It was a beautiful day. The roads were exactly what she expected, clean and wide with big Deodar trees on the either side.
Twenty eight years is not an age when someone would visit a place like this to seek the superior meaning of life. Not that her life was appalling or she was facing any troubles, it was her, eccentric and single minded. She kept walking for sometime before a flock of Auto Rickshaw pullers swarmed around her, it’s not hard for these people to figure out if someone is naive about the city. Having battled past the flock, she moved on. She knew where she was going, it was just the beautiful notion of the city and the weather which made her walk to nowhere, taking any path that came along. She wanted to soak up the great past of the city, the picturesque mountains, the stream, all at once. She wanted to be drenched and the sharply rising yearning in her did not let her be coaxed into an easy ride. She reached a turn; there were hills on one side and a tea shop on the other, half of which was hanging precariously over the great
river. The road curved into a bridge which seemed to open into a small town. The mystic hum of birds, the quaint view all around, the sparse crowd at this hour, honest, weather beaten faces and their simple demeanors, the chill in the air, the monstrous depths to the river along the road, everything was so spellbinding. There is a special
fragrance about hills, fragrance which combines the river and the clouds, the fragrance of myth, of superstitions, of leopards and of purity. She felt all of it, and it seemed to her that the existence of such a place is in itself a wonder. She sat there peacefully for a while, trying to swallow every inch of the backdrop with her tea. Then she stood up to move, carrying her large travel bag on her back. The entrance to the bridge was reflective of the place, plain and unpretentious, except for the sign which hung on the concrete structure, it said ‘Welcome’. She walked a few steps, there were people around her though not as many as she would have liked. Suddenly she looked up towards the sky and then everything went blank. The bridge was no more there but the sign still hung swaying with the impact, it still read 'Welcome', dripping blood.....