Raymond stared in her direction for quite
some time but then again started
arranging his papers. He could still smell
her presence. No, it wasn't perfume, but
something soft like baby powder.
Something about her oddly intrigued him.
A bit of coffee had spilled on his hands
and had scalded him a bit, but he didn't
even realize that until she was gone. His
jacket had taken all the hit. It was only
after a few minutes that he realized and
took the jacket off and put it in his
suitcase.
Damn, these papers are gone, ne
muttered to himself upon seeing the big
brown blotch marks all over.
Anyway as his contract had already gone
for a toss, so he didn't care much. He
dumped the whole stack of paper into the
nearest dustbin without even blinking
twice. That's how Raymond worked. No
second approaches, no second chances,
and no second thoughts. He was a man
who was always singular in his thoughts
and his focus was like a directed laser
beam.
He was a self-made man and an
entrepreneur who had been academically
brilliant throughout his life. The sort of
guy which every girl dreamt of.
Passionate, athletic, and charismatic, all
at once.
From his gait itself, one could tell that he
worked out. He was blessed with a
well-built body, and he chiselled it by
working out. His demeanour and style
always oozed confidence. But today he
seemed a bit lost. His spirits seemed
dampened.
He started walking towards the nearest
information panel to check his gate
number but as he reached there his eyes
were fixed on his Airline, and he read
China Southern Airlines
Flight to JFK - Delayed. New Boarding
Time- 03:30
"You got to be kidding me!!" he groaned
under his breath. Now, all that he could do
was to curse his fate.
Nothing was working for him today. It
seemed to him that lady luck had
permanently taken offence from him. So
he decided to get back to the resting area
and do some productive thinking.
Unknowingly like a response to stimuli he
turned around, his eyes searching for his
coffee assassin. But he got nothing, so he
walked ahead, and upon reaching the
resting area, he took his laptop out and
started charting out a new design model.
He decided to give his existing game
some twist by creating new avatars and
levels. He started drafting his ideas to
capture a whole new demographic. He
was super swift and creative with his work
and within eighty minutes a new agenda
was ready. Running his fingers on the
keyboard, he immediately emailed it to his
folks in New York and started scheduling
meetings for next week, to discuss further
with the design and graphics board.
He knew the new plan schedule was tight,
but there was no other way around. He
had to prove his mettle in the world where
there were people ready to pull him down,
the moment they could.
Raymond knew the meaning of pushing
off the contract signing date. He knew it
was not going to happen, not when he
knew who was behind all this scheming.
He knew why someone didn't want him to
win. But he was not going to let them get
what they wanted. He knew he had to
perform better and take aggressive
measures to get a financial backup. He
was not going to let some third party
extinguish the fire of creativity in him. He
knew he needed a plan B and his new
project was exactly what he needed.
Now that Raymond had some time left
before boarding his flight, he decided to
get back to Starbucks to have another
cup of coffee for the previous one's fate
was a downhill. Standing in the queue
when he casually looked towards his left,
he saw the same distressed girl coming
out of the washroom.
She looked a bit composed than before
but her eyes were stark red. Looking at
the way she was nervously tugging at her
bag it looked like something terrible had
happened to her. She went near the
information panel and his eyes followed
her as she started looking at the screen.
She was staring at it non-stop, totally
unfazed and unaware of what was
happening around her.
"Your order please."
"SIR, your order please," the Starbucks
person asked him twice to get his
attention which was clearly focussed
somewhere else.
Raymond was startled at first, and then
he shook his head.
"I am sorry. I just spaced out".
"What's wrong with me?" he muttered
under his breath.
Triple, Venti, Soy, No Foam Latte",
Raymond said and took out his card to
Swipe. He picked up some extra pieces of
tissues with him, and why? Even he didn't
know.
Holding his coffee he turned to see if she
was still there near the information panel
but to his utter dismay, there was no trace
of her.
He sighed without having any clue what
fate had in store for him. She had
definitely captured a figment of his
attention but it seemed like it was
ephemeral as she was lost now in a crowd
of millions. The probability of seeing her
again was like 0.000001 percent but
somehow his wishful thinking caught on
to that 0.000001 percent.
Without any second thoughts, he started
walking towards his gate. It was almost
his time to board .