It was breaking news online. Michael had sent messages to Nike and Lara on his arrival in the U.S. but of course Lara had been too busy to reply mails for some time now. He sent pictures he took during his tour and the last which was during celebration on the ship with the trainees. Nike was weak and in great distress. Her best friend, Mike was gone. She was scared and knew Lara would not be aware of the fact that Mike was on board. If she was she would‘ve called. How could she break the news of a missing Michael to her? She thought. Life was never the same and won’t be. She knew Mike was not a good swimmer at least, that was Mike in high school anyway, so, he could not have made it.
Lara actually heard, it was on her page. She saw the last pictures Mike posted. It was easy to put things together having heard of a ship wreck, the storm and the casualties, she just knew that was it. How could Mike have gone just like that? She thought. I didn’t even know he was in the U.S for Christmas. She said to herself.
Lara had been busy with work and all the adventures of Christmas and the goodies of the New Year. She hardly had time to chat online these past few months. May be if she had started the New Year with less work, she would have known Mike was around. May be she could have foreseen it and stopped it. She blamed herself.
The list of those who were on board was released. The survivors had been taken home, the body found in the sea was taken care of but three persons were still missing. The search was still on.
The Williams family was sad. Lara couldn’t just believe it. She wept for him. Despite the distance between them, Lara still missed him. Dan encouraged her to move on; it wasn’t the end of life. She knelt down and prayed.
“Keep my friend oh God.” and she meant it. She laid on the bed and wrapped a blanket round herself.
After some days, Lara had resumed back at work. She had a lot to do, seminars and conferences to plan. ‘Candies and talents’ were working on their first magazine? Lara’s responsibility was to ensure that the articles were ready to be published. Her team came up with four designs which will be examined during the next business meeting.
A programme was also coming up. She had to follow up the arrangement that had been made concerning the speakers, staring at the laptop before her, she glanced through their profiles. There was a lot of thinking to be done. She had to spend the night at work.