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unwind with - Tera Naam Japadi Phira Version I by Javed Bashir
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At first there were only voices. They rose from the darkness like arrows, piercing through the air. Faceless yet sharp. Someone called my name. Another hurled accusations. The tones kept multiplying until they became indistinguishable. A swarm of judgment.
“Sir Arya, is it true your aircrafts were found in the raids?”
“Who authorized the routes?”
“Sir, are you involved in trafficking?”
Their questions overlapped until I could not tell one voice from another. All I could hear was chaos, echoing inside my skull like an unending machines.
Then came silence, the kind that follows destruction. I woke abruptly, gasping for breath as though dragged from underwater. Sweat gathered at my temples, cold and persistent. For a moment, I did not know where I was. My heart stammered in uneven beats before it remembered its rhythm. The dim cabin light revealed familiar surroundings, polished steel, muted gold, quiet hum of engines, my private jet. The space was too still, too clean for the mess that lived in my mind.
I pressed my palm against my chest, forcing my breath to steady. The faint vibration of the aircraft grounded me, reminding me that the nightmare had not followed me here. Not entirely. I exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the thin line of condensation on the window. Beyond it clouds drifted soundlessly in pale light. I tried to convince myself they resembled peace. But they did not. They looked like distance wearing the disguise of calm.
Leaning back, I reached for my laptop. It was deliberate, mechanical, a ritual meant to distract rather than engage. Spreadsheets flickered to life, filled with numbers that once dictated empires. I stared at them until the digits began to dissolve into white blur. My focus was a forgotten companion. Even work, my last reliable refuge, refused to offer shelter today. With a quiet sigh, I minimized the document and opened another folder. One that memory had carefully tried to bury.
