It was chilly. Far across the road, a blanket-wrapped watchman sat outside a building gate, warming himself on a small lump of burning wood. A car or two zoomed past every now and then. 23 of them had passed in the last couple of hours he recalled. 23 of them would pass every couple of seconds a few hours from now. A dog had suddenly started barking some distance away, as if trying to announce its sleeplessness to the entire world. An old man who was sleeping peacefully on a push cart by the footpath, shooed the envious dog away. He soon went back to sleep. The buildings looked like huge dark structures randomly dotted in yellow and white. Some people are still awake. He curiously wondered what was happening inside those white and yellow dots. Probably some had slept with lights on, some worked late, couples quarreled or made love; there was no way to know. He picked out another bidi from his pocket and lit it. The smoke rose in the air, and so did the warm hazy breath, till both merged in the winter air.
Jessica gazed out of her window, watching all this 7 stories below her. The coffee had done well to keep her awake, but that was hours ago. Perhaps it was something else; she didn’t know. She probably understood Antonio better now than she did seven years ago when she was in school. Her room lay beside the window sill, neat, uninhabited. The bed had starched bedsheets, as if no one had slept on them for ages; the lamp beside was dimmed adding to the silence of the room. An overturned copy of Shantaram was the only decoration on the table beside the bed. A framed photograph of a desolate beach hung on the wall above her bed. She watched as a dog, perhaps lost, perhaps just trying to fit into this world was trying to find some shelter for the night. It tried finding a place on a pile of dug up rubble by the roadside but was snarled away by another group of dogs. Animal nature. It then crossed the road, almost got itself killed under a speeding car in the process, and tried finding some peace under a push cart. The man sleeping on it shooed it away. Human nature.
The Western Express Highway lay deserted, never-ending and it had suddenly lost all its charm. Rahul could feel the vodka in his blood-one hell of a party it was. He loved the hustle bustle of day, the mad rush through overcrowded roads, the myriad noises which created some kind of a symphony. The nights turned lonely, a sudden void. He tried finding solace in the company of friends, spending the night in noisy places, subduing his senses in alcohol and waiting for the dark silence to break at dawn. It would be dawn soon he thought to himself. He barely noticed a dog crossing the road. Too late to press the brakes, he just sped past. The rearview mirror just showed dark shadows on the road under the dim street lamps. Did it manage to escape? He couldn’t tell. Maybe another soul just merged with the silent darkness.