Footprints

O liver   “Attention; Air India Flight 479 to London will begin boarding shortly. Passengers are advised to have your boarding pass and identification ready. The inconvenience is deeply regretted.”  Oliver gritted his teeth. That was the fourth time the exact same announcement was being made at the F2 boarding gate within the last hour. His patience was wearing thin. He’d never been late for a flight before, but this morning was different – he’d been feeling weird. His alarm didn’t go off, his coffee pot broke, his watch stopped working and his 4K Nike running shoes split from its quarter to the vamp! He wasn’t one of those who believed in the signs, but it was certainly too much of a coincidence – and he knew better than to ignore it.  His phone rang and he picked up immediately, “Ma?”  “ Beta ?” his mother’s voice was calming. “ Kahan pohunche ?” (transl.: “Son, where have you reached” in Hindi)  “Reached the airport over an hour ago Ma,” he said,...

  T erms and Conditions Apply   The phone was ringing.  The shrill sound echoed throughout the ground floor. It had an eerie ring to it. Mostly because the flooring was entirely made of white marble tiles but also because, we weren’t expecting calls anymore. We heard Appa pickup. I nudged my brother and he nodded reassuringly. He was never the first-one-to-freak-out types anyway. “No Ma’am, none of us have left the house,” Appa could be heard . “We thought it was better to stay inside rather than go outside and get infected or infect others,” Appa sounded calm. Then, some moments of silence, followed by, “Oh, yes please I’d like to have a copy, just in case.” The suspense was killing me; I put down my phone on the kitchen counter and walked, more like  nearly skipped to Appa ’s room. Amma and Abu followed suit. When I entered his room, Appa seemed relieved. I raised my eyebrows at him. “What?” Appa asked. “And?” prodded Abu. “Results will be mailed.” ...

   Incubation  I had put it there.  Appa ’s frown between his eyes disappeared. “So?” I blinked twice. “So? That Aunty was the one who gave me that envelope. She’s the one who tested positive right?” Appa shook his head. “No, no. She’s not the Panchayat member I was talking about.” “What?” My voice was unbelievably calm. “Yeah. This one is someone else.” Appa said dismissively. “But she must’ve given it to this lady and she’d given it to me na !” I wondered out loud. “The local health official had called me yesterday and had described everything,” he said affirmatively. “The one who tests positive is the primary case. Everyone who comes into direct contact – as in within less than 6 feet distance or remained in close proximity for more than 10minutes to her becomes secondary.” He pointed a pen at me. “So YOU become tertiary, while I am mostly a secondary case.” Oh. I didn’t know how to respond to the lengthy truth Appa had just told me. “Do yo...

  The Envelope    “Hey Dad,” I barged into my father’s office room, all excited about the big sale that was happening on Amazon. “Have you seen these bass buds? They look so…” my voice trailed off. Appa , leaning on his reclining chair, looked up at my face when I entered his quiet work-from-home corner. There’s something in his eyes that is amiss , I thought as I stopped mid-sentence and stared at my parent. “Objection Your Honor, there is something wrong with the defendant.” I said. “What makes you say that?” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, for one, you’re not irritated by me barging in on you while you’re working,” I smiled, “and that doesn’t happen too often, you know.” “Objection over-ruled,” he smirked. I narrowed my eyes. He straightened himself and I braced myself. ‘Oh, I have a bad feeling about this,’ my heart said. ‘Shut it!’ my head hissed. “It turns out,” he began, “that one of our church members who was present at a meeting last week has tes...