ALSphere Foundation
The white sedan lurched to a sudden stop in the middle of the road and the dead of night, its screeching tyres piercing the eerie silence like a beast howling in pain. The streets, lined with the faceless and shapeless forms of the forgotten, lay still. They rested on worn-out rags beneath the awnings of high-end boutiques, barely stirring as the sound echoed through the empty air. Sleep, their sole refuge from the harshness of the world, held them captive, and only a few stirred—reluctant to awaken from the fragile sanctuary that veiled their weary souls.
Of the few who dared to peer through hollow, vacant eyes, a ghostly scene unfolded. Whorls of cigarette smoke drifted lazily from the passenger seat window, curling and twisting into the night like tendrils of whispered secrets. A soft, almost ethereal laughter, light and tinkling, seeped into the air—perhaps from the delicate throat of a fragile woman. It stirred something deep within, a fleeting reminder of what might await in the shadows of the afterlife, should they tread the narrow path of righteousness and toil for their meagre survival.
Soft, haunting melodies drifted on the wings of the night breeze, brushing against their weary, aching bodies like whispers from a forgotten past. The tunes carried the ghost of lullabies, long buried in childhood memories, evoking a sense of distant longing. A brief clink of glasses shattered the spell, but only for a moment. Soon, the restless souls sank back into their uneasy slumber, dreaming of an elusive world where hunger, despair, and shame were but distant shadows—a realm just beyond their reach, veiled in the mist of their collective dreams.
A figure emerged from the shadows, moving slowly, almost hesitantly toward the car. Inside the sedan, the woman with the delicate laughter sat with a man beside her. The onlooker had a strange feeling that he knew her—or had known someone like her in another time, another life. The melodies, so familiar yet distant, reminded him of long evenings spent with his daughter before she left home to chase her dreams.
He approached the car, drawn to the faint music and whispers, his heart pounding with a mix of fear and strange hope. He bent low, his eyes narrowing as he squinted through the dim light cast by a flickering streetlamp. The woman’s face was partially obscured by the shadows. A strange compulsion gripped him, but he hesitated, careful not to leave a trace on the sedan’s polished surface. Instead, he waved a trembling hand, trying to catch their attention.
Suddenly, the man in the driver’s seat jolted, spilling red wine across his pristine suit. The woman’s tinkling laughter ceased abruptly, her face draining of colour as she slowly turned to gaze at the figure outside her window. In the dim light, she saw a dishevelled soul cloaked in filth, his hair wild and matted, his fingernails dark with grime, and rags barely concealing his emaciated form.
This man, once driven by hope, had spent his last coin searching for his daughter—she who had abandoned the confines of the small-town life for dreams far beyond his reach. Now, he stood there, a bedraggled phantom of a father, eyes gleaming with a strange intensity. His lips twitched as he whispered a name into the night air.
For a fleeting moment, something stirred in the woman’s eyes but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She turned to the man in the driver’s seat and murmured, “Drive.”
Without a word, the sedan pulled away, the sound of its engine swallowed by the dark.
Dr. Sonika Sethi
