Fernweh

Prologue: Melanie

It was about 9 AM when she woke up due to the annoying alarm her assistant had set up. She hadn't gotten around to changing it. As she drudgingly walked towards the alarm, still half-asleep, she noticed she was in her living room and that she was still wearing the dress from the meeting last night. She scolded herself, for falling asleep in the living room, again.

She couldn't be blamed though. At work, she had a lot of talk scheduled every day, and with her recently winning the Miss India title, the work load had multiplied. She hadn't gotten much sleep recently. Her day was set up and slotted with meetings with the reporters, photo shoots, and her talk show occupied all the residual time. She almost forgot how her life was prior to the title. After college, she started her talk show, which gained popularity, and she lived the life she always wanted.

As soon as she switched off the crazy alarm, she looked at her room. It was a mess, as if an earthquake had struck when she was sleeping. The room decorated in a minimalistic way by one of her friends and looked like one of those rooms you see in the front cover of a magazine, now looked nothing like that. The bedsheets were crumpled, the pillows on the wooden floor, and beside it lay, shattered in pieces the vase that had been on the bedside table. She didn't remember the events of last night, nothing after she got back to the apartment and locked the door. A yawn escaped her mouth, as she put her hands on her face and a took a deep breath to compose herself. It was an hour before she cleaned everything and her apartment was back to normal. She, herself, then got ready.

After breakfast she found herself in the living room, lying on the sofa, snuggled under a blanket, watching TV. It was Sunday, and she had nothing scheduled for today. Her assistant said she'd call her if something came up. She was about to fall asleep again, when the something vibrated beneath her. Her phone had slipped into the slit in the sofa. As soon as she fished it out, and unlocked it, her inbox bombarded with calls, texts and messages from various people. She sorted through them. She hoped it was just people calling to schedule meetings. She skipped everything and called her assistant, Tina. She picked up immediately.

"Melanie, I've been trying to call you....", she said as soon as she picked up. Melanie wasn't in the mood for small talk.

"Why'd you call me?", she spoke curtly, wanting nothing more than to lie on the sofa with her cozy blanket above her.

"Um, something came up and I couldn't reschedule it.", she replied, quickly going into the details.

"Oh god", she slammed the phone into the sofa, in frustration. In the next hour, she changed into a white t-shirt and a leopard print skirt. She put on minimal makeup, to hide her dark circles and also wore her black shades. The makeup team would take care of the rest, before the meeting. She put on her heels and was out the door with her wallet and phone in hand.

Her driver was waiting for her downstairs. She got in the car and they were on their way to her office. It would take them quite some time to get to her office amidst the Mumbai traffic. A big city equaled annoying traffic, she thought. She took the time to go through the messages. Almost everything was work related. Except for one. Her group chat with her friends. Parker had got the Korean Fashion Week. She was happy for her, texted a congratulations to her, and was lost in her world as they moved through the city, inch by inch.