The End Of Friendship Between Alan And George

The Beginning of Friendship

Question:

Write a fictional Short story on any topic.

This story is about the end of friendship between the two boys, Alan and George, who were studying at the same university. From the very beginning, Alan and George had been very good friends. People used to admire their strength of bond and trust. Indeed, their friendship was a shining example of true friendship (Erwin, 2013). The girls desired to have strong friendships as theirs and the boys envied them. This unfortunate incident occurred when they were at the final semester of their university studies. Alan was pursuing higher education in Aerospace engineering at the university. While at the same university. George was doing masters in his favorite subject, Linguistics.

Let us get back to ten years ago, when both Alan and George were four graders in their high school. Alan and George were admitted to the same city school at the age of three. However, they did not know each other until they were promoted to the same section in class four. Alan’s house is adjacent to the school. He used to commute to school from home and vice versa on foot. The journey took hardly five minutes. Whereas George’s house was located far from school in a different locality (Rawlins, 2017). Mrs. Hart, George’s mother, used to accompany little George to the bus stop and helped him board the school bus. “Be careful George and listen to your teachers. Do not be disobedient” yelled Mrs. Hart as the bus started to leave with little George waving joyously at his mother. At the time of school dispersal George rode back to school on the same assigned bus from school. Alan and George had separate group of friends with whom they used to spend time and play at school. Such was the scenario until they were in class four. In class four, the class teacher placed them at the same section and more importantly, they were instructed to sit as pairs in the same bench. On the first day, Alan greeted George, “Hi, I am Alan. Nice to meet you.  What is your name?” George replied, “My name is George. Nice to meet you too”. In the first few weeks, they started to get to know each other. They both had the same hobbies and played the same sport, ice hockey. The two young children started to spend more time with each other even after school. They used to share their secrets and favorite things with each other. When once the teacher asked to the whole class, “Stand up one by one and say your best friend’s name”. George stood up and beamed with great joy, “Alan is my only best friend”. At the next turn, Alan stood up and said the same. People used to see them always together whether they were frolicking, sitting in the class, listening to the teacher’s instructions or even, while giving examinations. To others, they appeared to be conjoined at the hips. By the time they sat for the final examinations to class five, they had become inseparable.

Growing up Together

Eventually, Alan and George’s parents also became acquainted with each other. Alan’s parents were both computer engineers by profession. On the other hand, George’s father was an entrepreneur and his mother worked in Public Relations. Evidently, Alan and George shared the same upbringing style and class as they belonged to the same social strata of the society (Hammarén & Johansson, 2014). The parents started to visit each other houses and their friendship deepened. Once at parents meet, Mrs. Hart exclaimed, “Whenever I can’t find George, I go to Alan’s and there he is!” Listening to this, Alan’s mother laughed amusingly. This was a cause of great joy for the children as apart from the school hours; they got the opportunity to spend more time with each other, which was playful and amusing. In a span of three years, George’s family shifted to a spacious and cozy house near to the school. This particularly made George very happy. Next day he told Alan, “Alan we are shifting next to yours. Then I can walk with you to school. It will be so much fun”. As both Alan and George progressed through their school term, their friendship also progressed and deepened more. When George’s family went for a vacation, they took Alan with them, with the consent of Alan’s parents. Similarly, when Alan’s parents went for an annual visit to their country house, they sometimes took George with them (Derlega, 2013). Even in most of the school excursion trips and ice hockey matches, the boys travelled together. In fact, their parents preferred that the children travel together so that in case of any mishaps, one can positively take care of each other’s comforts and pains.

As a result, the boys grew up and discovered together, the beauty of adolescence, the transformation in their voice pitch, and the first traces of beard as a sign of masculinity, their first silly high school crushes, the academic pathways and ultimately their venture into adulthood. There were of course minor fights between the boys but those were nothing serious. Moreover, all cases of true friendships in the world had been witnesses of fights or quarrels at some point or the other. Most readers would agree with the notion that minor squabbles spices up the friendship. In fact, it can be said in this way that without rows, a friendship is incomplete because then it signifies that the friends are not true to each other. Similarly, in this story, notwithstanding the trivial quarrels, the central characters of Alan and George considered each other as the siblings, which they never had (Van der Graaff et al., 2014). Alan was an academically gifted student who had been winning numerous gifts and prizes from school. His friend, George was not as lucky as he was. He was a good student of course, but his academic talent was nowhere outstanding as that of Alan. Fortunately, this never created any rift between the two friends, until the university phase (Deutz, Lansu & Cillessen, 2015). Who knew that this would be the ultimate cause of disagreement between the two friends?

University Phase

Alan was accepted into the prestigious department of Aerospace engineering at the university by securing a meritorious scholarship (Wang & Chung, 2013). George was an exceptionally skilled ice hockey player. He got an opportunity to study in the same university through a sports scholarship. Resultantly, both Alan and George were highly delighted. Alan told his parents, “Mom, Dad I want to take up hostel accommodation. I think it will be more feasible for me than to commute from home. George is also thinking about the same. What do you think?” Alan’s parents replied affirmatively, “Yeah, we have been thinking about it. It would be a good start at being independent, for both of you”. Luckily, they got the same room to share. As their final university exams were about to begin, Alan applied to an eminent foreign university to do research study in his subject. Alan’s family was extremely excited at Alan’s bright prospects. George was also joyful at his beloved friend’s academic career. “I know you will be surely selected Alan, simply because you deserve it”, said George. “Still George, I am a little bit tensed. I can’t help it”, said Alan. However, George assured Alan. Soon the term end exams started and got over in a month. Alan, as usual, was awaiting good results. George was also confident in finishing his university terms with excellence along with a good performance in sports (DeSCIOLI & KURzBAN, 2012). The two families even flew off to the Bahamas for a short rejuvenating trip. After their return, the results were declared. As usual, Alan ranked among the top ten best students of the class and George obtained fair marks. George was declared as the most decorated player of the outgoing university ice hockey team. Everything was moving in the right direction. The future was looking astoundingly bright sans one point. Months went by but there was no news about Alan’s approval or rejection from the research university. Feeling disappointed and embittered, Alan contacted the university office and enquired about his application. “Hello, I am Alan. I called to enquire about my application status.” The person replied from the other end, “I am looking at your application Mr. Alan. It clearly says that you have withdrawn your application papers with reason unspecified. You have sent a mail stating this, to the university as well. I think you had forgotten to recall it.”  This news stunned him and his family (Workum et al., 2013). Unexpectedly, Alan’s offer was rejected and the reason for his rejection was not his incapability to meet the standards of the university, but it was rather his own desire to do so.

The Shocking Revelation

The withdrawal mail was then forwarded to Alan. The university officials were equally disappointed to let go of such an academically spirited student, as they believed Alan to have brightened the name of the already famed university. Unbelievably, Alan saw the dubious mail, sent from his mailbox, requesting the university to discard his application. Alan’s parents were very disheartened and they kept on asking Alan if he had known this, previously. George’s family was too surprised to hear this and they did not know what to make of this situation. However, George was nowhere to be seen. Alan wondered, “Where did George go at this time unexpectedly?” Apparently, Alan had been at a cousin’s place in another town and was about to come back in a month. Alan was downhearted that George was not by his side at his most unfortunate moment. He wanted his consolation and support. While Alan’s parents sensing some foul play, contacted the cyber crime department and informed them about their predicament (Saini, Rao & Panda, 2012). After much investigation, the most startling news was revealed to all. The withdrawal email had been sent but Alan was not the sender. The actual sender had hacked the system of Alan to send the fabricated mail. Moreover, the sender was someone very special to Alan, someone who knew him by heart and had taken that advantage to belittle him. The sender was no one, but his most endearing friend, George. The brilliance, panache and academic distinction of Alan had blinded him with envy and spite. Still, no one could believe that George could even think of resorting to such underhandedness to pacify his concealed grudge. Nevertheless, it happened and it ruined the strong bond of friendship between Alan and George. The trust, honor and reliance can never be revived again Alan wept inconsolably and asked his mother “How could George, of all, do this to me Mom? He was my best friend after all!” To which Alan’s mother had no answer to pacify his son. She was helpless. The vengeful action committed by George draws our attention to the fact that even true friendship can also suffer a painful death and come to an end. It is very easy to break off a friendship; however, the same thing takes months or even years to form.

References

Derlega, V. J. (Ed.). (2013). Communication, intimacy, and close relationships. Elsevier.

DeSCIOLI, P. E. T. E. R., & KURzBAN, R. O. B. E. R. T. (2012). The company you keep: Friendship decisions from a functional perspective. Social judgment and decision making, 209-225.

Deutz, M. H., Lansu, T. A., & Cillessen, A. H. (2015). Children's observed interactions with best friends: Associations with friendship jealousy and satisfaction. Social Development, 24(1), 39-56.

Erwin, P. (2013). Friendship in childhood and adolescence. Routledge.

Hammarén, N., & Johansson, T. (2014). Homosociality: In between power and intimacy. Sage Open, 4(1), 2158244013518057.

Rawlins, W. (2017). Friendship matters. Routledge.

Saini, H., Rao, Y. S., & Panda, T. C. (2012). Cyber-crimes and their impacts: A review. International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications, 2(2), 202-9.

Van der Graaff, J., Branje, S., De Wied, M., Hawk, S., Van Lier, P., & Meeus, W. (2014). Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: Gender differences in developmental changes. Developmental psychology, 50(3), 881.

Wang, Q., & Chung, Y. W. (Eds.). (2013). Encyclopedia of tribology (pp. 1926-1934). New York: Springer.

Workum, N., Scholte, R. H., Cillessen, A. H., Lodder, G., & Giletta, M. (2013). Selection, deselection, and socialization processes of happiness in adolescent friendship networks. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 23(3), 563-573.