Avik's Story

The city skyline was never clearer this afternoon. Blue and crisp. This part of Waterloo Bridge, where I was leaning against the railing, above the mighty Thames, was too nondescript to describe, but was said to be the best for viewing the famous London skyline. On left, palatial creamy Somerset House, now hoisting a blue yellow Ukrainian flag in solidarity of their unspeakable sufferings. A little further, still left, giant Walkie-talkie and the humongous Scalpel, picaboo-ed the great bullet Gherkin tower. Mind boggling Cheesegrater stood along with them rather arrogantly. And St. Paul's Cathedral's eternal dome graciously lurked behind them. The astonishing cathedral is synonymous to the city itself. If one looked closer and was privy to this city space, and had 6/6 sight, then one might notice the Sky Garden in Walkie Talkie too. On the right, between the distinctive curvy Boomerang or Vase and bland tall Southbank Tower, the Shard pierced the sky and forever in talks with c

I frantically searched one more time, now in pockets - both of my jacket and jeans, again through the small luggage - now literally rummaging it, and then the pockets of other spinners. I looked down to the floor and scanned the surrounding, hoping to find a piece of paper and a small white hardback, lying somewhere unruffled. I could feel an enormous hole inside, moving up, sliding down, as if it was bouncing against stomach.   I quit the line and parked the cart at a side. I called the young cab driver, in a faint hope that the folder would be still on the roof of cab or somehow, by any miracle, he kept that with him. After a few rings, he picked up. My voice shivered. “Hello. Hello brother. I am the guy you just dropped at airport.” He recognised me at once. “Yes sir. I remember. Is everything fine?” “I can’t find my passport yaar. Is it in your car?” For the next few moments, which in particular felt like millions of years, I didn’t hear his voice. All I heard was some static white

Have you ever had a moment, when all other things of yours, including the ones which remained so dormant for years, that you already have forgotten their existences, like the rise of goosebumps or burning of lobules, get so buoyant that you want to scream out your tonsils? And you wish to keep screaming and yelling and screaming until everything before you just bursts and vaporises, and then you discover that you can’t even fucking move your own fucking tongue, as if it was never there, or underneath it, there is black void, just like space! I had. The airport looked otherworldly and shiny even at midnight. The massive thick glasses put a thin barrier between two worlds. Lit and dark. The ‘left-overs’ looked through the see-through wall and waved their loved ones, the ‘goers’, who soon would be vanished beyond numerous kiosks and then beyond the horizon. And I stood against a pillar absolutely in drunken stupor. My gaze was particularly at no where, but I am certain, it covered everyth