Weird, isn't it?

Part four

Latika looked at the research material about Kesaribaug Haveli that was laid out in front of her, sighed, and once again tried to put them into words for the article she wanted to finish soon.

It had been a week since she got back from Kherva. She was still unnerved thinking about how her and Akash were so engrossed in the stories of the haveli, that they completely forgot about the very thing that had attracted them to it in the first place.

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In the morning when Latika had been packing her things to go back to Mumbai, Akash who was looking intensively over the boiling pot of tea had suddenly exclaimed, "Latika! You know what is the weirdest thing?!", "Uhhnn, what?" she replied, to which he cried again, "Nothing weird happened to us!! Nothing was out of ordinary!"

Latika, who also had been thinking about the same thing groaned, "Uggghh, I know! Coming here, this was what I expected. Still don't understand why I am so bummed... like I already knew it wasn't going to be some kind of preternatural experience; with stories like this, it is almost never true." 

Akash pouted, "Man, one interesting thing this place had, and even that's not true! I thought this was going to be my cool story from this place, that I could share with friends and family when I go back home, it would have made living in this tiny village a little worth it until I am transferred".

After that they spent the rest of the time talking about how they were stupid enough to actually believe in this hoax. 

With the promise of sending her copies of pictures stashed away in Senior Thakur's locker as soon as he returns, Akash dropped Latika to the train station and bid her a final good bye.

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Since then, it had been a week and Latika still had no news from Akash about the pictures. The haveli story had already lost most of its juice after Latika's unsuccessful trip, and with that her boss Yami Gupta had lost her interest in the article. She had already moved on from it, and assigned a bunch of other stories for Latika to work on, but Latika could not just give up. 

She was still waiting on the pictures, as they might put whatever little she had to say in a structured article with some sort of legitimacy and intrigue. Despite Yami's hesitation, she wanted to do an article about Kesaribaug haveli; but her current writing block made it impossible for her to put together any words.

A ping on her computer, brought Latika back from her thoughts.

It was a notification for an email, from an id that she did not recognise. This got Latika's heart racing... "Finally!! It must be from Akash. I knew he would not just abandon his promise!" 

She hurriedly clicked on it to open the mail, but as soon as the application loaded, the screen blanked and the computer died. Latika grunted in response and tried to restart it, but to no avail. She started pressing a bunch of buttons, but nothing happened and she cursed out loud, "Just my luck! This stupid device breaks down the minute I really need it!"

She restlessly called the maintenance department about the computer, saying that she needed them to fix it right away; but as fate would have it, they were clocking out, as it was nearly the end of workday for everyone, and the technician told her that they would get to it first thing in the morning.

Latika got out of her work area, trying to find someone whose computer she could use to access the email, but everyone had already started packing up. 

Her gaze ventured to Yami Gupta's cabin, where she could be seen furiously typing away, probably working on a last-minute Editorial. Latika pondered for a bit on whether she should ask Yami about borrowing her computer; but after observing her for a moment, Latika decided against it, "I better not put my hand in a lion's mouth, the email might be important but I don't want to get yelled at for no reason. I will just wait for tomorrow, no big deal..."

But it was a big deal. Latika could not understand why she cared so much. In anticipation of the morning, she didn't sleep a wink the entire night.