Patch of Road

By Nidal Abrar Syed

He stared through the window grill, looking at the world below him. He felt calm, mesmerized and lost. No one expected anything from him at this moment, this moment was his and only his. People did walk around him but he knew they wouldn't notice, he was above them all. The trance soon took over him, he couldn't get out of it anymore but more importantly, he didn't want to. He stared at a small patch of busy road outside but he could also see everything happening around it in a blurry haze. He saw a father holding his daughter's hand real tight before crossing the road, he saw a bus approaching from the other side. A slight rush of adrenaline filled him, but not enough to make him shift his gaze. His stare became intense on that very stationary patch of road.

"Luke", he heard a voice calling his name. A sudden flash of realization and he wasn't out there on that patch of road anymore. He was reluctantly snapped back into the college building again, behind the boundary of that window frame. "Let's go to class, it’s almost time". He turned back to have a final glance, this time his eyes went straight in search for the aftermath of the events that had just unfolded. The bus wasn't in sight anymore but the father and his daughter were. They stood at an ice cream shop, the father smiled as his daughter found all the happiness of this world in a cone of ice cream. With a sense of closure, he started walking towards class, at the same time wondering if the outcome would have been different if he had kept staring on that patch of road.

By Nidal Abrar Syed