Question

Write an original short story beginning with the following words :
'The voice was familiar but I could not recognize the face......'

Answer 1

"The voice was familiar but I could not recognise the face". Samantha said to me.Samantha, a girl who was sixteen had been coming to me for about a week. She complained of having the same dream every night for about six months. The voice was familiar, but I could not recognise the face. Although it was difficult to recognise him from that angle, especially at that time of the day. He was already getting down from the bus and I could barely manage a glimpse of his face while he walked past my window seat. During the evening rush hour, everybody is in a hurry to get back home at the earliest and so they are almost always on the run after alighting from trains and buses.

However, I am sure it was Pankaj's voice, except the face was not his. We were in the same school but three years ago his father got transferred to Mumbai and the family moved out. Since then, Pankaj had been completely out of the radar; nobody knew where he was because of his absence from social media also.

Although quite average in studies, Pankaj was very good in Mathematics. In almost every exam he used to top the class in Mathematics. Maybe he was too lazy to study the other subjects with equal fervor or maybe he was plainly dull in them. Pankaj was a brilliant footballer also. He got selected for the senior school team while studying only in Class 5. Our sports teacher used to call him the 'Midfield Wizard'.

As long as he played for the school, we never lost a match in any of the inter-school tournaments. In fact, on two occasions he was also adjudged the Man of the Tournament. The first time was in Shimla during the All India ICSE Schools Football Championships and the other was in Kalimpong during the Independence Inter-School Football Tournament. When the team returned with the trophies, the Principal had specially honoured him with a medal and a certificate.

A week later, I heard the same voice once again, asking for his change from the bus-conductor. At that very moment, I turned round and our eyes met. The voice was the same but the face was different! But, he recognised me! I was absolutely dumb founded to at what I heard next.

Pankaj's family was holidaying in Goa and they had rented a private taxi to explore Hilly Goa. On the way, a lorry hit them from behind and as he was not wearing a seat-belt, his face was completely smashed by the shards of the broken windscreen. When he regained consciousness after some days, he was in hospital. Doctors had to do a series of plastic surgeries to reconstruct his face. But, he never got back his original face.