A Stranger’s Request

I took my seat by the window and settled in with no time. I thanked myself silently for arriving an hour earlier and hence fetching the window seat while checking in. I had more than an hour to kill before the plane landed and I started my new journey ahead. I thought of grabbing an hour’s sleep but my past relationship with sleep while travelling resurfaced. Even the comforts of the flight didn’t help and moreover my emotion turmoil wouldn’t let me have any peace of mind leave alone a nap. I thought to distract myself through music and realized I had forgotten my headphones at home. I cursed myself for this. Putting back my music player in my handbag, I pulled out my Dairy and started pouring out my heart thinking that these words might take away the pain of recent events. As the memories flashed in the words I wrote, faint smile made its way.
All this while I have taken no notice of my fellow passenger who was seated beside me and that the plane had already took off and was flying above my beloved city. I glanced out of the window and a sigh full of mixed emotions escaped.
“Are you a writer?” spoke the guy sitting next to me. For the years I have been travelling alone, I have never for once thought of killing time by striking a conversation with a stranger. With this sudden question thrown at me, I didn’t knew what to answer.
I just nodded in affirmation and got back to my diary, showing no interest whatsoever.
“Great! I love the way how people can write and make others feel with those words strung together in a sentence.”
I just smiled. I knew with this I won’t be able to continue my Diary so I put it aside and took out “Da Vinci Code” to read and excuse myself from this seemingly-not-so-gentleman’s small talk.
But this stranger was keen on striking a conversation, it seemed.
“So what do you write? Fiction or non-fiction?”
“I blog. But fiction mainly“, I finally resigned to my fate and joined in.
“Great! But don’t you think Non-Fiction teaches us way more than what Fiction does?”
I looked at him, totally confused as to where was this conversation leading to!
“May be. But Fiction lets people escape to a different world other than reality.”
“Don’t you think it’s just fake. Why do you write it? To let people escape from reality or you yourself want to escape from it while creating another world“.
“May be a yes for both“, His words definitely left me intrigued. I wondered who this person was. I observed him. In his late twenties perhaps but spoke as if he was way too ahead of his age.
He smiled in response to my answer. I thought the conversation ended and was about to pick up my novel again when he spoke interrupting my actions.
“You know what? Fiction and fantasy might help you escape reality but you can never run away from it actually“, he said it as-a-matter-of-fact and smiled again.
His smile said stories. He seemed mysterious to me. His words left me questioning myself. It felt as if he had gone through a lot but why such despise towards fiction, I couldn’t understand. It’s as important as non-fiction, I thought.
“Yes, I know that. Who wouldn’t?” I wondered loudly.
“My sister didn’t.” His smile vanished behind his words.
“Excuse me for being personal but what happened?” Even before I could think, the words were out, and I regretted that.
“A voracious reader since she learnt her alphabets, she not only read but believed in whatever she read. She was in love or thought she was. Believed so much in those stupid stories that she couldn’t stand betrayal when life threw it her way. She refused too learn the lesson life wanted to teach her. She has gone crazy ever since then. Even now, five years later she doesn’t want to come out of her world to face the reality. She doesn’t want to believe that reality isn’t what’s written in books but a lot more different than that, that life can throw thorns at you when you are expecting roses.” He paused to take a deep breath and overcame the emotions that had started to ooze out.
I was left speechless, I didn’t know what to say or do.
He continued after winning the battle with his emotions, “I don’t want to say that you people shouldn’t write stories. You surely should, for stories tell the world things that people themselves can’t. I just want to say, if you have the power of words, just use them well. Pen is surely mightier than the sword.”
Just at that moment the planed touched the ground. A few minutes later that stranger was lost into sea of strangers of the new city I have landed in. But he left behind something. A part of him in the lesson he taught me. I may not ever see or meet him again in my life but his words will surely live with me forever.
“Words, I will use them well, for they have the power of both, to kill and to heal“, I resolved to myself as I walked out of the airport embracing new city and the new life it offered.

This piece of fiction is written in response to Weekend prompt by Blogadda- When I met a stranger.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.