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Pnic

                                                                                  Panic
       The small plane touched the tarmac.So they had reached.It was windy and cold in the air.Her eyes panned the entire airport which was all concrete and because of that there was nothing idyllic about it and nor any hidden niches to be explored.Mona held her carry bags and rushed through  the transit.Everybody seemed to be bolting out.She found a strange change in the demeanour of her co-passengers.They were hurrying their kith and kin with an urgency boardering  on intolerance.Their kin who might be joining them first time got into panic.But their adaptation to the situation was astounding.They became more pushy and tried to jostle through the crowd surpassing their hosts. Mona demurred  a little but  she too was hustled into entering this mode of panic.
Outside it was all empty.Yellow taxis quietly lined up along –side. They took  the  one which they had booked inside the airport. Mona tried to get into the awe of the place but it was so empty to form any opinion.The driver was an African and very polite.He helped with the baggage and made them feel comfortable.Mona conversed softly in her native tongue in order not to sound loud or out of place.They travelled quietly for some time when suddenly the driver asked their permission to play on his music.Mona was aghast to hear Kishore kumars song.she looked at him wide eyed.He smiled mischievously and happily.He told them he knew they were Indians and loved it.Mona broke into a broad smile and felt elated to converse with one of her elk.The gloom around was dispelled. He was a refugee from Nigeria living on American doles.He talked of his mother and his siblings in a wistful manner.He looked thoughtful yet full of life.It was a happy ride which took away the drabness of the empty roads.
The stark white glaze of the blazing sun wilted away the shimmering leaves of the thin tall trees.Mona tried to walk very close to them to shield herself from getting scalded.But like the leech the sun penetrated her skin and stayed there.The road was long and the sky was open to her view-wide and seamless.The undulating grassy grounds stretched  far and wide but not a seat was found there.One lone bat and a new blue leg- pad remained stretched out there.Not a soul was to be found and the objects remained there unmoved giving rise to an eerie feeling.The houses on both sides of the road remained shut to the outside world.The open spaces in front of them were well maintained.Not a single blade of grass grew awry.Any  body could trespass.But Mona was hardly enthused to do so.This  was  where the fairy tales got evolved she thought - the spooky, silent and the mysterious ones.On rare occasions  some people appeared from the doll houses and disappeared into the  tinbox vehicles- the cigarettes dangling from their lips  and ear phones stuck into their ears.Hardly they looked around and drove leaving behind the plume of beaten air and dead silence.Mona lingered a bit to inhale some human breath.
She was getting late.The sun had started losing its sting.The whiteness of the atmosphere started looking  muddied like that dark fat rough skinned squirrel  whom she would accost on her way, slobbering over the tree.It was the Fieldings Virago lacking in  the finesse and  delicacy of the Indian squirrel.
She turned back but not without bidding silent adieu  to the thin grey female head which  remained perched in the balcony of her Repunzel house.She sat there engrossed in something before her.Mona could only see the motionless back of her scrawny chicken neck wondering whether she had not fossilzed as one of those over hanging flora  of her doll house.

    

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