OldTown-1

Miles crossed the wired fence and settled himself on a bench in an abandoned park which overlooked the graveyard. He had a soggy sandwich in one hand and soda in other. He ate while the river was gushing behind him when, he heard something strange. Someone was crying. Curiosity took over him and he set himself on the adventure to find the broken sobs. He was just outside the graveyard when a strong gush of wind struck the pavement sending shivers to an old man sitting on it. His face was wrinkled but mostly covered by his luscious brown hair, his head dropped in his trembling hands.  His eyes were hazel as he looked up but there was something else. Tears streamed down and dropped on his cheeks like a leaking tap. Miles sat across him and looked at him with pity. The old man looked up and said in a low voice, “You know, my son used to look like you”. Miles gave him a supportive smile and replied, “Thank you sir, may I ask something if it isn’t too much trouble?”, “Sure kid, go ahead.”  “Why are you here on a Sunday and why are you are crying?” The old man looked broken, it was as if his heart had been shattered to pieces, “When my son was about your age, he went on a trip to the town nearby. He never came back. It has almost been year since this and I still miss him. He was my life. The graveyard was his favourite place, because he could feel the presence of his mother here.” Miles felt guilty for asking that question so before the man broke into tears again, he asked the man to join him at the local diner. They chatted for a long time, the old man or Harold as he had introduced himself was laughing like a hyena at a joke. Miles became a good friend of Harold, and soon enough after a month or so, they started living together.

As Sarah was sipping tea at the diner, she heard someone laugh so loudly that she almost dropped her mug. As she looked around trying to find out who it was, her eyes fall on a petite girl sitting on the counter talking to a waitress. She had blonde hair and her eyes were sea blue and there was some kind of urgency on her face. Soon enough, she was approached by the same girl. “Excuse me? I am sorry to disturb you but do you know where Helmond Street is? I asked the waitress but she confused me more.” Sarah fumbled with her bag and pulled out a mini map of the town and said, “Here. I keep it for emergency reasons, and I can guide you to the street, my house is along the way”. The girl kept thanking Sarah as they walked on the snowy footpath. “I am Elizabeth but you can call me Beth, and you are?” Sarah quickly replied, “I am Sarah Smith. Gwen is really terrible with directions. So Beth, What brings you to Oldtown?” Beth answers cautiously as her arrival in this town has been quite the secrecy, “Actually, I am a senior officer in New York and I was sent her by the commissioner to work on a case with the town sheriff. Maybe you know him, Julio Jones?” Sarah was practically gagged up on hearing his name. She was very well familiar with Jones. Anger boiled inside her, but she had managed to not express it. “Here is Helmond Street and if you take a right, you could see the police station. I assume that is where you were going. ” Before Beth could thank her, Sarah started walking and soon she was far enough to be just a dot. Beth approached the police station where she saw Julio waiting outside for her, “Betty!! You are here. God I missed you.” And pulled her in for a hug. Beth quickly forgot about the quirky girl Sarah and became nostalgic about her Police Academy days with her best friend.

Caiden made his way toward Harold’s house. He saw Miles sitting in the garden writing something in his notebook and he quickly called out, “Good morning Miles! Did Mr. Jimes take his medicine along with some breakfast?” Miles had gotten used to living with Harold. It had been almost 2 months since he had moved in and now he considered him as his son or maybe a friend. According to Harold, Caiden was the caretaker and had been taking care of him since 4 years. Miles replied, “Good morning! I gave him his medicine along with some toast. Some of it is on the table, help yourself.” Caiden quickly had some buttered toast and got down to work, sweeping, cleaning the attic and cleaning out the kitchen drawers. He enjoyed working for Harold, not a lot of people know him but he knows every single person in the town. He was shocked when he didn’t know who the hippie-looking boy was and soon he knew him as well.  While he was working, the phone rang and Caiden practically jumped across the room to pick it up. “ Jimes Residence, how may I help you?”. A lady with a shrill voice spoke too loudly on the phone, “Hi! I am calling from the Oldtown Police Station to inform that Mr. Harold Jimes needs to come tomorrow to station”. Caiden was quite shocked so he asked, “May I ask why”. “There may be a lead on the missing case of his son. He just needs to come and sanction to reopen the case”. He wrote a message and stuck it on the fridge before leaving for the night and prayed for the wellness of Marcus Jimes.

It was midnight, silence filled the huge house. Miles tiptoed into the kitchen and started boiling some water. While he was waiting, he noticed the note. Quick as a cat he grabbed it and went straight for the shed in the back yard. And burned it. No one can take him back to the crappy trailer ever again. Not now when his job was almost over.

Stay tuned for part 2!!!

The First Rain

The first drop drips on a leaf
The sky and the land meet,
The smell of wet grass and mud
The beautiful growing bud,
All feels the magical
With the first rain


Hot cup of tea and a book by your side,
When the clouds fill the sky,
Drip-drip it rains,
Doesn't stop till days,
All feels the magical
With the first rain

Mother Nature

COVID-19 lockdown has been very hard for all of us. Watching and hearing about the tremendous pain that the positive patients are suffering through has definitely made me ask a question, “How would our planet react to this?” As people scrambled around gathering supplies due to the forced restrictions, the nature has started healing itself. A nationwide lockdown imposed for more than 3 weeks in India has drastically slowed down the pollution levels of many cities just within 2 or 3 days of the lockdown. Many experts believe that this intervention has helped improve the measures used to combat severe air pollution as seen in the Delhi-NCR regions during the winter months. Satellite data has shown a significant drop in particulate matter or aerosol levels amid the ongoing pandemic in India. Data available from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) indicate that this drastic decrease in pollution levels is mainly due to reduction in fossil fuel burning emissions.

In Madrid this week, Spain’s Directorate General for Traffic has registered a 14 percent drop in the rush hour traffic. Marshall Burke, a researcher at Stanford University, calculated the improvements in air quality recorded in China may have saved the lives of 4,000 children under 5 years old and 73,000 adults over 70. Even more conservative estimates would put the number of lives saved at roughly 20 times the number of deaths from the virus directly. China is drowning under medical waste produced by hospitals including face masks and single-use tissues. In the city of Wuhan, the volume of medical waste is reported to have quadrupled to more than 200 tons a day. Single-use medical items that have been in contact with infected patients must be burned to prevent further contamination that could occur during recycling.

As countries order closedown of school, shop, factories slowing down the economic activities, have driven down the Green House Emissions if only temporarily. The last time carbon emissions fell was during the economic crisis in 2008-2009. But as the economy picked up, so did demand for coal and other fossil fuels — especially in China, the world’s largest emitter. The carbon emissions in China have dropped down by 25 percent. The reductions for China, though, were short-lived. Nitrogen dioxide levels are increasing again as life slowly returns to normal for some. Reductions in nitrogen dioxide have also been noticed across Europe, but particularly northern Italy, where the lockdown began on 9 March. Venice saw the famous canals clearer than ever, with fishes being visible clearly and swans being spotted. But as soon as the environment breathes a sign of relief, massive wildfires have been sparked by lightning in Northern California leaving at least 7 people dead. Governor of California said that the crews are battling 625 fires across the state and having burned 1.2 million acres of land, these fires prove to be destructive as they have burned over 1000 homes and buildings over the last week. At the same time, the fires are also threatening some of the state’s rarest ecosystems and wildlife. Biologists are watching closely as the blazes encroach on old-growth redwood trees in Northern and Central California, where some giants are more than 1,000 years old and are known by individual names. A larger question arises whether the ecosystem will bounce back after the extreme fires which could result in a terrible change in the climatic conditions. This will also make recovering a lot more difficult. The Australia bushfires which were contained in mid-February and declared over in March, left the eucalypt forests destroyed to the ground making them too dry to absorb the following rainfall. Slowly and swiftly recovering, the bushfires had left almost one-fifth forests scorched to the land. Experts are still wondering whether and how will Australia recover its lost ecosystem.

Lebanon is facing a huge humanitarian crisis following the huge explosion on 4th August 2020 killing at least 200 people, injuring more than 6000 and leaving more than 300000 people homeless. Officials estimate that the explosion caused up to US$15 billion of damage. Damage to the port was expected to exacerbate the economic and food security situation because the port was a major entry point for aid, and Lebanon imports 80–85% of its food. According to the UN World Food Programme, even before the explosion, 50% of Lebanese people surveyed said that they were worried about not having enough to eat. Before the explosion, 75% of Lebanese people were in need of aid, 33% had lost their jobs, and 1 million people were living below the poverty line, and these numbers were considered likely to rise.COVID-19 is posing a further burden. More than 6000 cases and 78 deaths had been recorded by the health ministry as of Aug 8. There were also some concerns about the health of people due to the harmful toxins released by the explosion. Thousands of people united together carrying shovels flooded the affected areas to clear the rubble and wreckage blocking the streets.

As the global pandemic threatened the survival of us humans, we shall not be the one to threaten our nature. Letting it heal after years and years of torturing is one of things we can do for our Mother Earth.

Concrete Jungle

Running for the buck,
Betrayal follows along
On the path of the concrete jungle
You can get lost

You will the reach the heights,
Build a mansion in the sky,
Look down and you will find thousands struggling,
Waiting and waiting to stop failing,
On the path of the concrete jungle
You will get lost

A Strange Alien Story

It was a starry sky; Alex was out on her roof with her telescope. She went on looking at different stars and constellations and noting them in her shiny blue notebook. The star gazing was like an everyday activity for Alex, but today it felt different. Something wasn’t right. After almost an hour of sitting out in the cold, she retreated back to her room and went straight to bed. Around 2 am, she felt her bed shaking and thinking it was an earthquake rushed outside in the big green lawn. Her mother followed shortly after. Her mom was busy calling everyone she knew, but Alex was looking up at the sky, her face white as snow. She couldn’t believe her eyes! A huge cylindrical ship was hovering over her town. Then she had an idea, so she rushed inside her house grabbed her telescope and her notebook and went straight for the rooftop. Alex examined the ship curiously and detailed it in her blue notebook. “Grey in colour, kind of old, lot of round windows and one huge door.” You could hear firing in the distance, meaning the police and military had the intention to shoot it down. Then she noticed, a small blue figure watching her from a window. She wanted to make a sketch as it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Before she could grab her notebook or her phone, the ship vanished, disappeared into thin air. Nobody knew what it was, where it had gone and why was it here? After 6 months, this incident was merely described prank by some desperate teenagers but Alex knew that wasn’t it. Her entire blue notebook was filled with sketches of the ship and that figure. Maybe she was meant to see an alien, even though many scientists and people claim it a theory. She knew that aliens were real.

Don’t Hide

When the night falls,
Another world is awake
Haters hating away,
Crushing the confidence along the way
Don’t let it reach your mind
Stand there and don’t hide
 
Facing them is difficult,
It can wreck your brain
Don’t let them hate away
Let the love run through your veins
I am here to make you stay

The Feather

It was the beginning of the fall. Red, yellow and dry leaves on the ground. A little girl jumping around wearing an old red jumper while her mother trailed behind along with her older brother. The girl crunching the dry leaves and laughing as they crumble to pieces. The little one stopped abruptly and stared at a leaf. She thought it was magical, how soft and white it was. How happy was she, finding something new and different.  She rushed to show it to her mother and brother. Her mother politely said, “Such a beautiful leaf sweetheart. I have never seen a white leaf before…” The mother knew that it was feather but she did not want to tell her. She wanted her to find what it was on her own.   The little girl kept it in a shiny packet, and skipped ahead jumping on more dry leaves. The girl was filled with innocence and an amazing intuition of discovering new things. She was mesmerized by a mere feather claiming it a white leaf. This feather went many places but never ever left the heart of the little girl. No matter what had happened, the feather would always bring joy to the girl, just by looking at it or just rubbing it on her hand, it was her companion during hard times.

The Woman In The Blue Sari

In 2019, my entire maternal family decided to take a trip to a place that was very sacred to us. I had never been there, so I decided to go along with them. We were touring the place and visiting temples when we reached a small lake. On the side of the lake was a temple and after visiting it, we decided to sit there for a while. The entire place was so peaceful. There were not a lot of people there but you could hear this melodious voice singing songs. A woman in the blue sari was sweeping the banks of the lake across from us. She was the keeper of the lake and often used to sing Bengali songs while she was sweeping, the priest told us. Everyone was so mesmerized by her voice that we forgot that we had to leave. We stayed there for a while listening to her old Bengali songs. My mind escaped to a 3rd place for a while before I was jolted by my mother. Even though it has been almost a year since we visited the place, I still dream about her, and her beautiful voice. It was the most peaceful I had ever felt in years.

During these hard times, we all need to find some calmness and peacefulness. Let us all find our 3rd place and escape for a while, leaving all the troubles behind before reality hits us.      

Again.

It was pitch black,
It was like staring into a void made full of stars,
The trees swayed from side to side,
You could hear the train passing by
Then there was a star
Gone in a flick of a second
Was the world accepting wishes?
Or just burning down bridges?

You could hear the TV in the living room
Sound of the coffee machine
Sweeping of the broom
The day started
Forgetting the wish
Would you care about this desire?
When it was finished?

The Fault in Our Stars..

“Dude, pillows don’t break. Try something that breaks.” This is exactly what happened to me while reading one of my all time favourite books, “The Fault in Our Stars”. A beautiful, tear-shedding book written by an award winning, New York Times-bestselling author John Green.

The book starts how a 16 year old is dealing with being normal while having a life-threatening disease of cancer. Hazel’s story is completely rewritten once she meets my favourite Augustus Waters. He too had a little touch of osteosarcoma but now he was cancer free. I believe anyone who reads this book, automatically falls in love with Augustus. He is the perfect guy, who believes in loads and loads of metaphors. Hazel’s love life evolves with Augustus when he takes her to Amsterdam to meet her favourite author, Peter Van Houten who wrote “An Imperial Affliction”. This book greatly influenced Hazel’s life.  During this time, Hazel condition became worse. Her lungs began to fill with liquids again and then she was rushed to the hospital just a few months before the trip. I felt that it was the end. The way John Green had described what Hazel was feeling was probably 5% of the pain she felt. When Hazel is in the ICU, Gus had a PET Scan, and to quote him “Lit up like a Christmas tree”.  As the novel progresses, the author has given us a bit of a touch of happiness, some love and some sadness. I remember laughing aloud during the happy and funny parts but crying uncontrollably during some parts. One thing I absolutely despise about this book is that every time I read it, I cry.  A lot of people just term this book as a “rom-com” but my opinion is different. I believe that is makes us feel different emotions at the same time. The story of Gus and Hazel is not only appealing to the ones who have or had cancer but it is also about the ones who love. The first time I read this book, I became attached to Gus, to Hazel and to every other character in this book. I don’t want to spoil what happens in the end but believe me; you would need a box of tissues by your side.

The character that makes me feel the strong the most has to probably be Hazel’s mother. She encouraged her to go to a support group to make friends. If her mother hadn’t forced her to go, Hazel would have never met Gus and their story would never had happened. Also I cannot even imagine what must have been like to be in her mother’s shoes

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