How precious life is and how quickly it can be taken away.

In a sun-urban city, the people were getting ready to leave their house for work, Mother's preparing lunch boxes, kids running to their buses saying goodbye's to their mother as the bus leaves for school.

(A mother waving her hand at the bus that just left)

"Mrs. Singh, the bus has already left, how long are you going to wave for?" A women in her early 30's chuckles while calling all the other women together.

"Mrs. Chadda, since when did our kids grew so big, it feels like just yesterday that I took Aryan to school myself and now he is already in his 7th grade. The summer vacation had also just started and now it's over." Mrs. Singh replies,

"You take your eyes off them for a moment and in the blink of an eye *poof* they are an adult with a beard and everything, hahaha." Mrs. Chadda remarks.

"haaa *(a big sigh)* why don't they just stay small and cute all the time? Tomorrow they will get a girlfriend and forget all about their mother." This time a women in the back comments.

"Oh, Mrs. Joshi, please don't bring a girl so early in their life, I still want to enjoy my time with my son more." Mrs. Singh interjects to her words, to which all the women laughs, saying,

"Someone's getting jealous already, hahaha"

" Okay ladies, calm down now" Mrs. Chadda said, "Ok, so since the kids are at school and we are all free now, how about we meet at Mrs. Singh's house for some tea and snacks."

"Ok, that sounds great" says all the women while raising their thumbs up high in the air.

"Ok, then we will all meet at Mrs. Singh's house in half an hour. How does that sound?" Mrs. Chadda asks, to which everyone replies 'Yes!'

Then the group leaves. Mrs. Singh comes back to her house.

"Munmun, munmun come here quick!" Mrs. Singh calls her maid.

"Ji madam!" munmun came running downstairs to her call.

"Munmun, Mrs. Chadda and others are coming, so go prepare some tea and snacks, quick" Mrs. Singh instructs munmun.

"Yes madam, I am going." Munmun replies and leaves for the kitchen.

Mrs. chadda falls down on her couch while turning on the TV. She watches the TV but soon she feels a slight pain in her chest. She doesn't think much of it and drinks some water, but the pain just grew heavier and heavier. She gets lost in her thoughts but soon comes back to her senses when she hears the sound of the tea kettle whistling.

She *sighs heavily and turns off the TV and wonders why the others haven't arrived yet.

She picks up her phone but before calling anyone, she sees a notification from one of her social media platforms.

Unknowingly, she clicks on the notification which takes her to a just released post, a post that shows the body of a student, uncensored, lying on the road without his head, Mrs. Singh, who just saw the dead body of a small child, was frozen, shocked to her very core, but yet she couldn't take her eyes off of that picture as the body had the same uniform as the school uniform of the school her son goes to. But the reason she couldn't take her eyes off the picture wasn't because of the uniform but the lunch box that was lying beside that kid, the same lunch box that her son carried to school that morning, the same lunchbox that she prepared by waking up early in the morning and putting her heart and love to make him his favourite meal. That same lunch box was in that picture. For a moment, she wanted to deny everything, the lunchbox, the picture, her life. At this moment, what she wanted the most was this all to be a dream, not to be a nightmare.

The maid who had done preparing everything came out of the kitchen and was about to leave for other work, but as she looked at Mrs Singh, she was bewildered. Mrs. Singh, who just a few moments ago was laughing and smiling, was now looking at her phone completely frozen with eyes that had lost their life. She got scared for a second but she approached her while calling out to her.

"madam..., m-madam!?"

She touches her shoulder when all of a sudden her phone starts to ring. The maid gets frightened as she falls down. The phone keeps on ringing, the maid looks up on the floor where the phone slipped from Mrs. Singh's hand and fell on the floor, she looked at the phone and then at Mrs. Singh, her phone fell and yet she had not moved a single muscle, her eyes were completely dried out due to not blinking. The maid wondered just what she had seen for her to become like this. She looks back at the phone that was still ringing and slowly reaches for the phone. She picks up the phone and speaks, her body and voice shaking in fear.

"Hello, am I speaking to Mrs. Amrita Singh?" the voice on the other side speaks firmly.

" He-hello I i-ye-yes!" the maid spoke, trembling.

"Yes I-uh I am speaking from the Uppal police station, uhh I am sorry to inform you about this, but in this manner, but there has been an accident of a school bus, and unfortunately some students riding on that bus couldn't make it out. We are really sorry to inform you that one of the students named Aryan couldn't make it out on time and unfortunately he pas–!" the call gets disconnected. The maid who got up from the floor once again crashed down on her knees onto the floor, she looked at the phone and the call she disconnected brought her back to the page with the picture.

Her body shook in fear and grief, in complete disbelief at what she heard. She looked at Mrs. Singh once again, but this time she looks back at her. In a single moment, her entire life had turned upside down, her love, her child, she lost all of it. In just a blink of an eye, the present and the future of the bereaved families had completely been distorted, destroyed and lost.

With the last remaining power she had, she looked at the maid directly into her eyes, she took a deep breath and uttered a single word, a word that she chose with all her heart and love for the one she cherished the most in her entire life. A word that meant more than her own life,

"-Aryan–!" she spoke.

As she finally blinked, a single drop of tear ran down her face and fell onto the floor.