Another piece of mindful fiction! Read it, rate it, comment also pleajhhh!

He looked at me and smirked. I blushed! Wow, so he knows! And all this while I had been thinking I was the only smart one here. It was an arts class and I had managed to slip someone else's work as mine.

That someone lived somewhere in Italy and there was no way my prof could have found that out. But when things have to get screwed they just get screwed. One look at my work and he knew. The way he raised his head slowly and looked at me, the conviction his gaze bore, my heart skipped a beat! There was no need for him to word his thought. The silence between us was evident that I had mistaken his smartness.

He broke the pause and asked, "So you should be detained for you have cheated."

I remained silent. I wanted to laugh.. After the initial embarrassment, I was dying to ask him how did he know the real artist. But I held back. My face showed no shame, I did not feel any. On second thoughts, I felt my attempts were forlorn because he knew of my artistic capabilities. And the combined reflection of both, the give away and my indifferent connection with arts showed on my face now.

He continued staring and before I could control, I blurted, " How could you possibly know the person who made this?"

"Ok tell me, why did you pick this?"

"Oh! Its very simple. The first look and I thought to myself.. if I was forced to become an artist, this is how my work would end up looking. Look at the lines, look at the symmetry. Are there any straight lines? Is there symmetry at all? And his name.. Its like amateur Indian wanna-be artist barely surviving under an Italian alias! It all went down good with me. One look at this and I was like, this is so horrible, my prof would buy into this!"

His pale fair face had turned crimson. I thought I saw hurt on his face. He looked at me and whispered hoarsely, "Really? Is that why you picked this?"

What could someone who was caught cheating in university test say to the same questions asked the twice? He already knew the answer. Maybe he needed an affirmation.

"Yes", I said.

And he put a big zero on my assignment paper.

Not that I wasn't expecting that, but still my face fell. He wrote detained next to my name in a register and handed the paper to me. I could sense his sudden discomfort and the weirdo inside me just got all the more curious. I shrugged away the hesitation and asked him again, "How did you know this was not my work?"

He looked straight into my eyes, which filled up with anger mixed with hurt and said, " Valentino is my pseudo name and that is my work."

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Ringing silence

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