THE WANDERER

She stared at the wrinkly, aged skin that framed his forlorn eyes. His silver brows – perhaps over a metre long – hung freely by the sides of his face, blending seamlessly into the long, white mane that flowed down his shoulders.

She cocked her head, trying to make sense of what he had just said. The old man – or the Wise One as he claimed – spoke in undecipherable riddles. His quotes of wisdom were often too profound for her to understand, and she was growing tired of trying to wrap her head around them.

“Excuse me?”

Ravi leapt from his seat in response to the sudden interruption, catching his book in time right before it fell off his lap. He looked up to see a young man smiling sheepishly at him as he leaned against his large, grey luggage. His passport, flight ticket and mobile phone were all delicately sandwiched between his long fingers, where the gleam of a few silver rings caught Ravi’s eyes.

“May I know where the...uhh...departure hall is located?” the man asked while grinning, his voice carrying a heavy foreign accent. “Sorry for the interruption.”

“Oh, erm...” Ravi started, sitting up. He noted how the stranger got a little taken aback by his exceptionally low voice. “It’s that wa-“

As he attempted to gesture leftwards, Ravi felt his fingers brush against the other’s mobile device before he looked down and saw it slip from the man’s grip. His eyes widened in shock as he watched the phone soar through the air, the frightening double-thud of its contact with the hard ground ringing through his head instantaneously.

“Oh -“

This time, it was a triple-thud.

The men froze as they stared silently at the two identical mobile phones now flat on the ground. In haste to catch the falling device, Ravi had dropped his as well, and it did not take the two men long to drop to their knees and sweep up their own phones, laughing.

“Oops, I’m really sorry about that,” Ravi looked up at the stranger apologetically and anxiously, scanning his face for any signs of displeasure. Thankfully, he looked equally amused.

“It’s alright!” the man chimed back, almost too forgiving. He pointed to Ravi’s phone. “That…we’re equal,” he added cheekily.

Ravi noticed how the man’s eyes formed thin, black curves as he grinned. He tightened his grasp on his phone, mentally noting the punishment - as the man had pointed out - that his device had immediately suffered. Even though he thought he deserved it, it nevertheless pained his heart. Inspecting the screen closely, he was relieved that there was no damage. The man, on the other hand, did not seem to bother checking his.

“Oh and as I was saying,” Ravi continued, “it’s that way...and you’ll need to take the elevator up a storey.”

“I see! Thank you!” the man exclaimed excitedly. Pulling his eyes away from the direction of the lifts, he took a glance at his watch. ”Oh – I gotta go!” he managed to add, before running off with his luggage. Despite his large stature and the cool leather jacket he donned, the way he ran made him look like a child. Ravi watched his fluffy, hazel hair bounce in the wind. He finally disappeared into the lift, but not before flashing a bright smile and waving.

Ravi chuckled and returned the man’s wave. He could not help but notice how exceptionally lively the man was for a traveller at the airport. Having been a frequent visitor of the place, he had seen more tired and jet-lagged faces than any other. Strangely, the cheerfulness he radiated seemed a little too contagious and genuine; in fact, that put up by the airport staff here paled in comparison.

Returning to his seat, he opened his book. In the moment of responding to the interruption, he had not managed to bookmark his progress. He flipped the pages hurriedly, scanning the text for the paragraph where he had left off.

“Succumb not to toxicity,” the Wise One repeated, “but to the intrinsic failure to recognise that the viper’s bite is antidote as much as it is venom to the soul.”

She maintained her doubtful expression. It surprised her how he even knew of animals - let alone snakes - given that he could have only existed in this deserted place his whole life. Here, it echoed lifelessness; it was more barren than the surface of the Moon. How she wished what surrounded her was the Garden of Eden instead; she would not mind meeting a poisonous serpent if it meant she could have a companion – despite its inherent evilness – to keep her loneliness at bay.

“I demand an explanation, old man. A comprehensible one.”

“And would you stop disappearing whenever I say that,” she added, before the divine being could fade into nothingness as quickly as he had materialised, knowing his antics like the back of her hand.

The Wise One managed a soft sigh.

“The wanderer rescues she whom he asks for directions, for the truly lost is, my dear, not the wanderer.”

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“Dude, there’s no time to talk – you’ve got to come with me right now. To the helpdesk.”

“What the hell?! I just got off the plane-“

“Yeah, I know and I’m sorry that the first thing you get isn’t a welcome hug or something,” Ravi snapped as he cut Hongbin off. “Guy has my phone and for all I know my pictures and texts could be on their way to some foreign land right now.”

“Erm...what? Your phone...it’s in your hands. Are you not holding it,” Hongbin remarked, unalarmed and visibly cross about the reception, or lack thereof, for his first return to the country in months. Burdened with the load of multiple bags, he struggled to catch up with his older twin.

“It’s not mine. We’ve got the same model. They’re identical. He dropped his. No, I dropped his. Then I dropped mine. We must have got them mixed up. Oh , what do I do,” Ravi hastily explained as they both sped in what he hoped was the right direction. “He was holding a ing plane ticket.”

“How the hell did you fail to recognise that it wasn’t your device,” Hongbin questioned, suspicion apparent in his tone of voice. Despite Ravi’s vague recount, he was excellent at putting the pieces together, and did not seem bothered to inquire further. “Dude never fails to amaze me,” he mumbled softly.

Ravi kept silent. His sibling was right; it was extremely careless of him to not have realised that he had picked up the stranger’s device instead. The fact that he had not discovered the mistake, until an hour had passed since they had both parted ways, made the situation even worse. Under Ravi’s meticulous care (except that drop just then) his device had never looked any newer, despite a year of usage. It seemed like the man’s phone was similarly free of any chip or crack; there was, then, no way the devices could be distinguished - of course, apart from the unfamiliar wallpaper and alien language he had come face-to-face with just ten minutes ago.

 “I tried calling myself. He didn’t pick up,” Ravi finally added. “And...The caller tone sounded weird.”

“Perhaps, there’s no reception,” Hongbin replied. “The plane’s probably taken off.”

 Seeing Ravi’s face change, he quickly changed his stance. “Uhh...it could have also been because it was an international call, I guess? Roaming calls tend to sound different.”

 Ravi paused in his steps as he carefully considered Hongbin’s words. “He was a foreigner, from I-don’t-know-where.”

“Or thief,” Hongbin suggested. “Wouldn’t have worked without a very gullible victim, though.”

“Shut up.”

“If only you had listened,” Hongbin continued in a mocking tone, reaching out to inspect Ravi’s new gadget. “I remember reminding you thrice to use that case I got you last year. The Hello Kitty one. Now it seems like you never listened.”

“For god’s sake, could you speak some useful stuff, say, contribute some solutions?” Ravi rolled his eyes, regretting even thinking that his younger brother might be of any help. Fortunately, they had arrived at the helpdesk and Hongbin could save his nonsense for a better time.

Ravi waited anxiously as the service officer retrieved the day’s list of scheduled flights to Korea. The lady had recognised that the phone language was set to Korean – the likely clue to the stranger’s nationality and flight destination.

Internally, he could not help but reproach himself as he felt anxiety and worry build up within. His phone contained important information: sensitive messages and pictures that were all too dear to him, certain memories he could never in his lifetime afford to lose. Just the thought of someone else looking through the unsecured information, and the possibility of losing data altogether, was heart-wrenching.

The man wouldn’t leave without retrieving his phone, Ravi assured himself, eyeing the device in his hands. The lock-screen and wallpaper – pictures of the man with some other people – were undoubtedly personal. From that fact, along with the encounter with his enthusiasm and sincerity, he refused to believe the man was a thief as Hongbin had put it. He wouldn’t trade his own device for some gain.

“Even if he wasn’t some thief,” Hongbin started, as if reading his mind. “He might not have realised that he has your phone, maybe?”

Ravi remained silent. Hongbin had a point, but he was not being helpful. The dread only grew stronger by the minute.

“There’s a flight to Seoul leaving in fifteen minutes,” the service officer’s voice cut through like a sharp flash of hope. “The boarding gates have closed, though. I’ll see what I can do,” she added, reaching for the telephone, sounding visibly more concerned than the younger twin has been for the past five minutes. Nevertheless, Ravi’s heart sank upon hearing the news.

“Hey! Sir!”

Ravi spun around instantaneously, and his eyes met his. The same fluffy brown hair danced wildly as the man frantically waved his phone – Ravi’s phone – at its owner, the gleam of excitement and relief on his face mirroring that on Ravi’s.

“Your phone!” the man yelled, pointing to the one in Ravi’s hands. “And that’s mine, right?”

Ravi broke into a wide smile – the widest Hongbin had seen on his face in while. He treats it like treasure, he scoffed, eyeing the approaching stranger with interest.

“Man, I’ve finally found you,” Ravi gasped, approaching the man and switching devices in no time. “I thought you’d taken off with it!”

“Taken...off?” the man repeated, not understanding his words. Hongbin chuckled.

“Left. Departed. Flown off,” Ravi replied, pausing as he remembered something important. “Wait, were you not in a rush? Have you...uhh...missed the flight?” he questioned, recalling that the boarding gates have closed.

“Yes and it’s all your fault,” Hongbin interrupted in a high-pitched voice. “I demand compensation.”

Ravi ignored the younger one as he impatiently waited for the man to respond. He was guilty enough that he had dropped the man’s phone an hour ago, and was not ready to hear that he might also be responsible for his missed flight.

 The stranger laughed at Hongbin, but quickly shook his head in reassurance.

“My flight leaves in two hours,” he stated as he watched relief take over Ravi’s face. “It’s just that there was a meeting to take place. I was in a hurry to meet someone.”

“Ahh, that’s good to hea-“

“I still can’t believe how two people can mix up their own mobile gadgets,” Hongbin cut through, eyeing both men with doubt. He turned to Ravi. “Now that the clear-headed one is here, I’d advise you to check if your phone has been tempered with...before he leaves again,” he whispered, although it was clear that he was more trusting of the stranger than he sounded.

Ravi complied, knowing that Hongbin made sense. “Check yours, too,” he gestured to the man. “If you want.”

Ravi knew he could probably trust the stranger. His chats were still intact, though he would never be sure if they had been browsed through. His photo gallery – his ultimate treasure – was passcode-locked, so that could not have been accessed anyway. Hongbin was less trusting, insistent on running the device through some bug-detector app lest their future actions be tracked.

“It’s alright. There’s no need,” the man replied, stuffing his phone into his pocket and flashing his signature eye-smile. “I believe you.”

This made Ravi feel a little guilty as he watched Hongbin furiously type a long series of codes on his device.

“By the way, that’s a cute dog,” the stranger added.

Ravi flushed a little as he realised that the man was talking about his wallpaper. Indeed, his French Bulldog was one of the most adorable things he knew, and he loved it with his life.

“Uhh, thank you,” Ravi replied. He thought that the way the man had praised was equally cute.

“I think it’s clear,” Hongbin interrupted the two as he closed the anti-bug software of Ravi’s phone. He handed the device back to its owner as he glanced over at the stranger. “Bon voyage.”

The stranger grinned. “Uhh, yes. Have a good day!” He chirped, checking his watch and turning to leave, but not before waving like child, just like he did in the lift. Ravi noticed for the first time that his arm was tattooed.

“Hold on,” Ravi began. The stranger stopped in his tracks, curious and a little startled.

“That snake,” he said, subtly pointing to the stranger’s arm. “It’s cute too.”

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