I am someone who doesn’t like to wait. I mean I can wait if needed. But generally, I don't like to wait. It would be much better if it can be done on time. A few minutes here and it is fine. Waiting for a long time irks me. For some stuff, you need to wait. Things do take time.

I wasn’t like this. I could wait for a long time. It is the lifestyle change coupled with the extreme speeds technology gives us within our fingertips that makes me feel impatient. I still can wait for a long time. Like a said, I can. But there is a decline in the threshold.

If you look at everything like this we can blame technology for a lot of things. When we are in the mood of pining down something to support our argument, we never look at its positive side. We always tend to focus on the negative part of it. I always wonder if we are wired to be as such. To look at the dark side first and then on the bright side if needed.

What I am trying to say is this waiting can get to me. I need to keep myself engaged for the major part of it. Maybe today I can get away with doing anything. Maybe I can do it for a couple of days. After that, I will get bored. I will want to kill time doing something. I would have been hooked to my mobile if the networks were up as I would have access to the internet. Time would have easily gone by. Get into youtube, pick up a couple of videos in the suggestion list and it will keep me busy. It will on most occasions lead me through a rabbit hole. I have gone through plenty of them and found something interesting. Sometimes I do like to go through it. But only sometimes. There is a high chance to get sucked into it if you have spare time and are willing to explore. It can be good when you want to skip time. It is not at all recommended if you have the stuff to do and are putting it off by watching a video.

I could use a good cup of tea now. And maybe some banana fritters. There is this small tea shop a few meters away along the road to Pongumoodu. I have seen it flock with people in the morning. I wanted to visit it once and grab something to eat. The vadas and fritters seemed alluring and delicious in the morning. I do have a vada if I am eating masala dosa or any other form of dosa in the restaurant with her. Otherwise, vadas are not a staple for breakfast. But a good banana fritter would be such a warm welcome to the day.

I come out of the shade to take a look at the shop. I can see its outline. I can’t make out what is written on the name board. The shutters are down. I look at my surroundings once again. All the shops are closed. There isn’t a building that seems to be open to function. Considering the time the great swipe took place, I will not find a single shop or building that would have been open for business. Except for the few shops at the bus stand or railway station. Or the cafeteria in a hospital. They might be open.

I take out the walkie-talkie from the bag and turn on the volume knob to the maximum. I keep it on the paved step behind me. A faint rumble comes out of it. It is consistent. I stick to the channel I have selected. I don't know if I should cycle through the channels from time to time.

I contemplate whether to broadcast another message right now on all the channels. I am thinking of staying here for half an hour. If anyone hears this, they can respond within this time period. I pick up the walkie-talkie, turn the knob all the way to the first channel, and broadcast a quick message:

If anyone is hearing this then you are not alone. I am at Ulloor junction. Please come and meet me. We can figure out a way to undo this.

I cycle through all the channels. There is a little bit of variation in my message as I progress through them. When I finish I turn it to the one I was using and keep it back on the step.

I still don't have a plan for the day. I don't know how I should be making the most of it. It seems there is so much to do. I need to explore parts of the city that I didn’t do yesterday. I won't be able to cover the whole city in a day. I need to pick up small portions of it and go through them one day at a time. I think I will take the Kowdiar area today. I can branch out from Pattom junction and explore the surrounding areas.

Apart from the exploration part, I need to figure out my supplies. I need to get access to the supermarket and other shops that will give me what I want. Genset is of importance. Then I need to find out a way to transport them. For that, I will need to bring my car. I wish I could get access to a pickup. I could stash all the stuff in it and take home.

The whole city and everything in it are for my taking. But it is not easy. It is going to be tough. I might sound all cool when I say I will get my stuff from here and there. The thing is, It ain't easy. It just sounds cool. That is the truth. Even taking another car is hard. I am not a carjacker to jack a car and take it out. I will have to find the key. Only then can I take it. The key is never going to present itself to me. If the car is parked in a house, I will have to break into the house to find it.

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Anyone reading this might have gotten bored a bit. I keep repeating the same stuff again and again. It is what is going on in my head. I am documenting it so that if someone finds it, he will have an idea of how things have been following the great swipe. There are a lot of things that race past my head. A lot of things. Among them, only the important ones hold my attention. They stay in my head for a long time cause most of them cannot be resolved or cannot be answered. So they linger on until they get closure.

I think about her. I think about what is it that has happened. Why me? I think of what needs to be done so as to bring things back to normal. Is there a normal? I think about that too. But it is depressing. I make myself believe this is a challenge of sorts I need to see through. That too over a short period. I don't want to be looking out for it for my entire life to find it at the very end of it. Cause I have a life with her. I mean I had a life. I still believe there is more to us. We had just begun. There is so much more to live for.

This might be treated as a journal. Or a personal diary. I don't know. I am just writing as I see, trying to put them all in words.

It is almost ten. I walk towards the scooter. The scorching sun makes its presence felt the moment I get out of the shade. It is hot. I sit on the scooter and wait.

I take out my mobile and unlock it. I access my gallery and scroll through the pictures taken on my camera roll. The recent pictures are mostly of us. Although I was clicking a lot of our photos on her mobile camera, whenever I didn’t have her phone and wanted to capture a moment, I would take out mine and click. There aren’t many, but they are nice. Especially at this moment.

I click on a picture. We have come for an outing in our hometown. I hugged her with my arm and hold her tight. We are making a goofy expressions. It brings about a smile on my face. We make it a point to click at least one photo of us with a goofy expression. She does it way better than I do. If she takes out her pout then it is game over for me. My imitation doesn’t even come close to the awesome pout she manages every single time. It is very much natural to her.

I scroll to the next one. We are smiling in this in the same setup. In the next one, our smile is slowly breaking into a laugh. The last one has us laughing. Our heads have bent downwards owing to the laugh. I remember the moment. The laughter turned out to be contagious. We couldn’t stop ourselves even after clicking the pic. It continued till our stomachs hurt. Only after that, we reviewed the pictures. They turned out to be sweet.

I feel the heat getting to me as I get emotional. I walk back to the shade. There has been no response on the walkie-talkie. I hear a crow cawing in the distance followed by the cries of another bird. This is followed by some loud barks from a couple of dogs. The sound seems to come from a by-lane.

I sit down on the step. I access my phone once again, get out of the gallery and access my music player. I go to the recently played list and play a song by Max Richter.

Music helps to calm me. It makes me feel better. I sometimes use music to express what I feel. Sometimes I listen to them to let go of the emotions building inside me. I have cried to the music of Interstellar by Hans Zimmer. I love his music. There is so much life and feel in it. I always have his music with me. I put the song out for Anna on one of our drives to our hometown. She instantly fell in love with it. We played it in a loop for a long time. We both get emotional about it. We capped off that journey by watching the movie together. The music gets more meaning when you listen to it in the context of the movie. It has a lot to tell.

The lush deep sounds of the violins bring in a moody atmosphere. Max Richter has the power to do so. Even when the sun is hot. So do a lot of other brilliant artists from around the world. Each has its own signature style that cannot be replaced. For me, music transports me to the feel the artist must have wanted his listener to have. From the melancholy downtempo tones of Christian Loeffler to the vibrant global hues of Yanni, everyone who makes music is doing something beautiful. Music is just incredible.

At the core of it is a simple wave that is passing through a medium. Basic physics. A simple wave. To make something so beautiful out of this basic thing is simply marvelous. A simple thing has turned into something beautifully complex. That is what this universe is all about.

We are all made of stardust. We are all made up of the same elements that can be found in the farthest reaches of this universe. The air we breathe, the water drink, the land we call our home, our earth, the food we eat, everything is just a bunch of elements that have come together to make something complex. From a different perspective, the universe lives through us. We are the universe.

Why did this universe decide to play such a cruel game with me? Why did it have to flip my world in an instant? Why particularly me? Why not anyone else? The universe lives through me and yet I can't answer these. Why is that so?

I think it is the moody fast paced raging violins that made my pulse rise. It is rising and rising. I pick up my phone from the step and pause the song. As the song comes to an abrupt end the eerie silence takes over the surroundings. I feel its dark presence. I keep the phone on the step, get up, and start walking.