Kiran looked out of the window of his lavishly furnished studio apartment and watched the hazy twinkle of vehicles coasting along the highway. The summer evening sun shone disinterestedly, with just enough light to make the vehicles appear shinier than they really were.

Birds headed for their nests, sportsmen packed their kits, hawkers lit their lanterns, lovers cosied up, and the taxpayers – all but the Information Technology professionals – prepared to leave the drudgery of the day behind. Stuck in his apartment, Kiran didn't know any of this and so, was bored beyond measure.

The blinking amber of the indicator lights broke the monotony of the yellow and red head and tail lamp army – turned on earlier than usual – in a seeming parade. Vehicles turning left had their left indicators blinking, and those turning right had their right ones doing the same. The ones that went straight didn't have either on. 

It will be dark soon, and the road will look like a dance floor for the fireflies, Kiran pictured fireflies gyrating wildly to popular pop songs, as he ran his right index finger along the window made of twelve-millimetre laminated glass. How I wish I could punch straight through this, peep and find her waving at me from below! he thought and moaned in disappointment. He knew he wouldn't be able to punch a clean hole through the window even if he mustered all his strength and hurled the expensive maple rocking chair in his room at it. The lethal chair presently sat innocuously, still as a corpse.

The glass used in his window was laminated, tempered glass. Manufactured using the float process popularised by Sir Alastair Pilkington, laminated glass is perhaps the toughest of them all.

What made Kiran's window even tougher was that it had two six-millimetre thick tempered glass panels glued together around the edges using the finest clear silicone, and laminated using the finest Polyvinyl Butyral also known as PVB. In the event the glass broke, the stubborn overlay would ensure that the glass shreds stuck on to it instead of getting strewn around – like how the skin continues to enclose the bone-shreds of, say, a palm bludgeoned by a sledgehammer. Only, you don't need to take the window to the hospital.

How inconveniently secure, Kiran gnashed his teeth.

What made him feel worse was the fact that even if he got through the window, there would be no Sara waiting beneath, looking up in his direction. His heart laboured as though it were an engine revved by an impatient driver stomping on the accelerator pedal of a car that was on neutral, with its hand brakes up all the way.

Why care to break the window open when I can open it? Kiran made a suggestion to himself and, opened the window. He then beat the annoying, cool breeze, let his head dangle over the nothingness of the dimly lit evening, and looked for signs of Sara on the street. There were none.

Kiran sighed. Sara wasn't there just as he had thought and felt disappointed. He was pleased  that he was disappointed however, just as he had expected. 

The last thing I want is for disappointment to desert me too. Whatever it is, Sara better have a good enough reason for having cut off communications abruptly, he mumbled to himself.