17.7

Charminar.

Charminar.

The dream evaporated, taking with it the spark of imagination required to keep the cinders of hope alive. Now he was just a walking machine, marking time in the nether world where dreams go sour and turn into nightmares, following irrelevant street signs which were taking him nowhere.

The only sign that made any sense was the one he saw most frequently – STOP.

Stop you fool.

Stop before you drive yourself completely mad.

But Max couldn’t stop. He knew that to stop would be to admit failure and he knew how it might feel one day in the future –

When you’re looking back at this moment and thinking you gave up too soon.

Mate… to stop now and scramble your way back to the slab would be the greatest failure of your life.

But as he ploughed on through the night the waves of self-doubt continued to smash his resolve. The growing problem was that nothing happened, nothing looked like happening, and he definitely wasn’t prepared for a long haul. Two lunghis simply were not enough. This was suicide!

In truth, he’d been lazy.

He should have done some proper research.

He’d jumped the gun and rushed off blindly… like a fool!