Part 1 is here, 2nd part will be online subsequently. Part 3 and 4 will be published online after the actualy story is published in print

Mostaq Shakil

This part of west London is called Green Field. The naming reason is straight forward, apart from the greenish surroundings the unique shade of greens make the name rightfully justified. Those shades varies from color of leafs to the grasses. The soccer field is on the right end of this mid-size town that has a river flown by the ground. In the short summer, this area becomes gorgeous and heavenly. The flowers scoops are set like a photo finish, people from all ages, children and pets playing all around. The amateur bands coming to play in the evening, some young sailors trying to sail thru and combination of variety of human clothing where reds and yellows are the favorite and shiny, along with the green shades on bottom and sides, the powerful sunshine reflection of these color combinations make the surroundings so magical that Meer always thought this is the best place on the earth, in summer for the least.

Shayan is a working colleague and a close friend of Meer. They work at the urban planning center, a small private urban development firm owned by Mr. Ted Robin, who likes to call itself a family business. 33 year old Meer is an architect and has been with this planning center for about 7 years ad Shayan is the financial analyst, couple of years younger and has been working there for over 4 years. Meer met Shayan the day he joined and Shayan was someone who Meer clicked from the moment they met each other. Despite both of their personalities are quite opposite they got along very well. Sometime this happens in people. The most common pattern is people spend time and subsequently become good friends; they go through lot of up and down time, get tested and hang in there to keep the worth of friendship. Then there is uncommon rare pattern where two guys can become friend very quickly and yet it last for many years. Perhaps it was the personality and the way Meer and Shayan approaches to each other.

‘hey, how is the morning treating you?’ Asked Meer as Shayan passing through Meer’s office to the kitchen

‘So far so good, how was your last night?’ Shayan put up a wicked smile

‘it was interesting and exhausting, the usual’ Meer grins

‘lets go to lunch today, I wanna hear every detail of it..’

‘Yes for lunch, no for details, see you at noon’

Meer had a strange date last night with his former girlfriend who happened to be in the town. Sohana her name, the beautiful skinny, long legged girl from green field, now moved to Paris for her thirst in art. When she walks it is like a soft vibe of a quiet flown river, when she smiles, it is like glimpse of sunshine in London weather.  At the age of 24 she was dating Meer thinking that he was the love of her life. Meer was 27 at that time; his attraction to Sohana was boundless back then. Over the time, like many other early affairs, their differences became visible to ‘unbearably visible’ that both decided to move on. However, growing together at the same town, falling in love, spend much time together orienting buckets of sweet and exotic memories of that age is just too hard to move on with.  So this ‘move on’ actually never happened until Sohana moved to Paris to study art. Once in a while she gets back to town and manages to figure out a date with Meer, just one wild evening and then she goes completely silent. Meer has got use to this behavior by now and does not complain. Meer is not seeing any other girl but he feels he moved on his own. You don’t have to be with someone to move on in life.

The company won the bid of a sizable project at Dublin, Ireland. Planning a project in Dublin is somewhat different than most of the Europe. Somehow the decision making process there is extremely slow, this causing additional stretch on Meer’s planning team as last minute changes were received just yesterday. Meer was calculating on the sketch on the size of the ditch recoverable areas to expand the new ask by the Ireland office. Today, Meer was fully obsessed all morning with this change and eventually forgot to take the lunch. Usually there are coffees or other fluids during the morning but nothing came in mind. His desk phone rings

‘Hey, I skipped the lunch too, got sandwiched, got a break now?’

‘Yes I do, if I don’t, I shall probably explode in few minute’

‘Adam and few are going to play 30 minute soccer at 1:30 PM, wanna join? It will charge you up’

‘Yeah why not’ -Meer shrugged

‘Alright then, see you at the front in 30 min’

Adam and 7 other colleagues including Shayan and Meer sometimes play this 30 min futsal soccer at the small park just next to the office backyard. It was Adams original idea. Adam, who was a physical trainer in his young days, truly believes that activities at the middle of the day can charge the body and mind. He is also a true believer of British corporate culture of DD. DD stands for day light delight where it is believed that a major number of British male and female engages in physical activities after lunch at the ‘dark’ corners of their offices for ‘dark deeds’. Adam has rather no believe in Spanish Siesta. Other than this issue, he is full of life, fun guy who can single handedly organize any event from soccer to big parties.

The temperature is almost 6 degree Celsius. Most of the players wearing winter jacket now, as the warm up some will not require jackets. Meer and Shayan usually play against each other. As the game starts in this small corner of the backyard with some hard running from the opposite of four, after fifteen minutes of running, Meer started to feel sort of strange. Suddenly feeling a bit short in breath, hand shaking, head felt very light. He fumbled a bit, almost hit his leg hard on the ground without being able to control the movement of his feet. This is awkward, Meer stops the game

‘Mate, you alright?’ Adam comes forward

‘Yeah, I am fine just feeling a bit cold perhaps’

‘Why don’t you get a drink and pour some water on your face, you seem very pale. The water is on the corner, right before the bathroom’

‘I see what you mean, good idea… time out for me. Don’t wait up, I shall get back to the office directly’, Meer tries to put strength in his voice

Meer moves towards the bathroom. He almost felt carrying his leg with him rather legs carry him. He slowly inch towards the bathroom. At that point, he suddenly realized that he didn’t have any water or fluid all morning; he hardly had dinner last night and had a wild night with Sohana. As he adds up all these overlooked failure of feeding himself during the fasting hours, he lost his power to the knee, he falls on the ground. No one comes to bathroom at this time of the day, Meer can hear people, he can hear Shayan, Adam, Mitt Giselle and rest of the collogue shouting to each other for the soccer ball but he can’t hear his own voice.

‘What is happening to me’, a pondering Meer

‘Am I dying?’ Whispers

‘When death comes, it comes like a tunnel. I don’t see any tunnel, I see day lights that very powerful at one section of the horizon. Is that supposed to be the tunnel?’

‘Yes it may be coming, death it is… Isn’t it supposed to be painful? Although I don’t feel any pain; I actually feel kind of peace and happiness inside me and a sense of freedom’

‘Are you not scared to die at this young age? What would your family do without you, your beloved siblings; your beautiful sister who you think should be dating Shayan. How would your mother survive knowing someone as healthy as you can just drop die in the bathroom after playing soccer? This is silly death, soft dismissal, my friend’

‘I can’t register those now, it is not occurring to me. You are speaking the mind when it is full of life. Mind with less power of life got less thinking on what they are leaving behind.’

‘what is on your mind now?’

‘I can only think one thing at a time now. It is someone’s face I am trying to remember but the memory is not producing it. Surprisingly I am not thinking of material life that seemed so important even this morning’

‘are you thinking of Sohana, you were with her last night’

‘I should have but thought about her never occurred to me until you mentioned, I am trying to remember the face of the girl at the library who I met only several times’

‘On different note, the perception of death from the past differs hugely with actual one’

‘The death is painful for people alive not the one who goes’

‘What has made you fearless now?’

 

Part 2, July 7th post…