186186

     The midnight flight to Indianapolis was nearly empty. The lights flickered 
softly, and the air reeked of coffee and recycled exhaustion. I looked out of the 
window, more concerned with hiding my face than the view. My reflection stared 
back at me from the glass, distorted and broken by streaks of condensation —
hollow, unfamiliar, ashamed. Somewhere far below, the lights of my home town 
flickered like dying embers, fading with each mile. 

     Before I left, Baba had been standing by the door, one hand tightly gripping 
onto the frame as if holding himself up, the other dangling loosely by his side. 
He didn’t say much—he never did in moments like these. Just a soft nod, the 
kind that might have meant “Go,” or “Don’t worry,” or maybe even “Come back 
soon.” I didn’t ask which it was. I couldn’t. A part of me still remembered the 
days when his breath grew shallow, when COVID almost took him from me. 
The fear that had gripped me then had been my silent companion ever since. I 
couldn’t bring myself to let go back then—not after everything. But now, there 
was no choice. I was leaving. 

     When the car pulled away, I looked straight ahead, focusing on the road 
instead of the rearview mirror. The sound of the crunching gravel was the only 
thing anchoring me in the moment, but even that faded too quickly, leaving be-
hind a silence that felt suffocating. 

     I had meant to leave a note—something short, maybe a few words scribbled 
on a scrap of paper. But as I sat at the dining table that afternoon, pen over the 
page, nothing came. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I knew 
there wasn’t enough space to say it. How do you condense a lifetime of debt and 
guilt into a single sentence? 

     Baba had always held the belief that serving the homeland was a calling high-
er than any individual ambition. He never said it outright, but I knew he saw my 
decision to pursue an education abroad as a quiet surrender to a different ideal—a 
path he hadn’t chosen, one he might not have fully understood. Yet he never once 
tried to stop me.  

     Somewhere over the Atlantic, I reached into my bag and pulled out a packet 
of cashews Baba had slipped in without telling me. He always did that—packed 
something small, like a talisman against the unknown. I stared at the crumpled 
packet for a long time, the faded logo mocking me with its familiarity. I didn’t 
open it. 

Shyama Prasad Dash

The Midnight Flight



187

     In my mind, I kept replaying the last few weeks, the quiet rituals of leaving. 
Baba’s disapproval wasn’t loud; it was in the silences, the way he busied himself 
with my packing, his hands steady but his eyes betraying the weight of unspoken 
fears. I had felt the weight of his convictions over the years, and I knew that a 
part of him struggled to reconcile his ideals with the reality of my leaving. The 
way he handed me item after item to pack into the suitcases, how he folded my 
clothes with the care of someone piecing together something already falling 
apart, his silence at dinner, the unspoken things weighed heavier than words. 

     The night before I left, I found him sitting alone in the living room, his glasses 
perched on the edge of his nose as he pretended to read the newspaper. The ceil-
ing fan above him creaked faintly with each turn, and his tea, gone cold, rested 
on the arm of the chair. I wondered if he was replaying his own departure from 
his father’s house when he left his small village to make a life for himself in the 
city, decades ago. I didn’t ask. 

     As the engines settled into a quiet hum, the seatbelt signs turned off and the 
flight attendants got up to start the service. I hurriedly wiped my tears and settled 
in for the long journey ahead.  

     There is a peculiar weight to the moments we leave behind. A stray glance. 
A hand brushing the edge of a suitcase. The lingering smell of incense from the 
puja he performed that morning, as though offering our fates up to some higher 
power. I didn’t know if I believed in a higher power—if one existed, I had been 
damned for a long time. But he believed, so I closed my eyes and prayed, not for 
myself, but for him.