The television screen flickered with colors and sounds that demanded too much of Jonah’s attention, hours had past by since he had walked home from the block party. He couldn’t sleep. He attempted to induce sleep several times; warm milk, books, cigarettes, and other vices had failed. The sudden picture of the familiar but foreign architecture and landscape pulled Taj in as the muted reporter stood enthusiastically on the side of a panicked and wrecked street in New Delhi, India. The reporter’s cheerfulness puzzled him, wounded children and crying mothers wondered the streets Jonah had once called home. With a sudden push of a button, the words of the misleading reporter filled the empty room with over bearing information. The terrorist group that attacked the streets of New Delhi and claimed Raja had planted multiple car bombs taking the lives of ten and wounding more than thirty. The words sunk into his ears as the bombed sidewalks reflected in his eyes, but it wasn’t Raja who he was thinking about. It was his torn and fake identity that was forced to be reckoned with. The realization that he could not relate or understand the injured people on the screen panicked him.
Jonah frantically fumbled for the remote and pressed the off button. In the silence he heard the faint sound of a heartbeat and the shuffle of busied people in the room. He faded into the dark.
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