wait

The setting sun beyond the hills had left an amber glow on the clouds. The valley below was already slowly engulfing in dark. He sat by the side of the lake. Quiet as the water, water which was dark without a sun to shine on. He had already started a small fire to keep him warm in the chilly air. This wasnt his first night in this wilderness nor it would be his last he suspected. "Go there, Go alone and wait" that was all that was written on the piece of paper he had in his hand, he would take this paper out of his pokect and reread it countless times a day. Reading it once more, the neatly folded the paper and returned it to his pocket.

"Go there , Go alone and wait", all the communication he had in past few years from them, and all he get is this piece of paper with this one line. There was no mistaking the place, and the instruction to go alone was nothing suprising, but wait for what? and wait how long? why now after all these years?

This place had significance in his life, so far away from civilization, it had taken him 2 days to hike to this lake. This wasnt the first time he had spend time here, and this wasnt his first time he was without a clue as to what to expect. But still not knowing always made him restless. Taking a pack of cigarettes out and counted how many were left, he would soon run out of his supply of cigarettes he brought with him, he decided against smoking one now.

Food was plenty in this area, fish from the lake, and small rabbits in surrounding forest were easy to catch, even fruits were easy to find, and the spring for drinking water was not far from the cave he used at nights. Lifting his bottle to his lips we gulped down the last remaining water in it. He would need to get more water before he starts his dinner. Dinner today consisted of a small rabbit and he still had a can of baked beans to force it down with. After gutting the rabit and putting in on a spot to roast he picked up his bottle, pulled his shotgun over the shoulder and head out towards the spring.

Filling up his bottle it was then that he noticed the silence around him. He has lived a lifetime in woods and if to someone living in a city the forest was quiet to him it was full of noise, insects , owls even bats , a forest was more alive at night that it was in the day time. But now he could hear nothing, not even crickets. Instinctively he crept into the shadows of the trees and tried to look in all directions at once.

There was something moving just beyond the sight deeper in the forest in front of him, he caught flickers now and then, whatever it was , it was fast, as if someone was running blindly in the dark, running without care to where it would lead just to run from whatever was behind it. A few more yards and the object step out in the clearing around the spring, in moonlight he could see that it was a man, torn clothes, messed hair, the guy hadnt shaved in ages, his features were burried behind layers of dust, just hollow eyes stared out of darkness, casting a fearful glance back at the forest the man stepped into the spring , to wade accross.

Right at that time, another shadow of a man hurled itself on the man, and the two fell crashing into the spring. And then began the strangest fight he had ever seen between two men, both went at each other tearing away, snatching, both looked same to him , torn clothes, long hair, unshaved dirty faces, but now there was a glow in each mans eye, a glow that screamed murder at the other person.

Wordlessly they kept fighting , hitting, throwing, kicking, even biting if they got the chance. intensity in each mans movement reminded him of wild animals, he continued watching from his position, waiting for an outcome. Then one man managed to throw the other in the water, it was impossible to tell which was which now, the guy who was running or the one who was pursuing. As soon as the man had thrown his opponent in water he picked up a rock and started smashing it on the head of the other. If there was more light, he even from this distance would have been able to see the color changing in the water as blood mixed into it. The man kept on smashing the rock for a while and then dropped beside the now dead body , exhausted.

Alot of time passed before the man moved again and climbed out of the spring on his side of the stream. It was then that he noticed that it was the same person who came out first in the clearing. The man sat down heavily on the bank and began to examine his wounds, some were bleeding and some were just straches. There were few teeth marks on his hands as well from where the other man had been biting him.

He still stayed in his position and observed the other man. He was still deciding if he should approach the other man when the stranger got up and started dragging himself onwards towards the lake. He started to follow him slowly not letting the other person suspect he was there. The stranger changed his direction towards where the cave lay hidden from unsuspecting eye behind bushes. Reaching the bushes he took out an envelope and held it high above his head before falling down.

Rushing towards the stranger his mind were kindled by a million question, who was the stranger, why was he here in front of this cave, and why , why did he have that envelope with that symbol, that symbol which was so much tangled with his own life, was this the person he was sent to wait for ? should have he helped the person before? but how could he have known ?
When he reached the person, he was too late, the stranger was no breathing anymore, his hand still tighly gripped the envelope , there was no mistaking about it, it was the same as he had got, the same symbol, the same texture.

He forced the envelope out of his death grip, careful as not to tear it. He huridly opened it and turn it upside down. A small piece of paper fell on his lap, picking it up he noticed it was folded neatly, he opened it and in it was written one single line

"Go there, Go alone and wait"

wormholes

so last night i decided to go home early and ended up turning the key in the front door ar 12:40am. By 1am i had changed and i decided to play that game "crackdown" i bought the previous day since i could not play it due to batteries on my controller dying out. So like i play for 20mins and then i get up and reach the bed. Somewhere in between i enter a wormhole and when i get out and sit on the bed its 3:30am, its a mystery i swear

So after a sleepless night which i only spent tossing and turning, i refused to go to office early, reached around 11:45am, and next thingy i know is that its already time for the customer meetign at 2:00 and i havent had any lunch yet.So its 4:30 now , meetings done with and i still am hungry.

Went pretty well, the meeting i mean, the customer was in a very good mood and only bashed us every second line not on every line of the presentation, i for one had a good time. The poor guy who was supstituting for the planning lead (on leave for his suicide from today), so this was his first meeting , and poor kid, he was soo tense throughout, while i was kinda relaxing and enjoying my coffee, which tasted not good though, but i needed somethingy to keep awake.
So turns out we have a follow-up meeting on monday, the fun part was , we didnt even go through the whole presentation and i didnt get to present my project plan at all. So now till monday i can rest.

I think i should aim to go home late today, then perhaps i would be back by 10pm. would suit me just fine. I think

Sleep i want

Last night i tried sleeping early at 2am, cause the cells on my wireless controler died and the new game i bought i didnt get to play. So the previous night i was traveling back to Lahore, again that 6-1/2 hour journey back which resulting in hurting my back more than it already was. Reached Lahore at 7:30am, and was in office by 10. Left office early around 8pm and was home by 9. Everyone thought i was sick to be back so early. Just told them i wanted to get some sleep.
Which brings us back to my trying to sleep early, so when powered up my 360, and started playing , the controller died on me, then is when i decided i should sleep early. so by 2:15am lights were out and i was in bed eyes closed. The thingy is, i think i have forgotten how to sleep early, kept tossing and turning all the while, and when i finally got to sleep it was around 8am, from 8 till 9 i slept peacefully, and at 9 my whole dream state was vibrated out of existance as a text with "Good Morning" in the body was received, i think i havent replied to that text yet.

So my eyes were hurting by that time, and i had a meeting at 11:30am with the customer for which i needed to be in office max by 11:00, so got there in time, went to customer, only to find out that the meeting is postponed till evening, came back to office, and 4 hours, 3 conference calls and a heavy lunch later im sitting and thinking i dont wanna work. I havent even started outlook yet to downloaded my emails, and my back has started hurting again.

There is an interesting history of my back, goes 10 years back in time. It was summer and i was off on my Fsc holidays, So there at home one night , we all cousins 3 same age, 4 around 2 to 3 years younger, we decided to play football inside the room. Like our home was one of those old homes with high ceilings (15ft) and wide walls ( 6feet thick) and huge rooms, so this room, the one named "lamba Kamra", we started playing football, and in the process i twisted my left foot anckle, so game ended after 10 mins of its start.

Next day i was in the courtyard, and there is a big Shahtoot tree in the back garden, and it was Shatoot season, and im sitting there and i decide i need to eat those shahtoots, So this tree is huge, the lowest branch starts from 14ft or 15ft and then it goes up. So in my current state with a twisted ankle is was not possible that i would be climbing the tree, so i decided to use the brain which normaly is rotting away and brought the ladder. This was a bamboo ladder, huge, longest in house 18 or so feet, so i placed it beside the tree at a nice angle and slow and steadily started moving up.

Now when only 3 more steps were left, i heard a cracking sound, and an instant later i had those 3 steps hanging in my hands and the ladder below me was there no more. And just like in cartoons , i had a split second reaction "oh O" and then i was falling, the next thingy i remember is a hard thump on my back and all wind being knocked out of mE, and for a while i could not breath. I was on the ground facing up, my hands spread on my sides. Finally i managed to turn and lift myself in Sajda postion and then i could breath. By that time Ammi had who was in Kitchen and had heard the crash came and found mE in there, called my cousins and i was carried in. I got my color back from intense white in 4 hours and i was breathing normal again and was able to walk around. The place i fell, it was soft ground from rain the previous night, and there were 3 bricks present between my chest and my open arm, if i had just fallen a few inches right, it would definately have broken somethingy. So ever since that day, my back sometimes starts acting up.

Its almost 5pm now, i still havent started anywork, the meeting has been postponed to tomorrow second half. My planning guy who was to give the presentation is going on leave tonight. His social suicide is planned for this weekend. I might be able to attend his vamila on sunday in Isb if im there. 3 More ppl from my staff would be on similar leaves in the coming few weeks.

The point being, now i think i would need to talk more on the presentation. I be sooo not looking forward to it.
I think i would go to CTC now, for a coffee, then when i return, there are 2 more conference calls to cater for, i think i will check my emails then, or not havent made up my mind yet.

weekend cometh

A long weekend is upon Pakistan, a most welcome break from the evil cluthes of work.

Home i be heading tonight.

I do hate the 6-1/2 hour bus ride to home, it totally destroys my back, those damned seats are NOT comfortable at ALL. Imagine sitting in a bus for 6-1/2, like once i thought that enough is enough, and started going on those fokker flights, would take me 2 hours, that was bliss, yet expensive , they charge a one way 4k form Lhr to Pesh. And then they stopped the fokker flights after the crash in Multan, so back to 6-1/2 hour drive. Then they started those new ATR flights, new planes, small as a fokker, maybe 2 inches longer. Ticket went up 1k. so took that once. then one day i needed to get back to lahore in a hurry, so booked a flight, this is around 6 months back, so that day their was too much rain the flight was canceled, anyway, again after a few weeks i thought why not utilize the ticket, i call em up , get a booking done, and i reach the airport , flight canceled again. 3rd time same thingy happens, 4th time after 2 months i decide to again try it out, i get the flight , get on the plane, it takes off, 15 mins to landing "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, due to heavy fog in Lahore, we would be taking this flight back to Peshawar". so i call home,Abbu: "Reached safely" ? mE: "Yup, safely back in Pesh, tell my lil bro to come pick mE up" So after 5 tried on the same ticket ive decided that that ticket is jinxed, so i will be returning it , but im too lazy for that , maybe i will give it a shot one more time.

This reminds me of another incident not so long ago with PIA, i believe it was Nov 2004, me and a couple of my colleagues had gone to Khi for work, we spent there around 2 weeks, in which our work routine was chaos, we would get up at 9 in the morning and reach the hotel back at 3 or 4 on the next morning and would again start at 9 next day, for two weeks without even weekends we worked, on a sunday we got a flight back home, it was around 6pm, that flight which reaches Lhr by 8:30. So anyway, we are waiting in the lounge and we see the Customer regional manager walking in and i say to my two other colleagues "You better pray before we board this flight, like this guy has gotten soo many bad wishes from others specialy us in the last 2 weeks and he is onwith us ". So we board the plan and im extremly exhausted and i dont wait for even the plan to taxi before i sleep, a while later the colleague sitting next to me shakes me up "listen the plane is making noises", im like "Butt sab, it just the sound engines make when they are working , now please let me sleep" , he has fear of flying so i didnt pay any attention. And then started the turbulence, we are only 30 mins after take off, and some serious shaking starts, meanwhile this guy keeps interupting me that plan is making weird noises. And then there is an annoucement "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, due to some techinical dificulties we are going to turn back and try to land in Karachi"...and i sprang up, looked at my colleague and ask him "did he just say TRY to?? as in TRY to land back??" and then the real turbulance started , anyway, after another 30 mins we safely landed back , as soon as we touched down, there came clapping from the back side of the plane. like imense intense clapping, and we were like "emotional Pakistani bhai ", later when we went to the lounge the other colleague who was sitting back told us that out of the two engines , the left one had fire and smoke coming out of it, that is why there was that clapping done when we touched ground. We left in the same plane 3 hours later.

Did i mention how umcomfy this journey i nthe bus ride is ? i did ? well it is, it is. its 4am now, around 7am i will reach my destination, so far the two aunties sitting behind me have dicussed and shared some intense 'facts' about certain fishy relationships in all of their relatives and associates with half of the bus in their 'low' voices. The writer from bold and beautiful would have been ashamed of his plays if he had been here. The guys on the seat next are marveling at the bus service and how it is catching up on the late departure and how greatly we are progressing in infrastucture, motorway should be worshiped, the hostess has made it a point of bumping into my shoulder whenever she is passing so that my half alseep mind is jerked back to reality every 5 mins,like its not my fault that i have broad shoulders is it? . Thank God there is no kid on the bus tonight who will cry the hell out all the 6 odd hours.

And i be home now, its around 8:40am, and now i am gonna hit the bed. Sweet dreams,

now

The sound of his footsteps were muffled by the sand, though the crashing of waves on the shore would have been enough to hide his labouring walk,it was gonna be miles yet before he could stop, before he can enjoy the luxury called sleep. Sleep? it was hard to imagine sleep, his last sleep was just a fading memory in his mind. a dull red glow was on everything, moonlight itself was bleeding, or perhaprs it was the gash on his forehead pouring blood across his sight, the wound on his side weas numb, this wound never truly healed, it would open at just a small tug, now how long had it been spilling he could not recall, all his thoughts were concentrated on moving on. all he his mind was working on was another step and then another.

His feet faltered, but he pulled himself together, No not yet , NOT YET, he cannot fall now, he could have failed long time ago, he should have failed all those years ago, he had lived a life which had no meaning, no meaning till now, no meaning if he failed now either. move , move his mind kept sending this command to his body, move damit move. His time was moving with him, at a pace faster than him and he knew it, it wont take long before his time will be over, he would not fail now , he just would not.

Somewhere behind him, a shot was fired, falling the impact of the bullet, his last scream was not one from that of pain, but of agony on failing now, now it was meaningless...........

monday

a glorious monday again hath come............... NOT

like being in office after one week of absence, and that too on a freaking monday to be greated by a customer meeting , waiting for you, damn it sucks to be mE right now

times funny, right now im just regretting this small meeting , when in 2 days im gonna be sitting in a steering committe meeting where the last time when we came out , the region manager turned to mE in the post meeting sitting and said " You , i want to kill"...

just last week, my short term goal was to stay awake during the training and nod on the appropriate places. the medium long goal was how what to do after the training, and the only long term goal was to get some sleep at night,

one lesson i learned from last week is that snow boarding hurts, just not the falling, but like the snow baords like heavy to drag with your feet, and going uphill while draging it , somewhere i think i dropped my foot , i later found it still attached when it became a bit warm.

So like apparently there are two stances you can take while snow boarding , Goofy and Standard, Goofy being when you have your right foot infront and standard means left. I apparrently was not doing too well with the standard stance ( brakes seemed to be failed ), so i took my friends goofy board ( like boards for both are different), so i go up, buclke myself into ti, and start goig down, half way down, my left foot decides it wants to come in front , and then the next thing i knew was that i was looking at the ceiling for some reason, they do have nice paint on it though.

8pm, what a screwup of a day, after initial meeting with customer, there was another meeting planned at 4pm with the high managment, and they buchered us out there, like i have no ducking idea what my team has been doing when i was gone the past one week, and i have noooooooooooooo hint why the heck did they change the project plan that i submitted , as in whole redesign on numbers not just dates and im there sitting defending a screwup of a plan i dont half recognize, and half the things my manager dont know or dont understand and has made commitments on them, like hellooooo please give me a call and just tell me this im gonna do, how hard is that ? youve been bugging mE on little matters throughout anyway, not like you dont know my number of anythingy

9pm, and i was looking for a nice runaway time,

Its raining outside and i can hear the drops falling, each drop falling on pavement and trees outside has a certain charm to it , i can see semi visible drops in the street light , its like as if the sound is calling out to me to be free but im stuck here.


10pm : Ok its enough for now , i be go home ,

10 Thingies i wanna do before i die

ok so this is a "tag", for the uneducated as mE, let me explain what a "tag" is.
suppossidly kids these days enjoy creating weird lists and making others fill it to their hearts desires thourgh their blogs. one such list is this, to list down 10 things i wanna do before i die,

some of you might think why 10? well the answer might be that 10 is a divine number or that when a person counts 10 thingies a few of them come true (mostly odd divided by prime into even numbers out of the 10 work ), but the right answer to the question would be .... "Cause i said so" , i obviously being the person who created the list in the first place. Hence 10 is the number we play with for now

Ok so lets begin , count down from 10 to 1 begins, im assuming its about the thingies i still wanna do, not those that i always wanted to do but did already,

10- On number 10 we have .......
time out, wait, are we supposed to introduce the contestants or not ? like do we say here is this and this and the thing then introz itself ? or we just plain right list the thing? my bet would be on listing it , cause the thingy is in actuality a non-living element aint it ?
how will somethingy which cant speak tell us about it self ? so lets just start with the top again shall we ......

10- Learn Japanese, watching anime with only subtile is good , but i wanna be able to understand em more clearly ... Some of you might think "na'ni?" , (meaning "What ?" ), well to answer those , thy should start watching anime

9- Own a bloody bugati veron, and i dont care bythat time the cars are actually flying and there are no roads to run it on, but i want one , someday

8- Make one revolutionary invention, just for the heck of it

7- To again go to Lake Upper Kachura, Skardu, Pakistan, and re-swim in it, just to be able to get over my fear of swimming in unknown depth lakes, that started from that very lake. (na'ni? , ahem , i mean, what? you never got scared of swiming in a lake whose water is unclear & depth unknown and there is just you in the freaking middle of it inside water and wondering whose bright idea was this in the first place ? )

6- Take my guitar out of its box again and finished atleast learning all the chords , damn there is alot of dust on that case

5- To be able to read my handwrittings after months of writting it and be able to know what i was writing about,

4- That ppl in whose life i was, remember me with fond memories not of hate or fear
3- Be able to say when i die that i did not compromise my integrity
2- Be able to say when i die that i have no regrets in life
1- To be on the right path before i die, offering my prayers regularly.

If i get to have the last 4 , then i have lived as one should

begining

In another news, I have atlast been able to move beyond my mental block which was prohibiting me from offering my prayers, after such a long time i have finally been able to pledge myself to return to this path, the true path

May i be granted the guidance and understanding to remain steady on this path - Ameen

flame

Flame of the lamp flickered against the strong wind, diminutive now and then stable, each passign moment, fighting to survive. The flame was life, there was no light but that of the flame, the rest was darkness. the waves rose and smashed against the shore, again rising and again breaking on rocks. The waves were wishes, reality was shore. Each tide brought a change of pattern of sands, now one then another. The pattern was attempts, meeting harsh restructuring from life.

No matter how resilient is the flame, one day the wind will win , Today is not that day, Today the flame is alight. Today there is light