hai na!" Alia screamed to Riddhi who stood ready to through the ball to Mia. "Under arm!" she screamed. "Okay, so hold stand sideways, yeah, now drop the bat perpendicularly in front of you with the handle towards you. Great. Now pick up the bat, no wait, right in front of left hand. Yeah, okay, great. Stand up, and put the bat just a little after your back foot and lean it against your thigh, see, like this?" Alia had wrapped her arms around Mia's to help Mia position. The ball came towards Mia and Alia lifted Mia's hands and hit the ball hard.

After a while, Mia got the hang of it and the game officially started. Alia was Mia's runner and their team score was 45-0 in 7 overs. Alia hit the ball hard and it fell down the ground, hitting the boundary hard. Alia squealed, "Four!" she said as she changed places with Mia, marking the end of another over. 49 with none out in 8 overs. Mia positioned herself like she was told to. The ball came at her fast and she swung the bat. The ball collided with the bat and went soaring into the air away from Mia. "Run," Alia screamed. Mia began running towards the next crease blindly, eyes on the ball. If one of the fielders caught the ball without it touching the ground, she'd be out.

"Oomph," Mia said as she fell onto her buttocks after banging into Alia. Alia sat up, rubbing her head.

"Six!" Alia screamed, "the ball crossed the boundary without it touching the ground, "six, six, six, six!" She jumped up, doing the Gangam Style. "She's new and she got a six in like the seventh over, suck on that suckers," she screamed, laughing. She pulled Mia up and brought her towards her, pressing her lips against Mia's ferociously.