273/365 Let us try a writing prompt

By vinodnarayan on March 26, 2022 • ( 0 )

So today I want to write something from a writing prompt in our Penpositive Community.

Here is the prompt
“You are in a new city for a day. Your meeting got delayed and you missed the train. The next train is in 24 hours. Develop an incidental narration or story. (max 2000 words)”

A new city for a day. Did I even ever be in a new city for a day? This might sound weird for a lot of people when traveling has always been a way of life and we are also getting back to some sorts of post pandemic normalcy. The one incident that comes to my mind is a trip to Phoenix 15 years back. Oh wait I should have missed my commute. Well may be I should create a story from nothing.

I am not that great with prompts to be honest. But I will use this to share an incident from back then. I had gone for a business meeting. A very rare thing for me having to fly out to another city. But I was done with my meeting and I was waiting for my flight back.

I started doing the routine dance that people who wait for their flights. I bought a book even though I had a book with me. I get something to eat. I start reading and then I start reading the people around me. Reading happens but more of people than of the book.

I see a man standing leaning on to the wall. He looked very familiar and I struggled to place him. As I kept reading other people, my eyes fell on him intermittently. Always trying to recollect if I know him. No luck.

I hear our boarding announcement, I join the line and when I enter the plane, I again spot the gentleman sitting in the front. These are small flights, but they do have a business class, I believe the first two rows or so. Nothing fancy just a bit more leg space. He is in one of those. I am in the cattle class and I so I go to my seat somewhere in the middle.

The flight takes off and we land in San Jose after sometime. Obviously I did not meet the person after that as they get down earlier. But just as I was getting off the plane it struck me. Vividly I recollected who he was and what is name was and I was shattered. How could I ? I should have gone over to him. It was not the age of the selfies but, I could just speak a few words to him. May be even be introduced and since we live in the same town, who knows may be I might meet and get to connect with him more. The possibilities were many. But I did not.. I did not recollect when I should have and I did not think I could go over and ask him if I knew him from somewhere. I just had to have him say his name. Nope… I did not..

Even today I remember sharing that domestic flight with Steve Woznialk… Woz…. the co-founder of Apple Computers. I wished I could have met and got introduced.

Today Woz is worth I guess $100 Million when Jobs at the time of passing was 10+ billion rich. Woz is known for his disinterest to money and if you know had also given $10 million of his own shares to early apple employees as he thought that was the right thing to do. Though I have read Jobs made the bulk of his money not from Apple but his work with Disney. But that is not the point here.

I was traveling with a legend, a man so simple and minimal. That sight of him standing in a corner leaning on a wall is still vivid in my mind.

I know the prompt was different, but hey… they goal is to write, and a prompt is a prompt