Homecoming

It was a sunny day in the hills where Vidyut lived. And the rays of the Sun were peeping in frequently through the canopy which was throughout. The world below was totally different. It was full with life. Small shrubs and herbs, plants and short trees served as the carpet.

 On the slope of the hill was a step which had been cleared by Vidyut himself. It had taken him a whole week before he had a clearing big enough for a small house and hadn't slept for a few days. After he was satisfied with his work, he thought of food when only a few meals were left and decided to grow his food himself.

He had built his own kitchen garden to provide him with food and got the seeds from nearby wild vegetation. Till the first harvest was ready he survived on the wild plants.

It was June and the heat was not forgiving at all. He had to till in his kitchen garden all day to reap the fruits of harvest for himself. The plants needn't be watered because the rains were often and the soil was forever moist so irrigation was not an issue. The main problem was of the insects which pestered him. 

They used to eat and destroy the garden in waves. After trying out a few herbs he found Chrysanthemum nearby and grew it in his garden. He also marked his boundary with his pee so that a wild animal could tell that it was taken.

When the rains came, the fragrance of wet mud grew strong and that pleased Vidyut very much, giving him the satisfaction that he won't go hungry and the smell itself was very amusing. He always loved when the first drops fell. He used to go outside and dance to the beats of the rain. He occasionally used to lay in the mud and He always liked the fact that nature surrounded him, giving him a sense of safety.

His small house which he had made of the wood from the trees around was a brown colour and now covered in some places with moss. It consisted of three bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

 The first room was for the storage of produce, the second for the household consumption and the last room for him to sleep in. The kitchen had a mud oven which was lit by the dry wood he had to find once in a week. The house had two windows and they gave a beautiful view of the scenic beauty of the green cover which spread out like a warm blanket over the hill and the surrounding plains.

He had set up a sharp and ragged fence around the house to keep wandering animals away and had marked the trees to find his way back. 

The place for nature's call always changed every day and he had to be careful if there were insects nearby. The days when he went in search for wood were the most boring and tiring. He had to cut down a small tree which was about five to six feet high above him with an axe that was now blunt. 

He had found the axe lying in the mud when one day he was marking territory. The wild animals were not many and proved not to be a botheration. The cutting took half the day and by the time he was done he had to haul ass and the wood back home after selecting what he needed. 

Those were the worst days when every inch of his body screamed with pain and the next day was always a haze.

He had lost his parents when they were on vacation, mountain climbing. They were five hundred feet above the ground and climbing when the ropes gave way. They were side by side when it happened. The rope was held tightly by a hook to the mountain and held for a few hours. But when they shifted course because of a large protrusion in their way the rope became stretched on a sharp edge and held for while before it tore in half. 

It was a surprise at first because they had heard the sounds of ropes tearing but couldn't see it and so continued. After that the ropes quickly cut until they hung by the last strand. Alec's father was about to set up another hook in a small crevice when it finally tore and they fell all the way landing with an unsettling thump which made their guide shiver.

Ever since then he had been going from foster homes to schools and back. One day he decided to escape from the foster home and run away to live his own life. He was always treated as a boy who was good for nothing and given the last opinion on everything.

 Vidyut was given the broken bed to sleep on and the smallest room in which all seven children were crammed into. He was always traumatized by the nightmares which came to him every night. The nightmare of his parents falling to their deaths side by side was always the same, recurring every night, leaving him restless throughout the day. It was always the thump which awoke him sweating profusely.

He had had enough of being pushed around and treated badly. He made plans one week before the day he left and told no one about it. He had been on his best behavior for the week and did all his chores with extras, helping the mother.

 Vidyut told the foster mother that he'd go going out for a while to the library to return some books he had taken from school and that it was the last day to do so unless they wanted to pay a fine. Out of care for money she let him go and he packed his bags with goodies to last him a few days with a few bucks that he needed.

He climbed down the stairs and breathed the air of freedom. He looked left and right and ran to the nearest bus depot where he bought himself a ticket without much hassle from the counter,  to somewhere far away from this place, He was filled with joy and boarded the bus with newfound curiosity, sat in the bus and travelled for four hours.

He didn't have any plans to go to anywhere until he found the place. He stopped the bus, slung his backpack on his shoulders, walked with his head held high and never looked back. He had to let go of his past and found a new life among nature.

He found the hill on which he currently lived and fell in love with it immediately. He had wandered around till he found the perfect place to set camp and built fires at nights to make him feel safe. It was a year now he ran away and he didn't regret it any moment for everyday something new was to be discovered.

 Since then no police sirens were heard around and he was finally sure that his foster mother had given up. 

It was a beautiful life since then. No nightmares, no nothing. Only two entities lived there. One was him and one was nature.

 At times he used to look up at the clear sky and watch the stars move. It was true bliss and the night didn't feel so dangerous anymore but instead it was as if she was his mother and took care of him. His old past never bothered him and thought only of tomorrow which was always a step ahead and he wanted to catch up with it.

After toiling under the Sun for most of the day he went inside and made himself a cup of tea. He was fourteen. His body sparkled with sweat all over him and made his muscles stand out. He had broad and beefy shoulders and strong legs which he had made with time. His stomach was laid with a six pack and his face was defined, his hair hadn't been cut for a year and had grown six inches long. His eyes were chocolaty brown and his smile was worth remembering. He had scars on his body which set a reminder for him to not go on the other side of the hill where he had had dangerous encounters with death.

The warm drink slowly slid down his throat and he let out a sigh of relief. He was tired and wanted to fall down on the floor and sleep. That's when he heard a knock. “What the hell was that?!” He thought.

“Was that what I think it was?” he thought to himself and it happened again. This time he was sure that he had heard the correct sound. Vidyut slowly moved towards the wall and picked up his axe. The door was now being knocked frantically.

He held it firmly in one hand, ready to strike and with the other opened the door with a swing. He closed his and brought down axe and missed. He heard running footsteps enter his house and he quickly looked behind.

 For the first time in a year he saw a girl.

The Tiger

He used to live in his little cottage in the midst of a rainforest which was ready to burst with life when the rains came with their regal splendour as they gently spread their motherly cover over the monotonous green cover which stretched for kilometers in every direction. 

He lived in such a forest and couldn't remember where it was located. he was living devoid of any electronics in his hut and relied only on the brute strength of his body and nature's produce. He was shut off from civilization and social interaction for so long that he had forgotten his name, his identity in the ladder of society and even all his family members except his wife who was the reason he had moved to such a lifestyle and environment. His house back in civilization reminded him too much of her.

 She had died due to cancer which had consumed her from the inside and she left him alone in the world with two children. He left his children at her parents and left off to begin a  new life. It took every bit of his energy and thought to leave his children behind and begin a new chapter in his life, at times he felt that it was very selfish of him to leave his children but after a while he used to convince himself that it was better than having a lonely and slowly emotionally changing father that they were in the care of their grandparents.

 Every day in nature was full of unexpected surprises and new things to learn would emerge through the wet and ever damp soil and into his mind. He was woken by the songs of the birds and the calls of the animals in the forest and he loved every bit of it. 

Though he had forgotten his old life except his wife, he never thought of it but it always used to come back to him with certain incidents that used to occur in the wild, he used to shudder and stop like a machine that took to long to decide what it had to do.

 By living close to the nature he forgot all about the mixed emotions of anger and sadness which used to cover him like a cold blanket on a wet night. His everyday work was to brush his teeth by chewing on twigs of Acacia which was a minute's walk from his hut, bathe in the water of the running stream beside his abode and then he used to occupy himself in the work of collecting food, making cloth and other necessary tasks that had to be carried out.

 The serene beauty and sounds of nature kept him entertained in the day, but during the night he was met with cloudless skies  and spectacular sights of the milky way and the constellations that were in the sky. Tall trees, grass and plants used to surround him like cove and nourish him. He was always left stunned by the bounty that nature provided him with. he was totally dependant on nature and muscle and activities like lighting a fire and weaving clothes had to be done by hand.

 The simple sight of him would make you happy and sad at the same time because he would always smile no matter what  happened but if you looked closer you could see the wrinkles on his face which were the marks left behind the stress. His face was in the shape of an oval with lots of wrinkles on his forehead and his brow was high, his hair was a bird's nest uncut like his fingernails, he wore a torn shirt and surprisingly fine belt whose buckle was covered in dried blood after using it a few times which held up a pair of pants, they were torn at the knees and calves. 

One fine day when the sky was now golden with the sunset and he was sitting by the stream enjoying his day's work when the rain came down unexpectedly with a thunderclap so ear shattering that it nearly shook his clothes.

 The rains had finally come. He stood up and looked at the heavens which finally let go of the all the water it had accumulated during the months. The first drops fell on his face  gently but slowly quickened their pace with time and he realised that all his work was outside, so he rushed to the hut and brought all the ramshackle equipment inside which he had made with wood and vine and the dry fire wood for the fireplace inside his hut where he used to cook his meals. 

By the time he was moving all his equipment inside, it was already night and the rains wouldn't stop when he heard the rustling of leaves  ahead of him. It was his time to sleep and he had to make sure that his territory which he had marked with urine was unbreached.

 He went to investigate barefooted which invited uninvited guests like rocks and thorns, they impaled his feet but he pushed away the pain and carried on.

 wherever he stepped foot he left marks of blood which immediately dissovled in the rain water and seeped into the ground. He stopped of exhaustion after running for a while. To his right he saw a flash of bright orange and black. A tiger he thought too himself.

 He was in grave danger and ran as fast as he could to his dilapidated hut which had been reduced to that state because of the rain which seeped in through the roof and had made the mud of the hut soft. By the time he reached the door,  he was limping due to the pain by the stones and thorns in his feet which had doubled  in quantity. 

He quickly entered the hut and threw himself on the piece of furniture which served as the bed to sleep on. He rolled up into a ball with fear and kept his eyes fixed on the door, waiting for the now imminent death which seemed to be staring him in the face.

 There was an eerie silence and only the sound of the rain was continuous before the door creaked open as in a horror film and first came in the whiskers and then followed the nose. He closed his eyes so that he would be spared the bloody scenes that he thought were to come shortly. He waited impatiently for death to come and whisk him away when he felt the warm and humid breath of the Tiger.

 The Tiger approached him and the closer it got the more heavily he breathed. He now waited for the final strike to occur any moment when all he felt was a pec on his left cheek. He was shocked and surprised and when he opened his eyes the Tiger was gone. The kiss felt as if his wife had given it and tell him that she still loved him and what all he did for her. 

He was forever lost in the wonder that his wife had come to visit him.

The Parents

He was on his king sized bed when his phone rang on the side table. He woke up with a startle and jumped for his phone which rang loudly and vibrated continuously thinking that it was from his client.

 Jason ran a successful telecom company of which he was the sole founder and CEO of which meant that the chain was always ending with him and he was to be held answerable for any mistakes done by his staff. He had devoted his whole life and invested his money, time and sweat into making his child grow and the fruit was reaped quickly as his company became the largest and best telecom company in the world and he became the youngest and quickest billionaire in the world. 

This man was in his twenties and he had created a balance between his work life and personal life which is very difficult and that too at such a young age. He was in his undergarments which exposed his ripped muscles and smooth skin which slightly tanned. He had green eyes and a chiseled face with high and defined cheek bones and sharp eyebrows above which was a forehead which felt like that of a baby's. He had long hair which was neatly cut at the sides and uncut at the top which had small streaks of blonde inlaid in them. He was a tall and bulky man who stood at five six and had the body of a gorilla.

 He swiped his phone to accept the call and expected a professional voice but to his surprise it was his younger sister who was an actress in Hollywood and had twenty seven films to her name. His sister's voice which he hadn't heard for over a year now sounded unfamiliar but soothing. The talk was of their parent's fiftieth anniversary being round the corner and pleaded for his to come to celebrate and their visit would be a surprise for their parents because they had not visited their parents for over five years now and this time it was an incredible milestone, so they had to show up. their parents longed to see their children in the flesh, not on television or in long dusty photos.

 He promised her that he would be there and promised her that he would call more often from now on and they hanged up. He looked at the time on his phone and it was seven in the morning. He was late for work and so he rushed through his morning routine of brushing, bathing and wearing clothes.

 He sat at the table to eat cereal and gulped it down like a whale would if it kept its mouth open underwater and didn't bother to hail a cab as he got down the stairs. He ran to the office. When he reached he greeted by the beautiful face of his assistant who babbled about the day's schedule to Jason and the day swept by being  filled with signing deals, meeting clients, meetings with the company board, monitoring the shares and all the other stressful work in which he was eventually drowned in. 

By the time he got home, he was too tired to make himself a meal, so he skipped dinner and went to sleep. This was his continuous routine for the coming days and he completely forgot about the anniversary. One morning he got a call from his sister. Everything rushed at him and suddenly he remembered the anniversary was today! His sister had called to confirm that he was coming and he told her the truth. She was very disappointed in him and hung up.

 Almost he had the idea of cancelling all his meetings for the and take a leave and that is what he did. He quickly packed his bags and got ready to leave for silicon valley. He booked a cab and rushed to the airport. During the ride he booked the first flight he saw which departed only two hours from then. As soon as he got off the cab, he ran to the entry and made his way through security. He got his boarding passes and got out as fast as possible through the secondary security check and rushed to the gate at which he flight was to departure from. It was the last gate at the other end of the terminal and he ran as fast as a cheetah. He confirmed the gate numbers and quickly boarded the aircraft. 

He thought of surprising his family by his appearance and thought of the gift he would give to his parents on their huge milestone. He decided to give them phones and also thought of buying the cake. When the flight landed he hurried over to the nearest apple store and bought two of the most top-end phones available and he off, on his way to the Satura cakes bakery to buy a triple storied red velvet cake. He asked it to be delivered at the address he gave them within an hour.

 He caught a cab to his real home and when he reached, he could only look in nostalgia at the old house which was his home for over half his life. He walked up to the porch and felt the polished wooden handrail, the memories were knocking on his door, begging for him to let them in and he did. He was overcome by a sense of calm and love for parents after he remembered what his parents had done for him. He was eternally grateful to them as they had brought him into this world and given him a companion he had always wanted, his sister. He realized that all that his parents did was give and now it was his turn to return the favour with interest.

 He walked to the side of the house which had a small pathway leading to the backyard and that's where he saw them. His parents were sitting on wooden chairs, holding hands and their heads on each other's head. He didn't realized how much he had missed his parents and was lost staring at them. Suddenly two hands gripped him from behind and held him into a hug. 

He was almost surprised at the strength of the person and turned back to see his lovely companion smiling at him with watery eyes, she was happy that her brother had finally showed up. They both for a few minutes looked at their parents and how their mother's hair covered their father's shoulder with such an loving grace as they stared out into the beautiful sunset that followed ahead of them. 

The trees were lined in such a way that the sun seemed to be setting in between them and over the the horizon the rays of the sun reached out to them. They finally advanced to their parents and touched their shoulders, they looked back slowly to show their wrinkled faces and glowing eyes. They immediately stood up and embraced them tightly. They hugged for a long time with absolute silence except the frequent sobbing sounds that emerged from both sides.

 When they stopped, tears were flowing on both sides and their parents were very elated that their children had finally come home and they went in to celebrate.

The Girls

She was on her cycle, riding on a mountainous track from which the serene Himalayas were to be seen among her seven friends with whom she had come to India as a tourist. All the girls had landed in India at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and were collecting their luggage. All the girls got their luggage within 15 minutes of arrival and set off for their hotel where they were supposed to stay for a day

It took them an hour to reach the hotel which was only ten kilometers away. while they got there Amanda was a geologist and saw an advertisement board with a picture of the Himalayas, she was hooked. she had to go to see them, it was the longest mountain range in the world and she was fascinated by them.

She at once told her friends of the idea to go on a small detour to see the scenic beauty of the Himalayas and after much convincing they agreed to go. They stayed the night at Aerocity and set off the next day for Uttrakhand, a state located in the Northern part of India and known for the allure of the Himalayas.

The journey was very tiring but they had fun along the way listening to songs, looking at the landscape and eating a variety of dishes during stops. The roads were very curvy and the girls were feeling nausea, some of them even vomited but all was okay and they continued their journey.

They had left after having lunch at a small dhaba and reached their resort by eight o'clock. They were dead on their  feet by the time they set foot on the asphalt and were very sleepy. They paid the driver and  slouched their way to the reception to check in.

After their  business with the formalities was done, they carried themselves to their villa which had a peculiar name, 'Rajrambha' which translates as, 'Royal House'. By the time they entered they threw themselves on the beds and slept like bears. They didn't have time to admire their villa which was big as they had sweet
dreams after the long day of travelling.

After a few hours they all woke up and decided to be civilized, they freshened up and changed their clothes. Amanda slipped on the waxed surface of the villa and was startled.  For the first time one of the girls noticed the grandeur of the villa.

It was of two floors, which meant more space as contradicted to the single floored villa they thought they saw, the ground floor had a high ceiling and even if the tallest girls in the group were stacked together they would be short by a few inches. The ground floor had a king sized bed on which four girls could sleep easily and the bed was placed against a wall in the middle of the room that acted as a barrier between the living space and the bathroom. In front of the bed was a huge TV and below that there was a table on which varieties of local delicacies were kept for them to relish. There were a flight of steep stairs to the right wall of the villa. The bathroom was also significantly big and housed a basin, a huge mirror, a bucket, a shower, a  step stool, a towel hanger, brushes, toothpaste and  dental floss. The floor of the bathroom was white and to the right upper corner was a water heater which was very necessary because of the acute cold in the region. 

The stairs led to the second floor of the villa which had a very low ceiling but was very cozy and also had a king sized bed which faced a window through which there was a view of the mighty Himalayas. She immediately captured and declared the second floor hers and invited some of her friends up. 

Since it was very cold and the treacherous winds invaded by coming inside from the nooks and corners of the villa, so they called the reception and arranged three room heaters. She was very excited about tomorrow's detour for  sightseeing the Mountain range. Amanda quickly jumped back to bed and was fast asleep while the others played card games until midnight.

She woke to the sounds of the rustling of leaves of trees outside her window and checked her watch. It screamed late to her, it was four thirty in the evening already and looked outside only to be relived that she was no more in the American time zone. She checked her phone and switched time zones, she saw that it was five am. 

She ripped the sheets off the bed and almost slipped while rushing down the stairs. when she reached down, she screamed only to see the angry faces of the rest of the girls who were annoyed that she had woken them so early. Since they were already up, they decided to get ready for the day and rushed to the bathroom.

 All the girls were ready by five forty five am and headed out to the reception. They got to know that they were spot on on the time as the Himalayas looked their best during sunrise and sunset. They also got to know that they had the facility to use cycles and had twelve of them in store. The girls quickly rushed to the store and took the cycles for a ride into the sun.