The Moscow bound train squeaked and drummed a monotonous rhythm , running over the long track of steel, so fast that the passing greenery whatever left from the snow fall became a hazy blur. Raul tried to look out the window, but the windows are beaded and the snow beating on it like flying ashes from post apocalyptic skies. Inside Raul was blanked out with his thoughts a curious mixture of cozy and bored, all of him itching for the destination that will come eventually and the actions after. Raul was lost in his thoughts again, thumbing through the book in his hands, he began to focus on his thoughts which had exploded in his mind like that of a forked lightning. These sudden flashes of thoughts animate those Frankenstein monsters, that you once feared. He has been through this fun house and that not so funny sequence of scares. Chasing the thoughts are like exploring a cave, a dark place and the sudden flashes animate some imagery, giving it a skewed perception. There’s no good...

The window is so large it reminded him of a store-front. Raul was looking out the large window of Mr. Wilson's Global HQ.  It's triple-glazed and so clear that the panorama is like a high definition screen at a movie theater. At the distance the hue of the evening sky splattered across the panoramic landscape. The clouds stood embossed upon that artistry of the skies. The birds traveled past, buffeted by the winds that whistle through these towers. He felt as if standing among those clouds. The real estate, a miles high looked so futuristic. The city below is so far away it's like another world, those ant-like people and all their problems are of no more consequence than like those temporary static on intercom. It was less than 24 hours Raul had gotten back to St.Peters berg from Houston. He was trying to sleep off his jet lag when his phone rang. It was Mr.Wilson. In less than an hour after that call,he was at the Global HQ. He has been to this same room a few rare tim...

Raul sank back into the seat, propped up a pillow behind his head and laid back leaning on it. He closed his eyes and began thinking of a plan which he has to execute at Moscow. The people he is going to meet is from one of the large business corporation named Index Inc., having their business interests across the domains from agriculture to space science. He is very sure that this mission he undertook is like a long distance marathon with hurdles. Raul could hear the sound of boots along the corridor, from outside his cabin. He could hear people talk and some muted commotion. He turned and  looked outside the window, saw a couple of soldiers walking along the track with their rucksacks.  The train had made the stop for the soldiers to board the train. A couple of minutes later, he felt the train move and gain speed to the next Station. He pulled out his feel good book- The Alchemist from his backpack and started flipping through the pages. He has read it a thousand one t...

Raul walked a few paces down the road to get into the taxi. The driver pulled away with him in the rear seat. Raul felt that he was clutching the bag unusually tight, as he felt the fatigue on the knuckles. He could now feel the full gravity of the situation. Raul understands the nature of  technology a bit too much and technically it only takes a flip for a flop..a flop for the whole mission he undertook. He looked outside through car window on the left and tried to take deep long breathes to calm himself down. The car was going through a beautiful country side, but his aesthetic sense was on off mode. The nervous kind of energy was devouring him doing tango with anticipation and his brain seemed to be focused on the tango. He understood the full mental stress of this kind of chess he play. There was no pardon or trial moves in this game. The reality is as real as it gets. "The game of information warfare is more like a chess game played in the real world at the mental leve...

As moments ticked by Raul understood the gravity of his first solo mission. It  seemed like so much fun at the start. It's still fun if he could pull it through. He was lost in thoughts while doing all his morning chores. In the shower, he stood leaning on his hands against the wall, the water pouring down on his back, calculating and recalculating all his moves for the day at the Law firm. He thought he heard the phone ring. Closing down the shower, he listened and it was indeed the phone ringing back in the room. He wrapped a towel around him and got out of the bath. It was Mr.Wilson. "I suppose, everything is in order Raul!" asked Mr.Wilson. "Yes sir. It is. I have already asked the hotel to get me a cab by 9:00 AM" "Good luck. " and he disconnected the call. Raul rushed back into the bath to dry  himself and got ready to go. He wore a blue shirt, black jeans and a gray cardigan on top of it. He looked in the mirror and chuckled. He arra...

He must be nearing the Kirov station. The world though blanketed in snow, Raul recognized the features of the land that stretched ahead of him.The train rocked him gently as he looked out through the window along the corridor next to his Cabin. He was waiting for the provodnitsa to open the cabin door for him. The winter trees stood like a song half sung, unsure of the melody to come. Only when the wind breathes warm once more, will they recall the rolling words and unfurl them green in the sun. Until then they are mute, forlorn in the wind. Far in the distance, the city stood upon the hill in the gathering gloom. Each building jutted into the darkening sky as if it had been drawn on with charcoal. Raul  got back into his cabin and pulled apart the window curtains to let the sunlight inside the cabin. The scent of lemon grass still lingered in the cabin. The winter sunlight is watery and cold, without color radiated back from either grass and leaf, without the warmth of summer,...

"What do you call that..infatuation..Yeah..that is the right word." said Raul. Every detail of that day was etched into his brain like an Etch a Sketch. Sitting in a crummy diner, Raul looked out at the street. The street drenched in gloom. The faded figure of skyscrapers outlined the distant horizon. High up above, the clouds lit up in purple and orange. The heavens had begun its foreplay for an intense rain tonight. The street was dark like the tea he was drinking. Ghostly figures moved about the street, hurrying as if haunted. "Raul, I am sorry, it ended up this way!" said Fabrice. "It's okay, I knew how its gonna end, because I was working against my intuition, all the way from day one on this." replied Raul. .. .. Few months back, Raul was on a date with Jane; a few months after Jane started working with a bank in Ryazan. It was a December with the wintry sun, shining into the brightness of the day. The sunshine and cold, the sparkle and...

The warm bronze sunlight was swallowed by the horizon. The bright sunny day engulfed in darkness. In the far distance, the silhouette of the skyline pierced through the warm glow like a jagged mountain ridge. Millions of lights caused the dense mass of skyscrapers glitter. By nightfall the familiar trees and rocks of the daytime took on new and ominous forms. It was as if by stealing their colors, the night also stole their friendly spirits and replaced them with malicious demons. Looking out from the top floor of his building, Raul was looking out of the window of his office, waiting for the computer to churn out the results. The search query on the computer was taking too much time. Back from inside his office, he heard a chime. It was his cell phone announcing a call. He walked back into the office to answer the call "Hello" said Raul. "You talk to everyone else..but not me" She said sobbing and disconnected the call. It was jane. Raul was stunned, "...

He thought he heard a knock on the glass door. Raul looked up from the computer, to see whose knocking on his cabin door. It was Diana Kobka with a cup in her hand. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Immersed in his work, he has forgotten everything happening around him. He looked at the large clock kept on the wall, it was quarter past 5 in the evening. Diana knocked again. "Oh..sorry!", saying that Raul pressed the button on the wall near him to unlock the glass door, letting her in. "Sir, tea", she kept the tea on the table. "Oh!! Thank you" Raul responded leaning back on the chair. "So, you done for today?" asked Raul "Yes Sir, Sonya is waiting outside for me and I am waiting for the server backup process to conclude" said Diana."Sir you look tired.!" Raul gave a wry smile "Haven't we all! A major release is coming this fall and everyone is running like a race horse against the clock." ...

Raul, never had many friends. He kept only a very few, a handful literally. The colleagues at his work place, mostly never made it into his friends list. In the world of information technology, it is not a joke when some one says, they barely know the person sitting next to them in a cubicle. It is a hard reality, an occupational hazard. Everyone are tasked to squeeze the double into every passing second. It is not just a race against time what a professional does inside the maze of cubicles, but spinning faster in their spots, than the planet earth itself. For Raul, who was heading two departments, he was on warp speed trying to stick with his schedules. When he goes home after work, he lie down on a comfortable couch reading books With news on TV in the background, no communication with friends or others. Loneliness brings life into another realm. In the  quietness, there is a new beginning for humankind, to think more and think from themselves. For Raul, loneliness and solitude...

Raul felt much better after a shower. Going back into the cabin, he changed into  white t-shirt, with a  peach colored shirt over it  and pulled up a blue jeans.  He more or less live in denim 24/7. The air inside the cabin was perfumed, by the scent of the lemon grass and musk from his clothes.There is something unsettling about the smell. It has a familiarity, that took him way, back in his life. The smell engulfed him and he smiled. She had me surrounded - he thought as he adjusted his hair looking at a small mirror on the cabin wall. The train has ample storage space, under the bed. He lifted the  bed to place his backpack inside and closed it, tugged on the lock of the backpack to see if it fastened well. He drew the window curtains back, kept the pillows properly and placed the folded blanket and bed-sheet on top of it. The phone charger was kept near the mineral water bottle on the coffee table. He took a good look inside the cabin and taking a mental ph...

Raul scrolled through the pages of Московские новости ( Moskovskiye Novosti ),reading about the news and happenings in Moscow. It is only very recently he started using smart phones. He kept himself disconnected from the networked world as much as possible. He preferred old bulletin boards and online forums than using social media. He found these online forums more informative and rational than the rabid Social media. The bulletin boards these days are like an old lost forgotten civilization,  only a handful kept alive by the old timers with their personal servers at home. He visited these bulletin boards because, he could learn reliable information from them. With his alter ego, he is sensibly active on these forums. Even though he is a hard core Information Technology professional, it is an irony that his personal life adapted very late to these technologies and was rustic. He bought his first iPhone only a couple of months back. Till then he used the basic mobile phone for e...

Raul got inside the farmhouse with Sunil behind him. On the wooden rocking chair, closer to the far wall sat Mr.Wilson looking straight at him. His mind was a surging perplexity. Just when we think we are the master of our thoughts fate takes a new turn. Emotions come like hands on the wheel of a "car," taking us somewhere different to the place we had expected. The destination may be beautiful or insufferable; yet feeling afraid for it is all new and the heart beating all the harder. "Raul...take a chair", he felt the hands of Sunil on his shoulder, nudging him gently to the wooden chair next to him. Raul sunk in the wooden chair. He felt the chill of the cold wood through the denim blue jeans he wore. His eyes was still adjusting to the  luminous of the solar lanterns that almost faded into the darkness few feet away from the lantern itself. Sunil, left them at the hall and went into the kitchen. Raul felt that the anticipation was a nervous kind of energy....

Back at Atlanta Inc. Raul maintained his cover, as an operative for Mr.Wilson. His constant engagements with the CEO went unnoticed by others, as he also headed the R&D ( Research and Development ) division, directly under the purview of the higher offices. The tasks assigned to him by Mr.Wilson were becoming more complex and time consuming. Raul had been an operative for so long now that he no longer remembered what it was like to be himself. He was either the person undercover, roles he adapted to so well and it was like an alternative life. When he immersed into his assignments, he was the professional, executing orders, giving reports and being debriefed. The man he had been, the one who skipped stones into the winter ocean , who painted oil paintings and pencil sketches, was all gone. Mr.Wilson really knew how to feed the lone wolf inside Raul. Wilson have found a way to do his job nice, neat and clean. It was a Sunday late afternoon in June . Mr. Sunil Joseph, his former...

Raul studied each photos which was sent to him, zooming on them. He wanted those photos to talk to him. He seem to recognize the gray building in the picture. "Was it the 'ONE TEASPOON CAFE?'"- He asked to himself. The brick walls, the green thicket on the right, the steel gray painted lower wall, everything looked very familiar to him. He zoomed in on the yellow number plate, of a car in the picture. The code 777 on  the right hand corner of the number plate confirmed that these photos were indeed taken in Moscow. The picture sent to him seemed very recent. Raul smiled at the thought that, Mr. Wilson already has spotters at Moscow keeping an eye on the clients. Raul decided to do some Digital Recon on these six individuals he was about to meet in another days time. Digital Reconnaissance and Surveillance was something that Raul mastered over the years, it was one of his other skill that made him valuable. Today, the world operates on a digital landscape. Wearable te...

Raul finished his breakfast, drank from the bottle of mineral water and wiped his mouth with the tissue paper. He felt full.  That will hold him for another few hours, he thought. He went out of the cabin to put the dispensable box in the garbage box. On his way back he bought tea bag from the conductor's cabin and made himself a hot tea from the samovar. By character, Raul could disconnect himself from the world around him and still keep his pace. He is a silent soul always keeping everything to himself. He didn't make much friends at work place, it was all business for him. His social circle is very limited to a few, that lived Kilometers away from his home. Raul was the lone wolf, that he made himself to be. Irony is that an actual "wolf" has far less chance of survival on its own. Whereas a "lone wolf" human has a much better chance of survival based on their level of ruggedness and intelligence. Many of the beaver trappers and mountain men of wester...