Where Parallels Meet

CHAPTER-1

Many years later:

In A Secret Implosion

The ground pulsated under my unsteady feet, as I stepped down. My buzzing brain seemed to leak out of my ears, from the long long journey I had taken to reach an unknown land where I spoke not the language, ate not the food, and almost knew not the faces that could ground me. All alone.

Well almost.

I walked through the railway station with my thumbs nervously fidgeting with the sling of the knapsack that weighed comfortably on my shoulders. The pleasant summerish January in the land of an evergreen sun warmed my solitary heart beat, as I wove through the crowds and entered the company hotel room with the window facing the little rosebush in the parking lot which they liked to call their garden.

It was still only three. And I was tired enough to spend the left over the day in the hotel room sleeping off the fatigue.

The ringing of my phone, for the seventh time slammed me back to wakefulness, at almost seven in the evening.

Rubbing my eyes, I squinted at the number which floated conspicuously up and down on my screen.

"Hello." I rehearsed first before speaking into the phone.

"Holy mother of chickens, you are alive." He sighed so heavily, I almost felt it through the phone. 'He', was my pen friend, who met me around nine years back, sudden like the cold that the November winds bring, and permanent, like the same November winds which stick with you, in the form of January, or March or May winds.He always stuck by, not once having met me in real life, but always there as a letter in long hand or a random text, for a decade now.

"Where in the name of crows were you? Did you lose your phone? Did you lose your brains? What the chickens Ananya?"

"Calm down-calm down" I yawned into the phone. "You were asleep?" he said positively pissed this time, while I smiled guiltily. "N-yeah..."

"For the past twenty hours?" he sounded so disappointed, I was almost sorry. Almost.

"You know what?" he sighed miserably. "You know what Ananya. ..." he said sounding eerily calm. Calm as in, before a storm.

"No, you listen here. You get up and drag yourself to Sunflower." I said, trying my best to sound serious. I mean, to him, I was ordering him to go to a cafe near his house, with me being over 2k miles away, and that's simply because he was mad at me.

"You know what, you're right; I'll do anything but be talking to you right now." He was really really mad at me. Like really mad. I apologised to god before I joked again. "Besides a cheese bread omelette might do you good?"

He hung up on me, and I brushed my hair in record time. I would've changed too, but...I'm lazy and kind of pissed at him.

Apart from the fact that I almost had to use sign language with the cabbie, and that the traffic made me want to leap out of the cab and run back home (And I was just half a wakeful hour in,) the journey from the hotel to Sunflower was pretty smooth.

I looked at the entrance carefully before finally scuttling into the quiet little cafe. The lady at the reception shot me a look, which I answered with a pleasant smile, as I strode inside, raking the dozen strong population of the cafe for that one specific mop of dark hair.

He was sitting alone scrutinising the road from the huge window pane that occasionally let in the flashing lights of the Chennai nightlife, his back towards me.

I wasn't too sure if this guy was THE guy, but no one else in the crowd was sitting alone and brooding: staring out, or paradoxically inside (his mind.)

I positioned myself right where I had the optimal view of his faint reflection on the glass pane, and I dialled his number.

The ringing of his phone snapped his attention, and he put down the coffee he had been cradling in his hand.

If only I hadn't been staring at his reflection like the total creep I am, I would've missed the shadow of a smile which passed over his face.

"Hello." He said after a dramatic sigh. "Where are you?" I asked playfully. "I'm in hell, you up for a tour?" he sounded pissed, but I knew from the reflection that he wasn't. "Well, if you could gimme one." I laughed.

"Right, what's up?" he wanted me to make the point that I had disturbed his precious quality time for. Poor thing didn't know I had just said it.

"You know I have your back don't you?" I mustered my seriousest voice and breathed out. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked me, sounding concerned all of a sudden.

"Aye, aye, nothing's wrong, just check out that girl in purple." I was looking at the girl just about to pass the window pane. "Okay-okay, looks older..." He said, getting carried away, before he went "What the holy...." his volume was subarctic. So low and so cold. Mine was the exact opposite, when I burst into hysterical laughter right behind him.

He turned back in the most shocked expression I had ever seen, almost knocking his coffee over, his eyes popping out, then he turned back towards the window. In slow motion. Almost dreamily.

"A-Ananya. Where are you?" he said in a shaky voice inside the phone, low enough so the hysterical girl behind him wouldn't hear him. But by that time, I had seated myself in the opposite chair, blocking his view of the window, so he was unsure what to look at.

"My god...." he exhaled, keeping his phone on the table, and hiding his face from view, while I still tried to swim back to air from my hysterical fit of laughter.

We didn't do anything for the next two minutes, before he went "What's the date today?" he looked positively mortified. As if he was living through a nightmare, and knew perfectly well that it was a nightmare. "Friday the thirteenth." I joked.

"And you're here? As in right here? Actually?" he asked the empty coffee cup that looked reproachfully at him. "Anna, another cheese bread omelette and two coffees please." He smiled disbelievingly at the passing waiter, maybe wordlessly asking him if he was on the same planet as ten minutes ago.

He contemplated the whole situation, without uttering a single word for the next ten minutes or so, until the same passing waiter arrived with the order.

"Ananya?" he asked me as if he wanted me to introduce myself, the universe, and the concept of space and time to him. "No wonder you love it." I said after a sip. The coffee tasted pathetic.

He fidgeted with his phone, making mine ring, and I picked it up. "Hello." He said. "See? I'm real." I hinted. Maybe it would get into his thick brain now.

He hung up, and maybe that's when he woke up from the fugue, and began once again. From the start. "...my god...why didn't you tell me? When did you come? Aiyyo paavam, Ananya I can't believe this...."

I inched towards him and laughed at his reaction. This was the one I had expected all along.

And the universe collapsed in itself, a secret implosion.

Author's Note:

Thank you, dear reader, for reading the first chapter of my book! I hope you'll vote ( by pressing the little star at the bottom) if you liked it !

good day!

:)