Jas (short Story)

In a small town down in Punjab, an average family lived in an average home

who seemed to be getting frustrated with everyday life. The frustration was

mostly done by my parents, I Jasjeet was also a regular kid who was a small

average kid in grade 7 and played cricket like everyone else. One day the

whole India shook with fear in 2008 when Pakistani terrorists had gone on a

murder spree. They had killed over a hundred people, police, women, children

were gunned down in hotels and the terrorists had done so in such a strategic

manner, that they bombed many places as a diversion before hitting their

last target. When it came time, they went to a Bombay where there were a

few iconic hotels, a place where tourists would come to enjoy. Most people

died by the hail of bullets and shrapnel from grenades, some also died in the

stampede. This frightened everyone specially my paranoid mother who's

Canadian visa had just been accepted like ours. She forced my dad to buy the

tickets the very next day for the first flight out of here, which happened to be

a month later since all others were booked. Till the day of the flight they were

tense, although I was doing the same things I used to do.

My dad was a drinker, not a heavy one but a drinker all the same. He was busy

working almost all day trying to make new contacts, making blue prints for

house (he was an architect) checking and double checking everything. He was a

hard worker and had a very good future ahead, a slight change of scenery from

India to Canada wasn't going to stop his from being the rich guy he wanted

to become. Right before leaving we all decided that we should sell of our old

house so that we have a good amount of money when we get there. I of course

did not say anything since I was so young.

The whole month we were making big plans as to what we will do once we

get there, both my parents coming up with bright ideas like "We should rent

a house first and get a job to get a good mortgage for our own house." "We

should pay whatever money we get from this house and buy a new one in

Surrey" Oh.. How great these ideas sounded at first. My father had a cousin

in Delta, a small city neighbouring Surrey, who was going to find a reasonably

priced house for rent. Everything was planned out perfectly.

A week before the flight, my mother packing things then unpacking them

because the weight of the bag exceeded the limit. She was in such a rush that

if anyone got in her way, she would simply shove them aside and start bitching

at them for not helping but no one could really help because she wasn't

explaining anything. So my mom finished packing my dad's bag and mines a

day before the flight. Because the flight was late in the evening we spent the

whole day meeting with relatives and close friends which, as expected it, took

a long time. We were saying goodbyes, exchanging gifts and my relatives were

asking me when I was going to come back. This seems redundant to me now

as i think back, because I honestly was stupid and naive. After all the goodbyes

were done, we took a cab to the airport since no one had a car big enough to

fit 6 suitcases in.

The airport was huge and my mom constantly told me to stick with her, I was

getting annoyed because she said this often. I was in awe of everything around

me, it was s clean and The flight was not long and tedious because they all

slept through most of it. Once they landed, they booked a room at a nice hotel

and got all the paper work done that same day since the flight landed in the

early morning. I remember feeling exauhsted and was wondering why I felt this

since I had been sitting down for the past day. My mom explained to me later

this was called jet lag since we switched time zones. Everything was different

there, the air was much cleaner and you could smell the freshness. All around

me were white people who didn't seem to care a family of brown people just

walked into this country. It took a while to get through customs but the second

I stepped outside I was overwhelmed by what I saw... The whole place around

me was so green and beautiful, the sun was shinning bright but it was not hot

rather a little chilly. Women wore different clothes, the people had a cetain

friendliness to them that made you want to talk to them, everything seemed

wonderful.

We were waiting right outside the airport for my dad's cousin who was

supposed to pick us up but was nowhere to be found. We had his number and

called him atleast 20 times but no one picked up, my was getting scared and

my sister was angry like my dad but there was nothing we could have done.

We