Maya

Walking down the lane covered in snow somewhere in a street in Zurich, she thinks about her life, where is her life taking her? Wondering, don’t we all question the purpose of our lives. She is young, successful, protected, leads multiple lives, each isolated. That is the life Maya leads. Just as she was about to delve deeper and ponder over her life, her body guard comes over and says ‘ma’am, your car is ready, it is time to go’. She gets into the car to go back to the real world, she puts on her mask again.

She walks into the room full of nerds, computer, gadgets, people rushing around under stress. People get quiet as she walks in, she understands that some of the people detest her, some admire her and some envy her but she pretends to be unaware of people’s reaction to her. She heads a secret surveillance agency from a remote location in Switzerland. She can sense tension brimming up in the atmosphere since Alan detected a possible terrorist threat in one of the communication channels. Alan and Maya discuss and review the possible threat, validate its authenticity, doing background checks of the people involved. The threat turns out to be legitimate. Maya discusses the strategy to further surveille the involved parties. She sends out Marco and team to do field surveillance. Whatever the possible terrorists were planning, it was going to happen in the next one week and somewhere in France.  She calls up the French intelligence agency to tip them off and sends over the details to them. The whole strategizing and communication part took up the day, she was finally free by the evening.

She gears up to go for her martial arts class. There is a certain kind of peace she finds in practicing martial arts, she can practice it for hours. She especially adores her teacher Vincent a lot, a simple and an uncomplicated old man. Her eyes get filled up with affection whenever she looks at him, he is like a fatherly figure for her and he makes her feel like a human. All that affection in her heart she does not know where to pour it since she is estranged from her family. Vincent thinks that Maya is an admin at a warehouse since that is what Maya told him. She cooks up stories about the happenings in the imaginary warehouse, in her imaginary admin job. She craves the company of people who lead simple lives since her own life is complicated and she has layers of walls built around her. She sits, narrates stories and laughs with Vincent once the class got over. However, the leisure time was cut short when her body guard calls her and makes a discrete appearance around the entrance, telling her it is time to go. For a moment, she feels like running away to a sunny beach to listen to ocean waves, enjoy the sunshine and be normal. But she cannot go, she has to stand by her choices. Her persona suddenly changes, she goes back to being the strong, cold woman she is.

She is driven back to her apartment. She walks into the empty apartment, perfectly kept place with an amazing view. She keeps her bag down, plops on the sofa and looks around. The dead silence in the house gives her a creepy feeling, she pours herself some wine, she does not feel like eating. She is aware that she is getting weak but she does not feel like eating at all. She puts on some music to beat the silence. She goes out in the terrace, the light breeze relaxes her, she closes her eyes. When she opens her eyes she notices something strange. There is an apartment in the opposite building where suddenly light goes on and someone is caught off-guard with a tall telescope in between the curtains. The opposite building is not far away and she guesses that the tall instrument does look like a telescope. Just as she starts walking back to call her bodyguard, to go check that apartment, she notices several people rushing around in the apartment, collecting things and trying to leave.  She keeps a calm mind, calls up her bodyguard and her security team, they go over to check the apartment in the opposite building. They find Maya’s photos in the garbage bin with some confidential information about her. Maya’s security team takes her to a secure location. In her night dress, she sits in the dark and dingy room, looking at the mirror, she starts thinking what to do next.

What happens next is to be continued….