Thursday, May 30, 2013

Disaster Strikes When you Least Expect it!

The dictionary definition of disaster is 
noun: a calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.

This is a story of a woman whose hardship may or may not have been classified as a disaster. You, the reader decide.

Let me warn you that this story begins as abruptly as it will end...

She was stranded at a cross road on a Friday evening. How she ended up there makes for another story, suffice to say that here she was. It was close to 9 PM and there was a threat of rains. She stood under the bus shelter with a number of other girls who had just finished their shift at a mall close by. She wasn't one of them but there was always safety in numbers. A couple of men were at the shelter too. All waiting for the right bus to board.

The first bus stops by and no one gets on to the bus. The same with the second and the third buses. However, by the time the fourth bus leaves the shelter the numbers dwindle to 3 women and 2 men, not including herself.  The fifth bus stops by and the numbers left at the bus shelter is now 2 women and 2 men, this time including her too.

She looks at her watch and realizes that it is just about ten past nine. That's not too late for a city that bustles with activity even at 3 am, she thinks to herself and stands closer to the other woman, trying to look more confident than she felt.  She rummages through her bag, pulls out her cell phone which only she knows has a dying battery. She pretends to look at it, all busy when suddenly...

She notices a figure walking in her direction. A smartly dressed short but well-built man in his 20s walks towards her smiling. He asks her still smiling "Does this bus go to..." followed by a common destination point. She gives him a cold glare and steps back closer to the only other woman at the bus shelter. In the five minutes that followed before the bus arrived, all the new arrival did was smile at her... with an almost psychotic demeanour. She ignored him while keeping her eye on him discreetly.

The moment the bus arrived, the "psychotic" stranger was the only one who ran and stopped the bus before getting on it.

By now, she had decided to take a bus to the same common destination point from where she could choose to get home almost definitely without much trouble or any more waiting.

She got on to the next bus that came, found herself a seat, pulled out a book and before she knew it, was lost in the book. Suddenly she jumped out of her skin because she heard a commotion... something about a lost pass. The voice was unmistakably the same. The "psychotic" young man from the bus shelter earlier. He was being asked to produce the pass or get off the bus. He tried to smile and talk his way through the situation. She felt goose bumps on her neck and decided, enough was enough! She spoke out aloud and mentioned how he had made her uncomfortable at a previous stop and she said that she could guarantee he didn't have either a pass or money for the bus.

He was promptly asked to disembark from the bus. As he got off the bus, he looked straight in to her eyes and said "I am not lying". She looked away, glancing at her watch... it was a quarter to 10 now and she really needed to get home without any more incidents. She reached the destination fifteen minutes later and as she began crossing the road, her eyes met a pair of eyes. The psychotic gleam in them were unmistakable. The world as she knew ended right there...

Like I said earlier this story begins as abruptly as it will end.

Disaster, I feel is something that happens to you when you are not looking, when you are not aware, when you are complacent, when you take things for granted, when you are so sure about your world. 


The dictionary definition of disaster is 
noun: a calamitous event, especially one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure.

This is a story of a woman whose hardship may or may not have been classified as a disaster. You, the reader decide how this story might have ended.

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