Simulacrum

Swiftly typing what she had in mind on the laptop, Tara heard the sound of her phone beeping to convey the arrival of a message. Giving the phone a momentary glance, she brought her eyes back to the screen in front of her. After being in the same position for an hour, she stood up and stretched. Remembering that she has to call her mother that day she reached for her phone and unlocked it. There was an unread message from an unknown number and her heart started beating a little faster as it usually does when something was amiss.. The message was just this, "Hi! This is Tara, right? I am Kiran". She instantly felt a jolt of surprise. The only Kiran she knew was her former classmate from College- someone she has not heard from for the past ten years. Since he was an amicable guy back then, Tara replied to his message.

Days later Tara's best friend Joan called her and Tara mentioned the developments of the last few days. Joan was surprised at this and told Tara, "The last thing I heard about Kiran was that he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in France for embezzlement and this was something I heard less than a year ago. So how can Kiran have contacted you? And from where? Prison?" Tara nearly dropped her phone in surprise. She asked Joan to confirm it and quickly got off the phone. She wondered "How could she have been so stupid? How lonely could she have been to want company from a guy she had only talked for a couple of times and years ago!"

Days later Tara was busy, but not on her laptop but busy packing to leave for her Mom's house for the weekend.