My eyes had widened with horror as such a surreal scene unfolded in front of me. But then within a blink of an eye, he looked normal again, as normal as an average human. I shook my head in confusion.

By then the person had shifted his attention to the papers he was holding. "Ahem!" he cleared his throat. But it wasn't loud enough to get enough attention.

Then he, with a high and heavy voice announced, "I would hereby like to announce the will of late Mr. Takeshima."

The whole room instantly dropped silent. Outside a breeze blew as the pine leaves rustled with some unknown ecstasy. Somewhere some birds started chirping.

I felt like a Greek drama had been unfolding in front of me. All the people and their chaos had been frozen by the stare of Medusa. All pairs of eyes were fixed upon the podium upon which the strange person was standing. And probably I had been the only one to notice, that there was an almost invisible devilish smirk waved through his face, accompanied by his vicious eyes.

It took a few seconds for everyone to regain their senses.

"Who do you think you are?!" Somebody yelled out.

He repositioned his spectacles with his middle finger. The lenses reflected the light, obscuring his eyes behind it.

"I am his legal advisor and lawyer." He said, and then paused for a while, "I will speak quickly, without wasting much of your precious time." He smirked, “I think all of you will be glad to hear that the late Mr. Takeshima was a really big-hearted person. He was generous enough to donate all his properties to the temple."

The rustling of the leaves outside got drowned by the eruption of angry screams and yells. It was such an uncomfortable situation that we decided to leave. We almost crawled out of the place. It was only weeks later that father got a call from the lawyer and came to know that he had inherited the house as a part of the will.

We could have easily sold the house, but my parents didn’t want to sell such an antique place. Especially considering the fact that Takeshima grandpa had trusted our father enough to will him the building. Selling that would be such a betrayal to his trust. Also, my parents were craving for a place far away from the commotion of the city. So this came to them as a blessing, as four of us could barely fit in the small apartment of ours.

So here I was, weeks later, lying on my bed, in my room. It was a really small and claustrophobic place, with a single bed consuming ninety percent of the tiny room, beside that, there was a small desk with piled up books. And I must mention the chair, which I also had been using as a makeshift wardrobe.

I had never understood why people usually tend to favour larger places to live in. Since childhood, I had always preferred small confined places. I could even remember the time when I used to hide in a cardboard box, and perhaps that was why I liked this little room of mine very much.

The white bed sheet was crumpled under me. A faint scent of detergent was wafting out of the fabric. The temperature was dry and hot. The screeching ceiling fan was screeching above me, failing to provide me with the required coolness as mild perspiration oozed out of my skin.

There was a window right towards the head of my bed, which I considered the best thing in my whole room. If you sat on the bed or lie down on your stomach, facing the window, you would get an amazing panoramic view of the cityscape.

The bright sunlight was pouring into the room from the window. The vast city was stretched out in front of me. Our neighbourhood was mostly congested with several residential complexes. The narrow streets and alleys had intertwined with each other, reminding me of the pictures I had studied in the school of veins and arteries of the human body. A small stream had flowed through a little far away. On the horizon, the gigantic skyscrapers were looming large.

I had always thought that Sundays had a special kind of aura, especially summer Sundays, such as today. The roads were quite empty as I couldn’t notice the usual rush. There was a park far away where specks of children were playing. And the buzzing of cicadas was even reaching my room.

The weather was my favourite. The sky had taken a deep shade of blue. There was a mild breeze that was kissing my face, caressing my hair. The clouds were slowly soaring through the sky like huge white cotton candies. I have always thought that those clouds were hiding some strange alien spaceships within them. I tried to look hard, wondering if I could get a glimpse if there were really some spaceships hiding inside the clouds or not. But the bright sunlight didn’t let me stare much longer.

I rubbed my eyes and looked outside again. That was when I suddenly noticed something. It was a pale black microscopic dot far away. It was getting bigger slowly like it was flying towards me. I narrowed my eyes, straining them, and realized it was some sort of a bird, a big black kind.