Chapter 24

November’ 2002,
Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The Juveniles were unprepared for a long day due to series of assignments in tandem. It was on their eighth day and they had already started to return to their denizen after early dusk. They fell flat in keeping track of time and the daylight as it persisted till twenty-one or twenty-two hours made it more fractious. The young men were too tired to carry themselves to the dinner and both of them had decided to flake out. Aryan heard a phone ringing, ascending in sound. He muted the phone and turned a deaf ear to the next calls.

She is her. I could talk to her at the Frühstück and I know she would understand me. I will make the odds work for her and she will endorse me. Good night dear.

The first call went unanswered and the phone began to ring for the second time but this time it was Rekha. He took no notice of the contact as he shut his eyes and ignored all calls thereafter from Rekha as well. In no time, he was lost in his subconscious, sleeping tight with the suit on him unremoved.

Early in the morning when he woke up, he was terrified to see several calls from Rekha and Vivek. They wouldn’t usually call him no more than twice unless there had to be a dire communication. It took him in a blue funk when he found out many calls were missed after mid night. He was in an intact apprehension when he tapped the call toggle on the contact. He couldn’t digress looking for answers on what might had happened while the call was being connected, he counted back from twenty till Rekha answered him. “Hello… Mama” He said in a haste. “Honey, come home, the sooner you can. Keep me posted on your layovers, will talk again” and the line went dead.

He was left in aghast and it ceased his thinking. His only train was to make it to home as fast as he can. He booked the next available flight to his hometown. He reached the airport before the scheduled time and was waiting for his flight sitting in the lounge. There were kinds of different obstreperous perceptions reeling in his mind which he couldn’t digest while he was compelled delving in them.

He had always found deficient in deciphering the drift of the uncanny that has an influence on his notions that are entangled with the events already happening with the close relations. It seemed supernatural but at the same time, he believed that it was his mind drawing conclusions by augmenting them with compelling reasons.

A couple of months ago Rekha informed Aryan about his grandpa’s health condition. Dayanand’s indisposition had gradually left him in his infirmity yet he carried himself as fit as a fiddle. He had been under medication for more than fifteen years. Aryan’s mind enforced him to dwell on the hunch that his grandpa was going to die or maybe dead by then. He pulled out all the stops to get off the tangent and kept trying to be in peace till he found out the truth.