I leave my friend's house and come to the road. On starting the scooter, my eyes fall on the instrument panel. The fuel indicator is blinking at the last bar. I need to refuel. There is a pump nearby. I drive towards it.

The pump is empty. Except for the bike that is parked at its rear end, it is lifeless. I park in front of one of the dispensers. I can see the digits being displayed in the panel. They must be functioning. I get out, go to the office and look around. I can’t find anyone. I decided to fill it up myself. I open the seat, take the dispenser and activate it. Petrol begins to flow. I didn’t set any limit on the panel. I didn’t know how to do this. I just took it out from the machine, heard the motor whirring, and proceeded to press the handle that dispenses the fuel after keeping it in my tank. I kept a close watch on the fuel being pumped. When it was almost full, I stopped. Since I had seen it being done, I had a vague idea of how it worked. I am glad it worked. The scooter is ready to go more than a hundred kilometers. I will be needing it. The cost had come to around four hundred rupees. I don't know if I should just keep the money on the dispenser or on the table in between them. I saw a card-swiping machine. I decided to try it out. I take it and press the green button. Instantly it displays the message: no connection. I keep it aside.

I come out of the petrol station and slow down at the exit. In the meantime, I have decided to check out her friend's home. Before I start, I pull out the walkie-talkie and check for any activity on the channels. I get no response. I switch to the main channel and send out a message: ‘If anybody is hearing this, please respond.’ Somewhere in my school days, I read there are enthusiastic ham radio operators who have their own radio equipment and carry it as a hobby. I can only hope that the message reached someone similar in the city. I now tuck it onto the side pocket of the bag. I don't know how much charge is present in it. I might have to charge it soon.

The route to her friend's home goes through medical college. I decided to go around her department and the premises once again. I start off. Within a minute I entered the medical college premises. I slow down and look out for any signs that I might have missed on my previous visits. I reach her department. Everything looks exactly how it was the first time I came in the morning. The crashed car, and bikes, all are still there in the same condition.

I take a deep breath and rev the throttle. I exit the arch and take the right turn. I see the police station. I slow down in front of it to check for any activity. There is none. I continue on the road.

Her friend's home is in Pattoor. I will be taking the road through Kumarapuram and Kannanmoola. There is a shorter route available. I decided to stick with this because it is the main road, thus the chance of seeing someone being more. The shorter one goes through a couple of residential colonies and narrow roads. I might take it while coming back. As of now, it was more sensible to stick to the main roads for travel.

The road ahead of me has a couple of cars that have crashed onto the sidewalk area. I slow down whenever I see one, take my scooter close to it, and take a peep inside. The observations I made from the first crash still hold true. There isn’t any trace of human life inside the car. Nor are there any signs of blood. The keys are in the ignition and the vehicle is locked. If the windows were open, I can try to open the lock and open the door.

A few meters away I come across a terrible crash. An Omni van has crashed onto a light post and almost uprooted it. Its front is completely gone. A bike is stranded under it. It must have been in front of it as it crashed. I stop in front of it and take a look. The front windows are open. I don't think I will be able to open the driver's door. It has been crushed from the hinge. I take a peek inside to see the same old story. I bend down and look under. The bike is completely mangled under it. Drops of petrol are leaking out from the petrol tank. This is not good. I can only pray that nothing untoward happens here now. By this, I mean the possibility of a fire. I look around for something that would help me pacify the situation. I can’t pull out the bike, nor can I push the car. If I could put some water on top of the bike and the surroundings, maybe it can prevent a fire. The sun is up and striking hard. There is a good shade where the van sits. It might help to prevent the escalation of the temperatures. I don't know if the water idea would work. I look out for a bottle of water or any other source. I wish the restaurant that is on the opposite side of the road was open. Or the bakery beside it. I would have found some water.

As I was looking around, my eyes fell on twenty-liter water can lying behind a stack of crates near the restaurant. I walk across and have a look. There is water in the can, almost a quarter of it. I feel relieved. I pick it up and hurry up to the bike. I go around pouring the water. I pour some more near the petrol tank of the bike. The water flowing out has a thin layer of fuel on top of it. In the falling sunlight, it shines like a rainbow in a flowing pattern. I acknowledge the beauty in it for a few seconds. Then I keep aside the empty can and get back on my scooter.

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When I was a kid I used to be fascinated by this occurrence. I didn’t know what caused it. Walking back from school during the rainy season, I saw this phenomenon in some of the puddles beside the road. It took me a long time to realize that it was an oil film. Taking the literal meaning of it I wondered if I could get my hands on some oil and try it out. I took some cooking oil from the kitchen and poured a tiny bit of it into a cup of water. I took it out into the sun to see if it worked. The oil formed circular patches on top of the water. It didn’t look like the oil film I had seen. I tried to bring them together. I didn’t succeed in that. But I did see some of the bigger puddles all colored up. I was happy. Although the experiment didn’t go as planned, I was happy with the little result it gave. I emptied the mug and went back inside.

As I got back on my scooter I thought of what I would be seeing along the road. Surely whatever caused all the people to disappear has created this ruckus. There is clearly a link between them. What if the accidents were created when the people in these vehicles disappeared? The thought struck my head with quite a blow. It would explain all the cases I have seen today. There are no passengers in the cars or any trace of them in the bikes or other vehicles. There is no blood or anything that shows some sort of injury. The cars that I have come across are clean from the inside. The crash that I just saw would have surely resulted in casualties. The car was old. It did not have an airbag. The windshield was cracked. The front was crushed. The driver should have sustained major injuries. Yet there are no signs of it.

Suppose this is not what happened. They were moved out of the car. I don't think the car keys would have been in the ON position in the ignition. The first response by a bystander would be to switch off the vehicle. They might even remove the keys.

I don't know how true this theory is but I feel it is the right one. I come across an autorickshaw that has toppled over onto the pavement. I stop myself in front of it and get out. Again there is no trace of anyone. A bottle of water has been crushed between the frame and the road. A bag pack lies beside the opening. It has been thrown out of the rickshaw. It probably belonged to the traveler inside it. It is a rucksack filled to the brim. I pull it aside. It is a bit heavy. I go behind the rickshaw to look at the tire marks. There is a small skidding mark in the form of an arc on the road. It looks like the auto was turning when the incident happened.

Doesn't this too add to my hypothesis? I think it does. I go back and peer inside the rickshaw. A single slipper lies on the road inside the auto. It must have belonged to the driver. I have seen plenty of them tucking one of their legs in while using the other for braking. Also, it is lying near the driver's seat. There is no way something would have flung out from the passenger's area and fallen in between the driver's seat and the frame of the rickshaw.

I walk back to my scooter. I pass by the lane that leads to a pizza joint. It reminds me of her. She is not a pizza person. She has never been a junk food person. Moving to Trivandrum has seen a slight increase in it. I am equally responsible for it. Sometimes I am in the mood to go out and grab something to eat. Sometimes it is her. Sometimes when I pick her up from college, she would express her desire to have dessert. I can never say no to desserts. So I drive to one of our favorite dessert places in the city, buy their classic chocolate cake and enjoy it wholeheartedly.

When it came to pizza, I decided to buy one when she asked me to order something of my choice. She didn’t like it. It had gone cold. I didn’t enjoy it. Also, she didn’t like the crust. It was thick. She did however say she would have enjoyed it if it had been hot and the crust much thinner. Last month after I picked her up from college, I told her we would be heading to this pizza place. She was a bit skeptical about it. I asked her to keep some faith in it. I had their pizza a couple of years ago. It did fit the kind she would enjoy. I took her to this pizza place, ordered a veg and a non-veg pizza, and waited with my fingers crossed. She took the first slice from the veg pizza. She liked it. She really did. Then she took a slice from the non-veg pizza. She liked that too. I was really happy. She liked the thin crust and was enjoying the pizza. That is all I wanted, to see her happily enjoying a pizza. We couldn’t manage to finish them - we only were able to finish half of each - so we packed the remaining and took them home. I did express my concern about the pizza not tasting great when cold or reheated. She smiled and said it wouldn’t be a problem, which meant she genuinely liked it. This was great. A couple of weeks later when she came back home, she had a pizza parcelled for us. She clearly loved it. She is the kind to have genuine love and affection for the food that has left a lasting impression on her. She also expresses her distaste for the ones that don’t make her feel good.

We decided to explore restaurants here in Trivandrum. It lead us to find an old-fashioned shop that served homely meals at great rates. We had gone for having tea and snacks. She was feeling really hungry. Luckily they were not finished with their afternoon meals. We ate the meals with fish fry. The fish fry was really delicious. I remember how we both looked at each other with happiness after finding a great place. We finished it off with a cup of tea and coffee. She prefers coffee. We ordered both to try them out. Both were great. We left there with our hearts and tummies happy. After I left for work, she took her friends along to the restaurant for lunch. It became an instant hit amongst them. I was so happy to hear that. I felt like an explorer at that moment. Exploring food is something I like to do. And to have someone who shares the same enthusiasm is a big blessing. We had charted down a couple of places to try out in the coming week. I had googled and saved them. It will have to wait.