This is a bloody exercise. She thought to herself. To remain interested, to want something, to make sense, to live, to exist, and to just remain. The gum she was chewing, turned tasteless long ago, she couldn’t remember when, but she still kept chewing it as if it was an accomplice in her thought process. She felt the walls spread around her and growing distant with each passing second whenever she looked at them, yet strangely she did not feel enclosed within their vast expanses. On other days when the walls were encroaching into her private lives she craved for privacy and wished them away, but today even they seemed distant, almost sympathetically detached of her. 

She once read a story. It is about a man returning to his home after a tedious day at work. He starts on his bike at a steady speed and looking cautiously at the road through the tinted glass of his helmet. He does not look too keen on reaching his house, yet he does not stop driving, since he was afraid he would go crazy if he stopped driving. She wanted to remember what happened to that man after she had abandoned his story midway. She tried to find out where she has read that story and who the author was. Her memory failed her. 

She grew restless as she rummaged through her belongings to find the book, or the newspaper or the magazine, in which she read the story. The room became a mess as a result of all the scattering of objects, and her patience egged her to take a break. She went inside the kitchen and put water in a kettle on the stove. The water boiled throwing up bubbles and vapor which she inhaled as she added the tea powder to it. Her thoughts kept going to that man and she was surprised about how concerned she became at that man and his journey. What does he want, and does he get it? Will he reach his home in one piece or has he stopped midway to grab a tea and a smoke. 

In the balcony, she stood watching the empty road with the tea in her hand growing cold. She lit a cigarette and lazily exhaled the smoke, while not taking it off her lips. She looked down from where she was standing and saw a bottomless concrete construction, windows closed from humanity through dark flowery curtains, other balconies adorned with fancy undergarments and she wondered ideally if she can sneak through one of those doors just to disrupt their sense of order. The tip of the cigarette burnt itself and scarred her lip as she spat it out of her mouth condescendingly. It fell on one of her neighbor’s money plant and silently exhausted itself emitting smoke which drew lethargic straight lines in absence of breeze.

She tried to put herself in the man’s shoes and reimagined his journey towards his home. It was past midnight and the streets seem to be deserted. There was nothing in his way to break his concentration or order and there were thankfully no pillions to disrupt his silence. It was as if he was not on the road at all. He could disappear completely and no one would have noticed or missed him. Did he have a family he was looking forward to? It seemed unlikely as his unhurried manner of driving suggested. Or probably he was dreading of going back to his mundane existence. Her head started to ache a bit from all this thought but she was not going anywhere with figuring out his journey. 

She wished his drive to be longer so as to give her some time to let her into his mind. Probably, he was also willing the journey to be longer. Both of them seem to be thinking along the same lines. It could have been written by her, or it could be about her that the author was writing about. The thought comforted her for a while and jolted her immediately. The key lay in the story. She has to find it. But there isn’t any clock ticking. She has got all the time in the world. The thought unsettled her. 

It was time to write the story herself. Give the man her mind and see how he copes up with it. This could be fun. Suddenly the night seemed to have come alive. She popped in a fresh chewing gum and rested on her bed facing the ceiling fan and let her mind take over. 

The man was still driving. It rained. Nope. It didn’t make sense. She scratched that idea off her head. He got a call on his mobile. Damn. Too convenient. Who might be calling him at this hour? From what she read and remembered of him, there was no chance of any of them calling him. She discarded that idea, while he was still driving. A thought came across her mind, if he really had a place to go on that night. What if he was driving into wilderness? When will he find any human contact and will he be pleased or angry when he got one. All the questions negated themselves while his character stayed consistent. He could be crazy. She is going crazy. While they were both on the journey driving together. 

She took out her car and turned on the ignition key to bring the engine to life. She didn’t want to stay at home contemplating about the unnamed protagonist of an obscure story. She is not even sure if ever there is such a story or if she was visualizing things. What if it was some sort of hallucinatory effect of her sleep deprived brain? She could not allow that to happen. The car gathered speed and she was no longer in control of her driving. The newly laid dark black road looked sinister and silent. 

She turned her headlights off. It was an exhilarating experience. She thought of the man again. He was now driving with his headlights off. She remembered having turned a few pages to check the ending of the story. The last pages were torn off by someone seeking sadistic pleasure. She saw an electric pole with the streetlight adorning it flickering far away. She knew what happened next. In an instant it all became clear to her. She spat the tasteless gum out of her window, closed her eyes and hit the accelerator hard.