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"Hello?"
"Hey, where are you? You said you'd be here by 11:30, it's 90 minutes past midnight now!"
"I'll call you back, I just had an accident!"
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine, I'll call you back, there's a crowd gathering here! Bye!"
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Eyes swollen from too much staring at a computer screen, and stressed by the three hours of network gaming with his brother and cousin, Joji bellowed, "Yaar when is Sher going to come? He should've been here early if he wanted to join in the games. We should be leaving for home now and he's not even here yet!"
Bunny glared at him from behind a large green plastic bottle, which must have contained a beverage and must have been wrapped in a funky label when bought but was now gushing plain water down Bunny's throat, stripped out of its flashy attire. He took his time hydrating himself, held down the bottle, waited some more to gulp the water that still made a melon of his mouth, took a deep breath and said, "Let me call him, he's always bad with his forecasting, must've gotten busy with something."
It was a pleasantly breezy August night, and Bunny had come to his cousin's place to spend the night playing games on his home network, along with his younger brother Joji. Sher had called at around dinner time, and had agreed to join them for a few hours on his way back from a dinner his colleagues had invited him to. Only until last year, the Havoc City didn't even have half of the night life as it fostered now, probably the courtesy of the new outsourcing companies that had started venturing in this otherwise untapped market. Sher was a part of the operations of one such organization, and found it hard to sleep through the weekend nights due to his inverted work routine. Even harder was to find people to hang around with, on the weekends, who would stay up with him all night. He sounded fairly excited with the idea of network gaming with one of his five best friends so there was no reason he could've decided to skip the event. Bunny had successfully obtained his cell phone from the backpack he usually carried around, and was holding it to his ear now, listening to the dull tone indicating a ringing phone on the other side.
Sher answered, "Hello?"
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The only thing that keeps Satellite Town, an overgrown extension of the Havoc City downtown, from being considered a rural settlement, is a scattered and totally out of place existence of some well decorated and beautifully designed bungalows. Otherwise, the muddy and even pooled with stinking sewage remnants of the supposedly paved roads are nothing less than a punishment for the people who love their cars. Enduring this very punishment, Sher sped through the streets of a congested section of the Satellite Town. He had committed to Bunny that he'll join him for a fun night, and more than half of that night had already been spent in a scrumptious dinner and a heated table talk session with Quest, his best acquaintance and also mentor at work. The car stank, partly from the fumes rising from the streets, and partly from the after effects of a heavy meal on an over stuffed stomach. He had nearly made it out of the Drivers' Hell when his Seimens M55 handset rang the tune of the Lone Ranger indicating an incoming call from Quest. A little worried over why Quest would call him within minutes of being dropped at home, Sher answered the phone, "Hello Quest, what's up?". Quest replied, "Johny Yaar I left the print out in your car!". John Grey was Sher's pseudo name at work. He had already registered the pile of papers lying on top of the glove compartment while Quest delivered these words. "Oh yes" Sher replied, "they're here, do you need them right now? I'm already very late for a commitment that I made to a friend." "Yaar, I'm sorry to trouble you but I have to take these papers to the courier early in the morning", Quest sounded a little stressed and worried. Sher replied, "Hmmm, okay, I'm coming back, will give you a buzz when I reach your street. Bye!"
Cursing under his lips, thinking of the suffering this will cause to his already weather beaten car, Sher turned the car quickly, just from the point where the main road started, nice, smooth, and dry. It was hardly a minute's drive back to Quest's place and he was waiting outside on the road, still all dressed up down to the shoes as Sher had left him a couple of minutes ago. Sher rolled down the window, shoved the papers in Quest's hand, shook hands with him, and sped ahead, without turning the car around. There was another way out of this colony, it was the longer way, but it was comparatively cleaner, and Sher wanted to drive as quickly as he could, fearing that any moment the phone will ring and Bunny would call the gaming session off.
Within a minute or two, Sher was driving through the narrowest streets of the colony, the exit to the main road called Pandora Road.
Only about 30 meters behind where the street hit Pandora road, Sher's phone rang the trumpet version of the Lone Ranger's sound track, he slowed down a bit, without removing his foot from the accelerator, looked at the phone's display, reading 'Bunny'. Just about 5 meters short of the exit, Sher picked up the phone with his left hand, hating himself for being late, and thinking of how to convince Bunny not to call it off. He looked ahead at the exit, Pandora road was busy as usual even at this late hour of the night. Parked just outside the street on the left side was a taxi, almost in the middle of the road. The phone's ring tone now screamed at its climax. Sher held the steering wheel in his right hand and the phone in the left with its thumb on the answer key, thinking it wiser to answer the call after taking the left turn, briefly glanced towards the right at the oncoming traffic, shoved his Suzuki FX on to the main road in a wide turn to avoid the illegally parked taxi, and braked hard! Too late! A refurbished and probably smuggled 1995 Toyota Crown was already skidding towards his Suzuki. There was a screech, a bang, another bang, and a crash before that section of the Pandora road went completely quiet for a moment.
Sher noticed his phone was ringing in his hand, not sure who was calling, he answered, "Hello?"
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... to be continued!
