Hi. I'm Twinkle. I'm ten years old. Apparently, my blood has decided to stop doing its job, which is rude because nobody asked it to. The doctors say I need help from someone who shares my DNA. That someone is my biological father. I don't know him. My mom doesn't either. We were doing perfectly fine without him-until we weren't.

A single train ride. A fleeting conversation. A connection that refuses to fade. In a city that never stops moving, two strangers cross paths for only a handful of minutes - an accidental encounter on a crowded train. They exchange nothing more than a few words, a borrowed smile, and a trace of unspoken understanding... yet something indescribable lingers. One builds structures meant to stand for decades. The other collects stories that survive even longer. Their worlds could not be more different. This is a story of missed chances and found courage, of strength hidden in delicate places, of how a single moment of displacement between two parallel lives can set them on a quiet path toward unexpected convergence. A gentle, heart-warming reminder that even the briefest encounters can become the geometry of destiny.

where Mitran and Surbhi meet again... and again... and again. -- | short story | -- © Suganthi Lakshminarayanan 2025