[WP] He ran away from home as a child. Years after the event his former family stumbles upon him in distant lands, and they don't recognize him, but he does.
Life operated with a sense of poetry. Mayank sat at his desk and looked out at the family on the bench between the two holding cells. They looked older than their true ages by decades, and his mother was missing a shoe, revealing the hole in her sock.
They were a matching trio, fluent in the language of addiction and self-neglect. Mayank and his little brother were often mistaken for twins when they were children. Both had possessed an uncommon shade of blue eyes, two little cherubs often left to their own devices.
There was no doubt of such a confusion now. While Mayank's eyes were still clear, his younger brother's had gone watery and red.
His father called out to a passing constable and muttered a few words. Perhaps he was offering a bribe from his already light wallet, or simply pleading to be let go, just this once. It was a familiar habit for him.
Mayank rang the bell to call one of the constables into his office.
"Call those three in," he said, pointing towards his family.
They shuffled in, their heads bowed, standing near the door as if ready to bolt at any second.
"You can sit," he said. His father smiled his wide, toothy smile.
"Sir is so kind," his father said, sliding into one of the chairs.
"I hear you were caught with several kilograms of ganja?" Mayank asked, looking over the FIR the constable had written.
"It was just a mix-up," his mother said, her hands firmly placed in her lap and a smile plastered onto her face. "We must have gotten the wrong suitcase at the airport."
His parents weren't rich enough to travel by air, and Mayank hid his wry smile behind the FIR file. His brother was silent, the kind of silent that people were when they weren't in complete control of their faculties.
Mayank wondered when his parents brought his brother into the fold of their special shared activity.
Too soon, Mayank thought.
"Your ID?" Mayank asked, and his father handed over his driving license. A miracle it hadn't been suspended yet.
"You're a far way from home," Mayank commented, taking a photo of the ID.
"A family trip, sir," his mother lied.
The little mountain town where he was posted was not a popular spot for hiking. Any possible scenic views of the mountains were hidden by the mist that was always hanging around, and the locals were prickly, inhospitable folks. The only thing they had to offer were the drugs, cheap and accessible at every street corner.
It was on a family trip that Mayank had gotten away from them. He'd run away into the the cruel world, from his crueler family. Looking at the three of them, he was glad he had.
Mayank rang the bell on his desk again, and a constable walked in.
"This lovely family came here for a vacation, Constable Negi," Mayank said. "Show them hospitality in one of our holding cells. We'll process their case and send them to the district court in the morning."
The three of them filled the two holding cells, and Mayank left for the night. The home he created for himself was complete, the exact opposite of the one he left behind.
In the morning, he returned to a police station of chaos. The doors to the holding cells were open, and the constables avoided his gaze as he walked in.
"Sir..." Negi began. "We went for dinner, and Mallik, that idiot, fell asleep while we were gone... By the time we came back, they were gone."
"They ran away?" Mayank asked.
