From the fictional world
Sam sat there in the corner looking at his fingernails. With a shrapnel in his hand, he was digging the dirt, which only he could see, out his fingernails. He looked up for a moment, and then looked around. Nothing much had changed. It had been so long since he had locked himself up in this damp room on that fateful day that he had lost a sense of time. This was his personal man cave before that.
..cont'd.
Pia looked at the screen again and then looked down at her boarding pass. “AI-245”, she hummed, scrolling the screen flashing the flight numbers with her eyes. She was getting edgy unable to find the flight number on the list. She had long stopped relaxing in the passenger lounge. She had been standing right under the screen for last 20 minutes, every now and then darting her eyes at the Air India kiosk.
..cont'd.
Shri sits on a roadside bench looking at the traffic as it crawls by. It is the early morning, and so is way too crowded being the peak office commute time. He looks on as vehicles drag themselves along past him. Now and again, there is that one lunatic who dares to zoom through such traffic. Pedestrians walk around Shri trying to cross the road through this maniacal traffic. He sits there, staring blankly at nothing specific.
..cont'd.
Oas trotted to the window to peek outside, sliding aside the recently dusted curtains. He had dusted them just an hour back, but he still found some dust on his hands. He wiggled his hands and muttered few muffled swears towards the polluting city dwellers. He went to the wash basin, took some liquid soap from the dispenser he had just refilled and washed off the dust. As a matter of fact, the dispenser did not need a refill.
..cont'd.
“Remember that day when the Coffee House owner had thrown us out of his restaurant?” Jai stirred his coffee, and his memories. “Of course,” Jui guffawed. “Any owner would have done that. We were shooing away every customer that was walking in.” “There. That’s the laugh that was causing everyone to just freak out.” Jui raised her brows and whacked him on his shoulders. “Yes, you had made me spit the coffee out of my nose, almost.
..cont'd.
It was pitch dark across the town of Diu. The street winding down was deserted as usual. It had recently been washed off its weariness by the unseasonal rain. In a way, it was a perfect setting for one pleasant, romantic walk. A couple silhouetted against the discontinuous bouts of illumination from the lighthouse nearby. But their walk was no way romantic, may be a tad tipsy rather. Roy and Joel had been walking down the street for almost an hour.
..cont'd.
“Trust me, Sam.” “I trust you Pihu. But I can’t believe what you just said.” Sam was minutely observing the can Pihu had just handed him. “Ok. You don’t have to. What worse do you think can happen?” “We can die, of course. And are you really sold on the story that by gulping the contents of this can, I will live this day again, as many times as I want?
..cont'd.
Today’s was a typical summer morning in Tikwadi. It was a calm & pleasant dawn that the midnight breeze & the sun-beaten land had hatched together. And like every typical morning — summer, winter or of the rainy season — Paka sat expressionless at the window seat of his bus. His bus it was, as he was the lone conductor available in the village. It would not have been the case in reality though, if not for Paka.
..cont'd.
He walked back into the room, alone. He fancied such days. He was on his personal day-off when everyone else was at work. He had just finished his last chore. He did not remember the last time he had lived an afternoon so empty — empty in a good sense it was — empty because he didn’t have any items to cross off his planner. He was idle, and he was loving it.
..cont'd.