Finding Mitty.

Chapter 15: It's Not Easy Being Green

"Hm." I croaked mindlessly as Anna laid out the detailed plan for me of how we were going to go to Bhutan. Since my passport was stolen, we couldn't go to the airport or cross the border by way of land, so Anna said she had to get creative, which was a very undermined use of the word. She had mapped out a route for us which involved taking a train to Kolkata, then take a bus from there to Gangtok, which was a little away from Darjeeling, and from there we were going to, she hoped, charter a plane which would fly at a very low altitude which would help us get into Bhutan. This was helped by the fact that the border between India and Bhutan was as protected as it was well defined, which wasn't much. All this entered my brain the second time she explained to me, because the first time I was blankly staring at the sand blowing over my feet as I sat on a wicker stool in Khuri. I don't even know what I was thinking of. I was just mindlessly staring, like an Android on standby. There was nothing to be thought that wasn't already thought a thousand times before. I knew what I had to do, I knew the two possible outcomes. I just couldn't shake off the feeling like I was jumping into an abyss with no end. No hell, no water, nothing. I just couldn't imagine it, couldn't even think it. My mind felt caged and it bothered me, it bothered me to the point that I lost all cause for function and merely stared at the sand, trying to see the Cage.

*******

The way back to Jaisalmer, Anna kept trying to make conversation, carefully picking subjects she knew I liked, and even more carefully avoiding the subjects I didn't. She tried talking to me of baseball, although she didn't know much, and then she tried to talk of comics, asking me my favourites. I promptly replied fantastic four, explaining to her how they were the subtle makers of the silver age of comics, acting as a medium to introduce the more weirder and cosmo-fantastical realm, with characters like silver surfer, galactus, the skrulls, etc. I also remarked how as infinitely expansive their universe was, their problems were as personal, being the first superhero family. They were at times so dysfunctional and easily flammable, especially Johnny, and how they all seemed to be thrown towards each other because of their abnormalities, and how through all that they learned to live with each other as a family. And just as I was getting interested again and before I got a chance to talk about why Reed was my favourite character, she changed the subject, now talking about how the yellow fields outside reminded her of a painting she made as a kid that sadly caught fire and was destroyed.

"I really loved that painting." She remarked, looking out the window, "I was so proud of it. And I wanted to show it to everyone."

"I bet they would've loved it."

"Yeah, if they'd have seen it." she said in a morbid tone which hinted something was odd. But I quickly dismissed it as I felt tired from all the jumping around of the bus and the tireless heat, making my eyes and head hurt. So I rested for a while, and almost forgot the matter. Until the next day.

*******

The following two days when I try to remember I can only remember them as 2 minutes long. This adventure had now turned into a routine, and it was the same thing over and over - sand, trains, fields of grass, me scratching my beard, Anna sitting wound up in a ball, and the train, the car, and any other mode of transportation we used shaking vigorously and making my skin tremble even in stationary conditions. We talked, but not with anything to say.

Finally we were on a charter plane, which carried no seats and mostly empty boxes that were I guessed supposed to be filled with something less than legal on the way back. The plane made a loud whirring noise and it was flying uncomfortably close to the ground, but I could feel the increase in altitude as we moved closer and closer to Paro, which was the only place in Bhutan you could land a plane. It was too early in the day for the sun to get as low as eye level, and one golden beam came in the window bull's-eye on Anna's head; it reflected off her shiny hair as her head was down, lost scribbling in her black book.