The Confession – Chapter 5 – Travel

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This is the fifth part of a novella “The Confession”.

Read the rest of the novella here

[Chapter 1 – Memories]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

[Chapter 4 – Music]

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When Ram came home that night, he found what was left of one large Dominos Country Special cheese-burst pizza on the dining table and knew that David was somewhat back on track as far as him recovering his memories was concerned. This was because this particular pizza was one of David’s all time favorites and one cursory look at the leftover also clearly suggested the presence of extra onions and a lot of chilly flakes on the pizza just like he loved it.

He knocked on David’s bedroom door, slowly opened it and peeped inside. He found David dozing peacefully on his recliner, with a copy of the latest Newsweek on his chest. Not wanting to wake him up, when Ram started closing the door, David opened his eyes and smiled at him.

“Sorry bro, didn’t mean to wake you up. So, how was your day?” he asked.

Although David couldn’t quite remember the exact dynamics of their friendship yet, he had warmed up to the fact that Ram seemed to be quite a good friend of his. If anything Ram seemed to be trying as hard as he himself was to regain his memories and go back to living a normal life.

He called Ram into the room and asked him to sit on the bed. “I know I shouldn’t ask you this question, but bro, did you have any luck remembering anything at all?” asked Ram to which David just smiled and said nothing.

Taking the hint from his friend’s silence, Ram changed the subject.

“You know what dude, forget all this. It is December, the Christmas season, the time of year to be happy and jolly. Let’s do this, we have a long weekend coming up with Monday being Dec 25^th and the office being closed on Dec 22^nd due to the local elections here. Let’s do a road trip to Chennai to my folks’ place.

Ever since they came to know that you had an accident they have been worried sick about you. It’s just that they are not calling your phone as they don’t want to worry you in this situation, but you have no idea as to the number of calls that my parents are making every second hour to my phone man. And Priya, I haven’t seen her so worried in her life ever, not even during her board exams dude.”

“Priya” David interrupted.

“Oh sorry dude, you don’t remember her, do you? She is my younger sister, the little brat. She will be thrilled to see you safe and sound when we go there this weekend. So pack up dude, we will leave early tomorrow morning to avoid all the lorry traffic at Hosur and reach West Mambalam by lunch time. I will call Amma and ask her to make your favorite Semia Payasam and Masala Vadai for you tomorrow.”

Although David was not too thrilled at the prospect of introducing newer characters into his already confused mind, Ram’s infectious enthusiasm for the road trip rubbed off on him and he got up early the next day and the duo got into Ram’s Honda City and started driving down to Chennai.

On the way Ram started talking to him about all the road trips that they had done over the last few years. He talked about how they had braved the North Eastern monsoon rains in and around Tamil Nadu and had done a bike trip all the way from Chennai to Kanyakumari and also asked him to look for the picture in his iPad which he had packed in his backpack. And funnily enough, although David recognized himself and Ram in the pictures in the album on the iPad, he couldn’t remember any part of the bike ride itself. He didn’t mention this to Ram as he didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm and the good mood in which he was right now.

However, when Ram wanted to take a break and asked David to take over driving for a while, when David held the steering wheel something was kindled inside him. As he started cruising at a decent speed of 90-100 kms on the wonderfully laid 8 lane highway between Hosur and Krishnagiri, the hum of the car, its gentle roll on the curves, the trees lining the highway, the 24 hr McDonald’s outlet just outside of Hosur town limits, all of these brought a warm feeling to David’s heart.

Was travelling down this road bringing back a flood of memories to him? Not really, but a few gears in his head started moving and a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to be aligning themselves to fall in place shortly.

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This post has been written for the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2 where today’s prompt had to be about music.

This is the fifth post in a novella “The confession” that I am writing trying to correlate the same to the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2.

Read the rest of the novella here

[Chapter 1 – Memories]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

[Chapter 4 – Music]