Elemental Dissonance - dropped

Planet Earth,

UAE, Dubai.

The city of Dubai inarguably one of the most prosperous cities in the world, located on the northeastern coastline of the United Arab Emirates.

It is one of the biggest business centres of Middle East, 'The city of rich Sheikhs' called by many, it's a city of exuberant spending, exotic pets, supercars and world-class luxuries, it cannot be called something else than a paradise, ofcourse only by the Rich since they could only afford those luxuries there.

In this city of rich, however, there's an area for the poor as well, in the infamous labour camps of Dubai as to say. Within these labour camps live expats, these expats leave their home countries and come to Dubai in hopes of earning themselves a decent living and some send money back to their families.

Amongst these hardworking and much-unrewarded people there's a young man named Bilal as well, the only exception was he didn't have anyone to send money to, and unlike them, he was there to make his dreams come true which he isn't successful in....till now.

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Khalid labour camp.

In an old and derelict labour camp, a young man could be seen lying on the bottom bunk of a double-bunked bed, with the expression on his face it could be guessed that he slept sound.

All of a sudden from within the pockets of his pants a smartphone rang loudly and startled him awake.

The young man immediately pulled out the phone and in the dim light of the apartment, he gazed at it with drowsy eyes, and tried seeing who it was. An unknown number it was.....

Picking up the call he questioned the caller with an annoyed tone "Who is it? Don't you know it's 3 AM here?"

A familiar voice answered him "It's me, Omar, my old phone got broken down yesterday"

"Ok, Why call me now though?"

"Where have you reached?"

"wha...."

"Why am I not hearing road commotion? You're not at the room, are you?"

With an audible thunder ringing in his head the young-man became thunderstruck by his friend's words, immediately he disconnected the call. And stormed towards the apartment's bathroom with a Blue striped uniform clenched in hand.

10 minutes later, he came out of the bathroom in proper shape, and without wasting a single second more, he dashed towards the exit of the apartment in a mindless flurry and stopped directly at the road, looking for a taxi. Normally though he would get picked up or would opt for a Bus ride, today's work was too important and thus he couldn't afford to be late any longer.

Firing his gaze here and there he tried spotting one, but there wasn't any, it reasonable though since it was around 3:30 in the morning and the location was the outskirt of Dubai city.

"Has every taxi driver in this city died or something?"

When he had almost decided to go there by walk, a yellow flash of light from was seen speeding from the opposite lane, it was a taxi coming towards his direction of the road, instinctively he screamed while waving his hand at it.

"Hurry it's urgent, take me to Zakiya Imports and Exports at Al quoz industrial area 3, you can have a few dirhams extra" he said to the driver who stopped at his call.

"Hop in brother" the Taxi driver said.

He opened up the door and sat on the taxi while mumbling something "Fuck how can I forget it, let's just hope someone takes care of my consignment"

20 minutes later, his taxi arrived at Al Quoz industrial area 3 and he got off the taxi, paid that driver a few extra dirhams just as he promised, and ran toward his workplace without stopping anywhere.

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5 minutes later,

Al Zakiya Imports and Exports.

A moustached middle-aged man was seen walking to and fro waiting for someone at the front entrance with an angry face.

"Where is he? Doesn't he know he has to deliver the goods to our client by 8? With many requests, I got him this job now he's going to have me fired too for recommending him"

The moustached man was Riyaz, the manager cum half-employer, he acted as an intermediary link between expats like Bilal and the Al Zakiya Pvt.Ltd, his work comprised of managing the schedule so that everything runs smooth like a well-oiled machine. Because of them both originating from the same country, he helped Bilal get this job.

Al Zakiya Pvt.Ltd was a well-renowned courier service throughout the Gulf countries and they had their branches all over the place, although he could call himself a branch manager, he didn't have many rights to operate on his own, even the selection of expats is done directly by the company. That's why, just to get Bilal a job in his branch, he had to do multiple requests.

"Guess he's not gonna come now, I gotta assign someone to get the job done" sighing, the middle-aged man turned around to go back inside, a voice came from behind "Riyaz, Riyaz I'm here"

"Finally here huh? Haven't I told you of this consignment for around 6 days already? How come you be so late?"

"Sorry something just came up last night, I slept quite late yesterday."

"I was going to assign someone else to do the job and the whole schedule would've been messed up but you're here now so it's fine, here catch" Riyaz said as he threw a bunch of keys towards Bilal.

"Take the truck 4, Omar just finished his work and went back, that truck is vacant right now" Riyaz said and walked back inside.

"Okay" Said Bilal and went directly to the back parking lot of the office where all the trucks are parked.

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2 hours later.

"Ah, finally i'm here, now I just need to free the courier from the customs and deliver it to Tarif" said Bilal.

After a long, arduous 2 hours of journey, he reached Abu Dhabi, it was a total of 140 kilometres of a journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, now he just needed to do some paperwork while the other things like custom duty, receiver identification, etc would be taken care of by his employer because he worked for a renowned registered courier service.

Abu Dhabi International Airport.

"Let's see where the customs office is." Bilal took out his smartphone and read the text message by Riyaz which reached him just now.

[Terminal 3, Enquire at Counter 7, Parcel no: 6543A would be coming from Flight no. 26790. Same procedure, to be delivered by 8 AM don't be late!]

"Huh, Terminal 3? coming from America?" although somewhat surprised after finding out about the origin of the courier, he quickly got over it as it was getting late. That too because they don't get a lot of stuff from there, instead it was the other way around.

After wandering for ten more minutes, he finally arrived at Terminal 3 and quickly found the customs office, and went directly to the reception to retrieve the courier.

A beautiful young lady in Hiqab sat at the reception receiving requests one by one. Even at that late in the night the customs office was crowded to the brim, there he spotted many people wearing similar uniforms to him, probably from other branches of Al Zakiya.

Soon his turn came, but the young lady got replaced by a Middle-aged man instead which looked like an eyesore in comparison, but he didn't mind much since he wasn't there to please his eyes in the first place.

The middle-aged man asked him in a robotic voice without a hint of emotion "How can I help you, sir?"

"I'm from Al Zakiya Imports and Exports, coming here for a parcel coming from flight no. 26790."

"OK, let me check" After saying that, he got on the keyboard in a flash, his hands moved very professionally like he's been doing this for quite some years already.

"Sir, please write the parcel number on this form along with some details with your signature on it and give me your ID for a second." He said while forking out a form and gesturing for his ID.

"Okay, here's my ID." Said Bilal, took out his ID and passed it through the small hole at counter's window.

Within no time he was done filling the details.

"Here's your ID sir, have you fill out all the details?"

"Yes" Bilal said while handing out the form.

"Here take this slip to the storage area, your parcel would be there, have a good day sir." the middle-aged man employee told Bilal and passed him a printed paper slip with some unique barcodes on it.

Taking the slip Bilal left for the storage room in a hurry, which he reached in a few minutes but was stopped by the security guard there.

"There is storage area ahead, do you have the clearance slip?" The security guard questioned him in a stern tone.

"Yes, I have it" Bilal said with a frown on his face as he displayed the printed slip.

"OK, go to that guy he'll help you to find your parcel." the guard turned soft as he saw the slip, and pointed towards a worker standing not far from there.

Bilal gestured and the worker immediately came towards him while asking "How can I help you, sir?"

"Help me find this parcel." He said while passing the slip to him.

"Okay sir, come with me" That worker took him to some other side of the storage area, the place was just too damn busy, dozens of workers were roaming all around the place doing their jobs, many forklifts could be seen lifting and placing humongous boxes of homogenous composition.

"26790 6543A, 26790 6543A, 26790 6543A...." The worker mumbled the code as they passed by the rows one by one, his search ended on a big box wrapped in a layer of polyethene and a silver tag over it.

"Here's your parcel sir, I'll be right back with a forklift" the worker told Bilal and hurried off to the distance.

"I wasn't informed it's gonna be this heavy, I should've taken the trolley, how am I supposed to unload it at the destination now? Sigh!" Bilal ranted and cursed his luck as he waited for the worker.

Soon with a forklift the Worker came and lifted the parcel: "Where's your vehicle located at, sir?"

"Parking lot on floor 3"

"OK, let's go"

Bilal pointed towards at a truck as they reached the parking lot and said "You see that Red and Blue striped truck in the 4th row? That's the one"

Bilal quickly got off the forklift and opened up the backdoor of the delivery truck with the keys in his hands.

"Put it in the middle of the space right there"

"Move aside for a moment sir, it can be dangerous if you stay there"

"Okay sure"

The worker placed down the box in a very skilled manner with his forklift and said: "All done sir, I gotta get going."

"Hey wait!" Bilal said as he took out a five Dirham banknote and gave it to the worker as a tip.

The worker did not protest and took the tip and went off with the forklift.