From the bottom of the small hill, plains stretched afar with no other mountains in sight anywhere near. The landscape was blanketed by a dark green canopy from thousands of coconut trees that grew tightly together. In the evening, shimmering lights would reveal the presence of houses and other buildings underneath. In an unfinished room on the first floor of a building on the top of the hill facing the picture below, he stood still, staring intently at those flickering lights trying to separate old bulbs from the modern fluorescent ones. Somewhere close to the horizon, he could make out a blurred blueness of the sea and the dull creaking noise that a goods train made while chugging across a metal bridge.
The empty spaces left for windows in the room would let stiff evening breeze inside sending loose sheets of paper on his desk up in the air. It was a salty wind from the sea afar with a mild sea stench that was hard to figure out unless one actually made an effort.
Scurrying back to his desk to get the papers, he saw a small snout followed by a reluctant head peeping from the corridor. Another bored stray dog exploring the place in the evening. It hesitated for a moment and hastily turned to run away through the hallway. There were a couple of them downstairs sniffing around, chasing small kids and chicken. People went on with their lives unperturbed, unaware of him above watching them with a blasé indifference.
The stillness of life around him made him shiver. He was alone in the huge building. He longed for a wandering drone laden with explosives to strike the building, reducing the giant concrete edifice with him inside into ember in seconds. An easy way out for him and an interesting tale for the locals to recount.
He stood there fantasising about drones, on the second-floor window of that huge unfinished building dimly lit by the fast fading reflections from a sun that the sea had already drowned.
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