Greetings, How are you friends ? Hope you all are will be healthy, happy and doing good job. I am also fine and healthy. Today i back with a new post and going to takeparticipatee in Wordsmiths Fiction Week 5: The Mysterious Passenger | Steemit Challenge Season 24 that is organized by @dove11.

^{AI Generated}

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The terminal buzzed with worn-out tourists and echoing footsteps, however Officer Alisha had skilled herself to peer via the noise. Her task turned into recurring stamp, scan, verify, wave along. That Thursday afternoon appeared no one of a kind till a quiet guy progressed with a darkish coat, a small leather-based bag, and a gaze that appeared older than his years.

He surpassed over his passport with each hands, respectful, composed. She flipped it open.

Name: Daran Volek
Nationality: Kharistan

Alisha blinked. She was not new to difficult to understand countries. She did as soon as processed a person from Tuvalu and had confirmed an extraordinary citizenship from Liechtenstein. But Kharistan? It didn’t ring any bell.

She typed the call into her system. Nothing. She attempted Google. Still nothing.

Frowning slightly, she commenced flipping thru the passport. Page after web page of stamps Germany, Singapore, Brazil, even a visa from the U.S. consulate. All official. All flawlessly placed.

But no file of the issuing united states of america. No embassy, no flag, no hint on any acknowledged map.

Her instincts stirred. She signaled her manager with out elevating alarm.

Daran stood silently as different officials joined her.

This united states of america Kharistan, Alisha stated carefully. Where is it positioned?

He met her gaze calmly. It become as soon as positioned among the Caspian and the Black Sea. A small sovereign land. Independent. Peaceful. We referred to as it home.

“Was?”

He nodded. No longer diagnosed. Our borders dissolved a long time ago. Our human beings scattered. Most forgot. Now, I is probably the remaining.

The passport changed into exceeded around. It exceeded each forensic take a look at ink, holograms, lamination, UV patterns. Not a unmarried irregularity. If it changed into a forgery, it changed into a masterpiece. But Daran didn’t act like a person hiding something. He changed into neither fearful nor overly confident. Just quiet. Like a person used to now no longer being believed.

What brings you here? some other officer asked.

Daran seemed down at his hands. To keep what little remains. Stories, songs, memories. I have carried them throughout nations for years. This can be the remaining vicinity I can talk of Kharistan earlier than it fades forever.

They did not recognize what to make of him. He was not requesting asylum. He was not claiming sufferer hood. He changed into easy present in a area not diagnosed with the aid of using the world.

Alisha watched him closely. Something approximately his voice did not experience rehearsed. There changed into a weight to his words, now no longer the burden of deception however of history.

After hours of debate, they granted him an extraordinary brief cultural visa, a class seldom used. He had finished not anything wrong. He had damaged no law. The machine did not understand the way to classify him, however neither should it deny his humanity.

In the weeks that observed, Daran determined quiet corners with inside the town to speak. A college supplied him a lecture slot. A nearby journalist wrote a small column approximately him titled The Man with No Country. People commenced listening.

He delivered no artifacts. No photos. Only words. He instructed memories of mountain villages in which bells rang to warn of winds, of lullabies sung in a forgotten tongue, of harvest fairs below indigo skies. He talked about his grandmother’s memories of rivers that modified path after every spring, of treaties as soon as signed on stone rather than paper.

Some known as him a poet. Others concept he changed into deluded.

But to Alisha, who observed his quiet upward push in headlines, he changed into some thing else entirely: a person who refused to permit an area vanish.

One wet evening, weeks after his arrival, she discovered herself sitting withinside the returned of a small network corridor in which he changed into speaking. It changed into nearly full. Teachers, artists, college students human beings sat in silence as he recited a conventional Kharistani prayer.

There changed into no proof. No legit flag. No satellite tv for pc image. Just his voice and the human beings selecting to believe.

And in that moment, she understood.

Kharistan existed now no longer in territory, however in memory. Not on maps, however in minds. And perhaps that changed into enough.

When she back to paintings the subsequent morning, she opened the immigration gadget and typed Kharistan into the notes subject of Daran’s record.

She didn’t get a result.

But she clicked “Add Note” anyway.

Subject arrived with undocumented nationality however supplied culturally huge oral history. Recommend prolonged cultural visa. Subject credible.

She sat returned, satisfied. Somewhere, a forgotten region have been remembered. Even if simplest in a record no person else would possibly examine.

But she had examine it. And she had believed.

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Now this is end of my post, now I would like to invite my friends @mun-eeb, @suboohi, and @chant, to participate in this wonderful challenge. Thanks for reading my post

Kind Regards,
Asad