The Forgotten Angel

Summer vacations were going on, so my best friend Bella and I decided to go to our hometown to meet our family and enjoy.

It was a long journey from Ahmedabad to Kanpur from the train and we were both excited to meet our parents after such a long semester.

We had already loaded our bags on the train.

I was sitting in the window seat and talking to my friend who was standing outside. Out of us pair, I was known to be the daring and intelligent one but she, my friend Bella was always the beautiful one. But nonetheless, we were inseparable friends. So when someone came to my friend and patted on her shoulder, I thought it would be one of her admirers and just as I was going to tease on her that, I saw the man's face and I bit back my tongue within a millisecond. His face was convulsed in fear and urgency. He kept looking here and there, but when he told us the words "Mickey at B2" he was looking straight into my friend's eyes. Before we could process the information and inquire, he was already running away from us as if a wolf was chasing him.

My friend frowned, puzzled by what had just happened and I couldn't blame her. We looked at each other trying to make sense of what he had just said. First I thought it was a joke but on second thoughts it didn't seem like a joke, the man's petrified face was still flashing before my eyes. Before we realised the train had started moving and my friend rushed to the coach. As time past we kept wondering what he could have really meant and I couldn't excrete the gut feeling that told me that something terrible would happen if we didn't do something.

I hadn't noticed the goosebumps creeping on my arms until now. Then a thought occurred to me that it may be some sort of code and could be dangerous. I shared my thoughts with my friend and we both together agreed that we should inform about the incident to some greater authority. The train was already on its full speed and there was no chance of getting out. So first we told the whole incident to the caretaker but he couldn't make any sense of it and thought it was silly of us to think it was anything more than a joke. Then I spotted the ticket collector, he too thought it was all a joke.

Knowing no other way to alert, we went to our seat with a sense of failure. Then my friend removed the phone from her pocket and started tweeting something. I raised an eyebrow towards her indicating her to explain. So with the raise of hands, she explained " I am tweeting the whole incident, our location and our identity on social media. Nowadays in a world, technology and social media is used everywhere and by every living soul, what better way is there to alert people?" she concluded by saying in a slightly defeated voice that I should tweet instead of her as I had more followers. I was secretly a little proud of myself for that fact and with a grin on my face, I removed my phone and sent all the information on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and to all the police emails I could find with a sense of urgency.

We waited for two hours but there was no reply, so we just sat there, trying but failing to convince ourselves that it was nothing imperative only a joke. three hours of the journey was still remaining but suddenly with a jerk, the train stopped and a dozen of army officials and bomb disposal technicians came running in and stopped at each seat examining it very carefully. An officer shouted from the neighbouring coach saying "The bomb has been found and is diffused, no need to worry". After hearing that we realized that it came from the B2 coach and as we were staring at each other an officer interrupted us asking " Who is Athena?". I told him my name was Athena, his expression changed and he started smiling. He thanked me for the information we sent them through email and he told us that they were informed that the terrorists were planning an explosion but they couldn't track it but because of our information, they finally could. They further told us that a bomb was found in coach B2 embedded in a Mickey Mouse soft toy. He once again thanked us and left.

We both sighed with relief and felt proud of ourselves. I think that day our roles were exchanged, she was the smart one and I was the popular one. From that day on, each night I think about the mysterious man who risked his life to save lives of many others.He is a forgotten angel who would not be known by anyone.