It was a comment from Christine Bialcziak on my story, and a request from me that she carry the story ahead, which started this….
She kindly did. Read both parts of the story at
He is on unfamiliar terrain.
The assignment is not clearly defined, he is not comfortable with local culture and his set of competencies cannot be put to use here. Vaguely, he thought of the celebrity singer who sat near Haji Ali, singing on a harmonium, and had collected twelve bucks for his talent. He used it to highlight the importance of the paraphernalia and supporting set-up which make one a star.
The sight of this box in the middle of the forest made him aware, that his journey to irrelevance is now complete.
How will he make a clean exit?
Will he make an exit at all? Who was he to think that something in life could simply be solved by discovering an old, useless appliance? There had to be more to this than he at first thought. He couldn’t move forward fully believing that irrelevance was his end game.
His first impulse was to walk away, walk away fast and not look back, not care about assignments or royalties. But the professional side took over and realized he had to move forward, this was his job, what he has worked for all of his life.
The next step in this assignment would be opening that appliance door to discover what lay inside. Would it be empty? Would this really be coincidental that he found this and it truly is irrelevant? That would mean he needed to continue his journey. He couldn’t leave this open ended.
If anybody wishes to carry the story ahead, you are most welcome to carry forward the chain. Don’t forget the two blogs which started it…
Reena Saxena 
Reblogged this on Stine Writing and commented:
Please contribute to this collection of writings! How fun to see how long this can go!
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Great! Thanks for carrying it forward 🙂
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