In a small little village, there lived a girl named Mary. Mary lived in a small hut, all alone, raising a cow, whose milk she used to sell in the market in a town near to her village. The market was filled with people, sellers sitting in their shop, and customers buying things. Children running here and there. Mary had a little shop on the corner. She came early in the morning with her big milk drum, which she would pour into small bottles for selling. She earned a fair amount of money to feed her and her cow.

One fine morning, she came to the market driving her small truck with milk drum at the back. She Opened her store and set up the bottles for selling. Several customers came and bought the bottles like every day until 1 bottle was left to sell off. For quite a while no customer came, so she had to leave the shop open for longer than she usually did. Running across the street, came a girl at Mary’s shop and she had her head down, panting, catching her breath. She looked at Mary and said, ‘Today all milk shops are closed, maybe I am late, are you closing too?’. Mary was staring constantly at her and said, no, I have one bottle left.’ The girl said,’ I’ll take it, thank you, here’s your money’, and she ran away, from the same direction she came.

Mary stood right there with money in her hand, stupefied until the girl went away and isn’t visible anymore. Mary has never been so mesmerized by seeing someone, it was a very unusual feeling for her. All she was thinking was her, the unknown running girl that came to her store, bought milk and gave money to her.

The whole scenario was replaying in her mind, she couldn’t take it off her mind. She forgot to feed her cow until it was evening. She was the prettiest girl she has seen, she knew there was something about her which made her special. But tomorrow was Sunday, the market would be closed tomorrow, she won’t see until Monday, and she couldn’t wait to see her, so she took her truck towards the market on Sunday. As usual, the market was closed, but her destination was different. She drove further until she reached the next village. She was driving one house after the other, slowly and steadily. Until she found the girl she was looking for, outside her house feeding her cow. She came out of her truck, and went around her house and was now near a window. The girl came into her room and sat on her bed, and something came rolling down and fell on the floor. It was a milk bottle with a letter in it. She took out the letter and read it-

‘ I don’t know your name, but all I know is I have never seen a girl so pretty, beautiful and mesmerizing as you. I don’t know how you feel, but I feel love for you.’ – Mary, Girl from the Milk Store

Next day, the market was in full swing, as every day but Mary was very anxious about the girl. She had sold off all the milk bottles for the day, and was packing it up, until she saw a bottle kept in front of her, with a paper in it. She took it out, it was the same letter she gave yesterday, she saw the back side of the letter. There was written ‘ I do too.’ She looked around, and saw a girl across the street standing, smiling at her. Mary smiled back, with tears in her eyes.

The girl came to her and said, ‘ I have seen you a lot of times here, and I always wanted to say you this but I didn’t have the confidence to say, so I made an attempt by buying milk from your store even though I have my own milk store at the street end. You have shown confidence I never had, thank you.’

They both laughed with little tears in her eyes. Soon they started to spend time and were now forever in love. They got married and moved to a different village to start a new life together. They lived happily ever after.

****THE END****