Afloat
10/4/2026
“How could serene things be attractive in a city where everything is in a hurry?”
She had written it on the last page.
Below it, she drew a line that looked like a question mark after being dragged through water.
“Close your eyes for a while and look at this city. It won’t tell you how long you have been keeping them closed. It does not change. It only watches you change, age, disappear. And it does not care.”
She stopped.
The diary pages had loosened from the thread. She carefully gathered them, aligned their edges, and held the diary vertically above the desk. With her index finger, she tapped the bottom of the diary again and again, making the pages fall into place.
She liked doing that.
Putting things back where they belonged.
Even when they no longer belonged there.
She stood from the chair and moved to the seat beside the glass window.
Outside, people moved between buildings and lanes, appearing and disappearing like ants that had forgotten where they were going.
She looked at her watch.
6:30.
The brown leather strap had begun to tear at the edges. Tiny cracks had appeared on it, like wrinkles around an old person’s eyes.
She looked at it for a moment.
Then at herself in the glass.
She looked tired.
The people on the floor were busy leaving for breaks, returning from breaks, entering meetings, putting headphones on, taking headphones off, laughing at things she could not hear.
Total aliens.
She pushed the chair towards the table.
“Leaving?”
The girl sitting behind her asked casually.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Will you come tomorrow?”
“Yes, I will.”
The girl nodded.
She started walking.
Then stopped.
What was that question for?
Would it matter to this girl if she did not come tomorrow?
No.
Then why had the question existed at all?
She continued walking.
At the lift, she pressed the button.
A red arrow pointing down blinked.
Down.
She watched it.
“Yes,” she thought.
“Going down, day by day.”
The lift opened.
Four people were already inside.
She stepped in.
The doors closed.
It smelled of sweat and warm clothes and someone’s forgotten perfume.
A large man squeezed himself into the corner, his elbow pressing into her side. His sweaty arm brushed against her face.
She turned away, disgusted.
The lift stopped.
The doors opened.
Everyone poured out at once, like a wave escaping a broken wall.
She remained in the corner for one second longer.
An empty seashell left behind after the tide.
Then she walked out.
The street was already full.
People talking into phones.
People shouting.
People laughing loudly.
People laughing without happiness.
An entire city pretending to be alive.
A Rapido bike stopped near her.
A skinny man wearing a dirty green T-shirt and torn jeans looked at her.
“Ma’am, Rapido book kiya tha?”
“Did you book a Rapido?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
He nodded, disappointed, and looked around for the person who had actually booked him.
She moved aside.
The city swallowed him again.
Maggie stalls.
Momos kiosks.
Omelette carts.
Tea shops.
The same faces.
The same smoke.
The same evening.
The smell of agarbattis burning beside the fruit chaat stall was strangely strong. The vendor had stuck them into a cut piece of banana, as though even the banana had been given a duty to pray.
She kept walking.
Alone inside a crowd.
An auto passed so close that it almost touched her.
At the back, painted in large letters, were the words:
BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO.
She looked at it until it disappeared.
Then she held the straps of her bag tighter.
Inside, the half-filled water bottle kept giggling against something.
The wind carried dust through the street.
People ran.
Her hair caught the dust.
Her face caught the dust.
Even her glasses became cloudy.
She removed them, blew gently across the lenses, wiped them with the edge of her scarf and put them back on.
She walked.
There was a park nearby.
She had been seeing it for almost a year.
She had never entered.
Every evening, she passed its gate.
Every evening, she thought about entering.
Every evening, she kept walking.
Today she stopped.
An ice cream vendor stood at the entrance.
“Want one?”
He asked with his head, as though words were unnecessary.
She shook her head.
She entered.
The air inside was different.
Not clean.
Just quieter.
People walked along the paths.
Some sat in groups.
Some slept on the grass.
Some talked loudly about people who were not there.
The interlocking blocks on the pavement had come loose in places, rising and sinking unevenly, just like the pages of her diary.
On both sides, bricks had been arranged in rows, their edges resembling the teeth of an old saw.
Large trees stood above them.
Neem trees.
Ashoka trees.
Gulmohar.
A few orchids grew near one of the garden walls, their flowers hanging like small pieces of forgotten silk.
Dogs wandered without purpose.
A middle aged man in a white vest and loose trousers walked slowly with his hands behind his back, inspecting the park as though he owned it.
Two women in salwar suits sat on the grass sharing roasted peanuts and gossiping between mouthfuls.
A young mother kept calling her daughter back from the swings.
An old man sat beneath a tree reading a newspaper, turning each page carefully even though the wind kept trying to take it away.
A group of boys were playing cricket with a plastic bat.
Someone shouted,
“Out hai!”
Someone else immediately shouted,
“Nahi hai!”
The argument seemed more important than the game.
She walked further.
There was a concrete bench.
Its red paint had peeled away in patches.
The remaining paint looked like her old nail polish.
She stood beside it.
Removed her bag.
Placed it down.
Sat.
She sighed.
Removed her glasses and cleaned them with her pale blue scarf.
Her hands were dusty.
She looked at them.
They had become so thin.
“Eat properly,” her mother used to say.
“Eat everything healthy.”
She smiled faintly.
She leaned against the backrest.
Removed her shoes.
Her toes were red from walking.
The nails, which had been pale beneath the pressure of her shoes, slowly returned to their colour.
They looked almost happy.
Free.
She looked down at her white T-shirt.
A thin embroidered line ran across it, ending near the word:
' BLOOM '
She dusted her blue jeans.
Children were laughing somewhere nearby.
Vehicles passed beyond the park wall.
Squirrels chased each other through the trees.
A dog suddenly decided that the squirrels had lived long enough without being bothered.
It barked and chased them.
The squirrels ran up a tree.
Then sat there looking down at the dog.
The dog barked.
The squirrels seemed to laugh.
She drank some water.
Her phone was inside the bag.
She took it out.
Unlocked it.
Three thin green lines appeared across the wallpaper.
A tiny paper boat floating in a rain filled stream.
No missed calls.
No messages.
The battery had turned red.
12%.
Even the phone seemed tired.
A shabby butterfly sticker on the back of the phone had begun peeling at one corner. When she held it, the butterfly’s wing touched her fingertip.
She stared at it.
Then looked up.
At a leaf that did not seem to exist.
A couple sat some distance away.
The boy had his arm around the girl.
An uncle walked in circles while talking loudly through his headphones.
Two dogs slept under a tree.
Another one was still conducting its war against the squirrels.
Parents shouted at children.
Children shouted back.
The world continued.
She was alone.
Nobody cared where she was.
She tried to convince herself that this was beautiful.
That solitude was freedom.
That nobody needing you was another form of peace.
She almost believed it.
Then she closed her eyes before the lie could hurt her.
A breeze came.
She leaned further into the backrest.
Sweat gathered like tiny pearls above her lips and across her forehead.
She opened her eyes halfway.
Looked upward.
Leaves moved above her.
She exhaled.
Another breeze came.
The whole tree moved.
The leaves whispered against one another.
“Beautiful,” her mind whispered.
Then she saw it.
A tender leaf loosened itself from a branch.
It fell.
Not all the way.
It landed on another branch below.
She watched.
“Come down,” she thought.
Another breeze.
The leaf moved.
It fell onto the branch below.
She smiled.
“Come.”
The leaf trembled.
It seemed afraid.
“Come na.”
Another breeze.
The leaf flew again.
This time it landed on an orchid leaf across the pavement.
She leaned forward.
Her eyes widened.
The breeze was still blowing.
She waited.
The leaf did not move.
“Come.”
It trembled.
She felt something strange inside her.
As though the leaf was waiting for her.
“I’m coming to get you.”
She stood.
Crossed the pavement.
Bent near the orchid plant.
The leaf was still there.
She opened her right palm.
Slowly.
Carefully.