“Where would you like to be in the next 10 years?” the interviewer quizzed her.

The room went silent and the ceiling fan whirred in the nippy morning air. The interviewers, seated behind the wooden desk, were twirling their sharp pencils. It was six in the morning and sleep still lingered in their eyes. They muffled the yawns and smiled, trying hard to keep their eyes open. Her crisp suit smelled of fabric softener and Chanel. Whilst sitting on the lone chair, she fiddled with her fingers nervously. Then, with purpose in her eyes she began her answer…

“I want to work hard, slog day and night, to earn enough to stop working as a corporate machine. I want to take all my savings, pack my bags and grab my passport. I wish to travel to as many countries as I can and soak in the sunrises of distant lands. To keep an elaborate diary of the baffling people I would meet on these journeys. Fill its pages with the life experiences I would have. In the outback of Australia, under the clear night sky, I wish to dance with local tribes till my feet hurt and eat food cooked on fire in the company of bright constellations. I want to experience fleeting love in the picturesque cities I visit. To have tumultuous affairs in small towns and to experience overpowering nights full of lust and desire. I want to stay in a postcard-like European town and write a splendid book which children would read on a summer day long after I am gone. To work in an old woman's bakery and be light headed by the smell of fresh doughy bread and take up other small odd jobs. To care for and love a man who might speak a language I don’t understand.  Under the rusty lamppost on the bridge, I want to passionately kiss him and tell him that I love him.  And then never meet him again.  In this world of poverty and helplessness, I want to adopt children instead of burdening the earth with my own. Give them a safe future and help them achieve their dreams. I want to feel the anger and harassment of the mother who gave birth to a female child in a distant village in India and had to murder her own blood and flesh. I want to share her tears and beat up her perpetrators. I want to meet a hungry orphan in the slums of Senegal. I want to feel his agony. I want to feed him so I appreciate every morsel I am blessed with. I want to share the sorrow of an Afghan mother who lost her son to valley bombings. Under the pomegranate tree in her courtyard, I want to pray for her safety. I want to befriend a prostitute in a South American city and understand the dissonance of her feelings. Not to marry out of societal pressure but attend weddings of strangers and be drunk with merriment and wine. And learn to paint landscapes and play the piano in an Icelandic town. I want to experience the serenity of Beethoven's sonata in the cold night air of the Egyptian desert. I want to learn to cook exotic meat and be fluent in forgotten languages. In a geisha house, I want to drink sake and enjoy the waft of cheap perfume and feast my eyes on their elaborate make up & kimonos. To feel the rush and fear of visiting a new city and to cry my heart out while having to leave them behind. Life is short and I want to be a bird, to fly to strange wide lands and to soak in all fabulous escapades from around the world. If I die during this time, I want to die with a smile on my face and be buried near the sea to hear the gentle murmur of the waves. 

In the next 10 years, I want my life to be a breath taking story. “

The beep of the air conditioner brought her back to the room. She smiled slightly and recited the answer she had practiced the day before in front of the mirror. 

She got the job, the dream job, but she lost her adventure.