Moments

It was a hot Wednesday morning when I received a call from my boss.

-Hello, Jake?

-Yes. Good morning, sir.

-Good morning Jake. How are you?

-I’m doing well, sir. How about you?

-I’m good as well. Thanks. Hey I wanted to invite you for a tour to Canada. It’s for some paleontological (fossil studies) research work. Are you interested?

-Yeah! Sure. It would be my pleasure.

-So we’ll talk about this stuff tomorrow. Okay?

-Sure, sir!

-Have a nice day, Jake.

-You too, sir. See you tomorrow.

And this was the phone call which was about to bring a big change to my entire life…

I’m Jake by the way, 23 and working as paleontologist. I lived in an apartment and used to withdraw a handsome amount of money every month. I’m currently working in Tokyo, Japan…

So I was quite excited about the tour to Canada. Whenever I hear ‘Canada’, a nostalgic place comes into my mind. With a lonely wooden house with yellow bright lights lit inside and snow everywhere. And the whole scene in a bright moonlight and lots of snow covered mountains and a dense forest nearby.

“THIS WOULD BE AWESOME!” I screamed but the owner of my house shouted, ‘’shut the f*ck up you moron!’’  So instead to getting mad at the owner and getting house-less, I just concentrated on my coffee. That day I had a day off just to relax at home and enjoy the day. I played video games, listened to some music, had brunch, chatted with some friends online and finally the dinner and went to sleep. I was excited for my tour and at last, I was asleep.

The next morning, I got up early, quickly got ready and headed to my office.

-There you are Jake! Dr. Whittaker (he’s my boss) exclaimed.

-Good morning, Sir!

-Good morning, Jake. So you excited for the tour?

-Of course sir.

-I knew that. So here’s the programme. The Paleontologist branch of Canada claims to have found a rare fossil so I’m sending a team from here for some research work of that fossil. (*little pause*) sounds interesting, right?

-Yeah. How many people are going then?

-They are 10 in total.

-When are we going then?

-Umm. It’s the upcoming Friday.

-Oh it’s too early than I expected. I was expecting it to be next month.

-I know it’s… Erm A ‘bit’ early… But you can manage I know.

And then as the days passed, I was getting more and more excited. We were supposed to take off to Canada from Tokyo International Airport on Friday at 8:20 pm.

The tickets were booked already and it was on Thursday that I packed all my stuff. The next day I met my team. Even Stanley was there in the team. Stanley was my best friend. Then we had half a dozen more friends and a couple of more. I thought that my trip will be more excited because Yen was also there in the team. She’s a pretty Japanese woman, of same age as mine and also my co-worker and my crush too.

That evening, we headed to the airport. As we boarded our plane, we sat on our respective seats. Luckily I got the window seat… moreover, a seat next to Yen.

We all were chirping like high school students. As everyone was talking I started talking to Yen.

Very soon we were announced that our plane is about to take off. I noticed Yen was getting excited to watch the view outside when the plane takes off. I offered her my seat.

-No! Sit down. We cannot change our seats. She said.

Also the Air hostess ordered me to sit on my seat. I again asked Yen to exchange our seats and as the air hostess turned around, we changed our seats. But she noticed us changing our seats so she asked why I did this.

-I was on wrong seat earlier.

-What’s your name? She asked.

-Its Yenji. There’s a typing error on my ticket and its written Yen.

I said this with a little blush on my face and all my co-workers stared at me like I’ve killed someone. They all were like – is he crazy or what.

The air hostess stared at me for some seconds and then agreed and now I was sitting on Yen’s seat. As the air hostess went back, Yen and I chuckled looking at each other.

And the plane took off.

It felt like a huge bunch of butterflies pushing my stomach inwards and my ears were about to pop inwards. And with all this, we were in air. Tokyo city looked incredible at night from above.

It would take quite long to reach Canada, so nearly everyone was asleep. I just closed my eyes and waited my sleep to come but probably I won’t get any because Yen’s arm was on mine. Neither I could pick her arm nor could I just pull my arm so I just tried not to move my arm too much. I woke up early in morning, blushing hard when I noticed that we had our fingers interlocked. I was like- OH MY GOD!!!

But she was asleep still. I un-lacked our fingers and sat like nothing happened. We already landed at night to refuel the plane and now again we were about to reach our destination.

Yen got up. She was looking cute that moment.

-“Hey Yen?” I said.

-“Yes.” *while looking at me* she said

-Hey listen. I’m sorry what ever happened at night. I… I just…

-What are you talking about, silly? Are you awake or still sleeping?

I was happy she didn’t come to know what I was talking about.

-Good morning! I said with a smile.

-Good morning to you too.

And with that we smiled at each other.

We were about to reach our destination in few hours. And we had nothing to do to kill the time except to stare down from the window. I had pity on those people who could not even have a look down as they’re too far from the window maybe I was lucky to have the ‘best’ seat on the plane. The air hostess stared at me with a weird look.

So we were about to land. As the plane went down, I felt my ears going to pop out and again the butterflies started pushing the wall of my belly and with a jerk, we landed.

As we de boarded our plane, it was icy cold outside. It was different from what I really expected. The hard wind was trying to blow our team off the airport but we all had a heavy ass.

We waited outside the office for our luggage and as we received them, we had to wait for a long time for the company cup. It was already 1 pm and we very ‘chilling’ outside the airport. It was damn cold there.

Finally the company bus arrived at around 2:30 pm. As the bus stopped, a white man de boarded the bus and said,

-Good afternoon, Ladies and gentlemen. We’re sorry for the delay. I’m Dr. Mark, the head of the Canadian branch of Palaeontology.

And we all were like -*F*ck you and let up come in*.

And we all felt a heaven within up when the driver switched on the ac.

Dr. Mark announced that it may take us long to reach as the weather was getting worst.

Also our destination was far off and again I got a seat behind Yen’s. She was alone and I was sitting with Stanley. I thought a lot and finally sat with Yen.

As time passed, weather was getting worst and in no time it started to snow. It was almost dark outside and hard wind blew all over the place. The driver drove the bus very slowly and it was around 7 pm that he had to stop the bus. We all were staring outside, watching the snow fall. And as it was getting late, the driver decided to drive. It was snowing hard and we had a lot of distance to cover. We didn’t even move 30 meter that the engine jammed. We waited there. Some of us even slept and around 12 am someone exclaimed that the snowstorm has ceased. We decided to move on foot and every one gathered courage and we headed to our destination.

It was really very cold and the snow was touching our shin. I was holding Yen’s hand. We covered some distance and again the weather was getting bad. Again a snowstorm struck up. It became foggy in no time. We weren’t able to see our team mates. Yen and I kept walking straight hoping that we’re just behind the team but unfortunately, we were already lost.

We didn’t see anybody around up except the snow. Our cell phones didn’t have signal. We still kept walking and finally saw a cliff. The snow was dense so we didn’t know whether we were on the road or not.

“Let’s wait there near that cliff.” I said.

We somehow went there and fortunately we found a small cave. Not too warm, nor too big but it wasn’t less than a miracle.

“It’s still cold here. Check your luggage if we could find something.” Yen said.

We had some warm clothes which we wore but it didn’t helped much.

-I’m sacred, Jake. Can’t we do anything?

-We can just wait here till the storm ceases.

And I held her hand in mine and hugged her to my chest so she would feel comfortable.

We were sitting quite close to each other so it won’t feel cold and we were already sleepy. At around 3 or 4 am, I peeped out of the cave.

“Hey Yen! YEN! SEE THIS!” I said.

She was already sleepy but she had a fantastic glare in her eyes when we saw greenish blue aurora in the clear sky.

We got out of the cave and just looking at the beautiful sky.

-Isn’t it beautiful? I said.

-Yeah. I love it. I hope this moment never ends.

And for next couple of hours we were watching the beautiful sky and as the sun rose, it was getting even more wonderful. Then later we carried our luggage and moved on. We found our team few hours later. Actually they found us.

-“We were so worried about you both. Are you both alright?” Stanley asked.

-yeah! I said. And Yen and I had a deep smile in our heart.

-So let’s move on. Said Stanley with a relief…

This was the day from which Yen and I became more close and after completing our research work, we went back to Japan and there we got married..

 

I still can’t forget that day and every time I read this, it reminds me about my family… My wife, Yen and my daughter Aura… Those were some beautiful moments I want to share with everyone.The moments of the day I met my soulmate… The best moments of my  life…

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