My heart was leaping up and down in joy. It implored,

”Please, please say yes!”

The emphasis was on the last word. I felt one with the unbridled enthusiasm it exhibited. Just then I started at a sudden noise. The head had made an indecipherable sound of pure annoyance. It was followed with a stern command:

“No!”

I stood between the pair confused, torn in two. Who should I listen to, my heart or my head?

Come to think of it, WHO am ‘I’?! The question stumped me for the moment taking my mind off the problem at hand.

Well I could be the heart, I mused. I’d love that. The heart was always nudging me to do things that I loved. I smiled thinking of some of its more exotic suggestions and how I had jumped into it with passion. But my smile vanished when I thought of the predicaments the heart had led me into so beguilingly. And how could I forget the pain, the intense searing pain I had ended up feeling. Not so good.

Maybe it was better that I be the head. It got me out of those very predicaments the heart pushed me into without a thought. It brought me ashore safely each time, instead of leaving me to drown in choppy seas. The head was the one who saved me from certain destruction. But when I thought how the head never let me do anything remotely fun, my face fell. I sulked at the thought of how the head kept saying no to almost everything.

Hmm… but all this did not answer my question. Who was ‘I’, the heart or the head? How could ‘I’ just be one of them? Wasn’t ‘I’ both? Then why were these two pulling me in different directions? They were still fighting over whether it should be a yes or a no. There was a crazy buzzing sound in my ears.

“Chhup!” I screamed at them.

Other heads turned to look my way. I ignored them. This was between my head, heart and I. We had to settle this once and for all.

A new thought struck me. What if ‘I’ was neither head nor heart? May be ‘I’ was an outside entity, merely presiding over head and heart? Then why were they directing me to do this or that? Ha, did they think I was a sucker? Shouldn’t they be the ones doing my bidding? This was getting more difficult by the second. The buzzing was getting more intense.

“Please say yes…” whispered my heart gently, sweetly, reminding me it was waiting patiently.

“NO way!” hissed the head determined to keep voice level to the minimum, afraid perhaps to enrage me.

“Chhup!” I screamed at them again. “Let me think!”

Now there were definitely more heads looking my way. They were whispering too. I heard them in spite of the buzzing.

“I am the one who thinks for you.” the head said in a superior tone, “and I say ‘No’!”

“I am the one who feels for you and I say ‘Yes!’” the heart was not about to give up, it seems.

I had had enough of this tomfoolery. I was going to show them who was boss among the three of us. It was me of course. I calmly extended my hand towards the plate on the table.

“No!” bellowed the head

“Yes!” trilled the heart.

I bit into the piece of Black Forest cake and neatly took away half of it into my mouth. I could hear the heart cheering me on. Then I threw the other half on the floor and jumped on it till it was spread all over the shiny floor. The head’s wry amusement when I threw the cake stopped when it realised I was still relishing the piece in my mouth. They both were now silent.

Good.

This would teach the buggers who was the boss around here. ‘I’ was and would remain the boss. The head and heart could not rule me. ‘I’ was superior to either of them. I was alpha. Ha! I felt smug satisfaction for having outwitted the dumb pair. I laughed and laughed. I could not understand why Mom was sobbing though. She had been cheerful when she arrived.

“Mom, bring me another piece of cake next time.” I called after her as she walked away. “I gotta show them who is boss!”

I was laughing when they took me back to my cell. I was still laughing as they locked me up.

Revolve a story around this line ‘My heart was saying “Yes” but my head was saying “No”‘.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda