He looked at the wrinkled, peach coloured, pear shaped, orange sized, succulent fruit at the top of the pyramid like arrangement of whatever fruits they were, with curious brown eyes. His mouth salivated at the thought of biting one of them. He withdrew from the fruit and sighed.

  If only I knew where I was and what I have to do to earn a living here.

  The shopkeeper looked at him questioningly and when he did not respond, he asked, “Don’t you want it, boy?”

  The language sounded new, yet familiar. He didn’t know how he understood an unknown language. “How much is it?” He thought he asked in English, yet the words came out in a tongue he didn’t know. He understood perfectly well what he had said though.

  “Where are you from, boy? Do you really want to pay me for food?” the shopkeeper asked. He was dressed in a loose white shirt with the first three buttons unbuttoned, revealing grey chest hair. The last three buttons helped the shirt stay in place around his well-endowed belly. Large, damp patches dotted the shirt.

  “You mean I can take it and eat it without paying you?” the boy asked in the unknown language. He was dressed in a loose buttonless cream shirt and brown trousers. The shirt stuck to his torso and he kept pulling it away. The lack of movement of the air did little to help the boy or the merchant much in the sweltering weather. He was standing in a market of sorts, with merchants and shopkeepers displaying their wares in neatly arranged shapes, some on carts and some on jute mats on the floor. Most of them were selling fruits.

  A patchwork cloth tent hovered above their heads - square and rectangular patches of violet-red, blue, maroon clothes stitched together and held up by woden poles that dotted the stone floor. The floor was made of yellowish sandstone arranged in a raised mosaic pattern.

  The man stopped twirling his moustache, leant forward on his cart, picked one fruit from the very top of the pyramid and handed it over to the boy.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled. He took a bite. Juices flowed into his mouth and some of the molecules instantly crossed the mucosal barrier, entered the blood stream and stimulated his brain, jogging his memories.

  “What is this fruit?”

  “You really are new here. Are you from Earth?”

  The boy nodded, looking confused. Is this not Earth?

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alyrman.”

  The merchant nodded. “Think of it like a cross between your oranges and peaches. These are Orachos. We have your fruits, too.”

  Alyrman wasted no time in finishing the energising fruit. He still couldn’t remember how exactly he ended up in a market on a non-Earth planet. “Where exactly am I?”

  “You are still in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, but in a different star system. This planet is called Girolden.

  ”Look around. See if you like it here. If you don’t, you can always go elsewhere.”

  “How do I earn my living? I don’t have any money with me.”

  “If you are worried about food, it is free here.“

  “I don’t have a place to stay.”

  “There is a place to sleep, for people like you.”

  “How old are you, Alyrman? Ten?”

  “I am twelve.”

  “Yeah, you look a little stunted, boy. Did you not get enough food where you grew up?”

  That did it. Alyrman’s memories came flooding back to him.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He was an orphan. He slept on the streets, doing menial jobs, mostly cleaning cars. He often had no money to even buy food. He remembered he had stolen a loaf of bread when he thought no one was looking.

  He had tried hard not to fall so low as to steal food but he had not got any work that day. No one seemed to want to get their cars cleaned that day. His stomach rumbled and he was feeling faint. He walked up to a bakery and asked the gruff looking man inside for a loaf of bread and some biscuits. He asked how much it would cost. Of course, he didn’t have any money on him. He asked the man inside to give him a bun instead; as soon as the man turned his back on him to get the bun, Alyrman picked up the bread and ran. The baker ran after him.

  Alyrman did not see the car that hit him but he remembered being thrown in the air for a few feet before landing on his head. He felt himself being picked up and then darkness. Then, he woke up and saw a man or a woman dressed in a gown, mask and cap holding an instrument and approach him. They focused a really bright light on his eyes. And then, blank. It was not darkness or light or anything in between. He just found himself in this market.

  Had I died? Was this heaven?

  “The food was too expensive,” he replied to the fruit man. “If you do not sell fruits, how do you make your living?”

  “Like I said, nobody charges for food here. I inherited some property from my parents. So, I don’t really have to work for money.

  “You see those mansions up there, behind us?” He pointed behind him.

  Alyrman came out of the shade of the tent and looked up at a hill. It looked like a hill but was made of huge buildings one behind the other, the tallest ones at the back and not so tall ones in the front. They were coloured differently, in shades of dark red, yellow, blue, pink, white and black too.

  “People who want to live there do things for money.”

  “Are you not interested in buying those mansions?”

  ”Nah. I am happy how I am. I grow these fruits in my fields. The harvest has been bountiful this time, so I am just sharing it here. I am happy with what I have. Only you earthlings seem so smitten by grandiose riches.”

  Alyrman wandered around, taking in the sights of the city. People lazed around at street corners, just sitting on the cobblestone, talking(some of them even waved at him), eating fruits and other foodstuff he didn’t recognize - long sticks that looked like they had been dipped in honey or something similarly sticky and juicy and then sugar and chips had been sprinkled over the coating. That’s what he assumed at least.

  He soon found the shopkeeper who was handing out these stick-candies and Alyrman was more than happy to try one when he found this was free too. This candy tasted even more wholesome than the fruit he had tasted earlier and was more filling as well. His stomach felt heavy after finishing it; a feeling he had never had on Earth.

  Let this please not be just a dream. It is alright even if I am dead and in heaven or hell(I did steal), but let it not be a dream. I do not want to go back there!

  The light started fading and the poles holding up the tent cast long shadows on the stone paths. Alyrman yawned and went looking for the fruit man. The fruit man was packing up his remaining fruits when he found him.

  “What is your name?”

  “I am Alyrman’s man,” he said and did not laugh.

  Alyrman, however, did laugh. “Come on uncle, please tell me your name.”

  “I am not joking, boy. That is my name.”

  Alyrman just stood there, hands on his hips, for a moment. “Alright, I can’t call you that, so I will call you fruit man then.”

  “You can call me what you want.”

  “Ok, fruit man uncle. Can you please tell me where I can stay for the night?”

  “Follow me.”

  Fruit man led him down narrower and darker paths till they came up on a tall, narrow building. It seemed to be made of the same yellowish stone that the paths were made of.

  How is it staying up? It’s so tall and narrow. If I built something like this, it wouldn’t stand for even a few seconds.

  “Just go in and tell your name, Alyrman.”

  “Thank you, fruit man. See you tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Alyrman walked through the arched, double swinging wooden door. One half of it was open. There was no guard. There was no compound wall. There was no gate. The door opened onto the street.

  He entered a dim antechamber. A glowing candle stood on a wooden desk. There was no one at the desk.

  “Hello. Is anyone there?”

  A short, bald man popped up behind the desk. Alyrman was sure he had popped into the room just then. “Hello, young man. I presume you are here to occupy your room. Can you please confirm your name?”

  “Alyrman.”

  “Very well. Follow me, young man.”

  He took the candle in his hand and led Alyrman up a winding, narrow staircase till they came upon the landing. Alyrman was not sure how many floors they had climbed, it was surely not one and they both were winded when they reached a narrow corridor. Candle in hand, the short man walked to a room, produced a brass key and turned it in the keyhole in the wooden door.

  “All yours,” he said and walked away after handing the key to Alyrman.

  Alyrman walked in and was surprised to see the living quarters already lit up by candles placed at strategic locations. He found a toilet to his left and after walking in further, he saw two wooden, cushioned chairs in front of a mini dining-cum-study table. To the left of the table was a mirror and to the right, behind the chairs, was a comfortably furnished double bed.

  This is much like the hotel rooms I have seen before. He had worked as a janitor, too, before.

  He saw himself in the mirror. I could well be Aladdin if I had a matching cap on.

  He crashed onto the soft mattress, the softest he had ever slept on, and fell asleep instantly, hoping he wouldn’t wake up back on Earth.