Elemental Dissonance.

UAE, Abu Dhabi.

"Ah, I've finally arrived here, now I just need to free the courier from the customs and deliver it to Tarif(1), then everything would be all done." said Bilal.

After a long, arduous 2 hours journey, he finally arrived at Abu Dhabi, it was a total of 140 kilometres of journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, now he just needed to do some paperwork while the other things like custom duty, receiver identification, etc would be taken care of by his employer, because he worked for a renowned registered courier service.

Al Zakiya, the company he worked for is a well-renowned courier service throughout the Gulf countries and they had their branches all over the place, and Riyaz whom he worked for was just a small-time branch manager. Although he was a manager, he didn't have many rights to operate on his own, even the selection of workers is done by the company. That's why, just to get Bilal a job in his branch, he had to do multiple requests.

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Abu Dhabi International Airport.

"Let's see where the customs office is." Bilal took out his smartphone, reading the text message Riyaz sent him when he was driving.

[Terminal 3, Enquire at Counter 7, Parcel no: 6543A would be coming from Flight no. 26790. To be delivered by 9 AM don't be late!]

"Huh, Terminal 3? Is it coming from America?" Although he was quite surprised after finding out about the origin of the courier, he quickly got over it as he was getting late.

After wandering for ten more minutes, he finally arrived at Terminal 3 and quickly found the customs office too, by enquiring at Counter 7. When he arrived there, he went directly to the reception to demand the courier.

A beautiful young lady was sitting at the reception no 4 receiving guests one by one. He went there, so he could at least please his eyes. But by the time his turn came, the young lady got replaced by a Middle-aged man instead.

Then the middle-aged man asked him in a robotic voice without a hint of emotion "How can I help you, sir?"

"I'm from a courier service and come here for a parcel coming from flight no. 26790."

"OK let me check." After saying that, he quickly started tapping on the keyboard in a very professional way, like he's been doing this for quite some years already.

"Sir, please write the parcel number on this form along with some details with your signature on it and give me your ID for a second." He handed him a form and gestured his hand asking for his ID.

"Okay, here's my ID." Said Bilal, took out his ID and passed it through the small hole at counter's window.

"Sir, just wait for a second, I'll be right back"

By the time he's done filling the details, the receptionist came back to him.

"Here's your ID sir, have you filled out all the details?"

"Yes, what were you checking out by the way?" asked Bilal while handing out the form.

"We were checking whether you are a real employee of the courier company or not, here take this slip and go to the storage room and you would find your parcel there, have a good day sir." Said the middle-aged man while passing him a printed paper slip with some barcodes and minor details on it.

"Ok." Said Bilal and left for the storage room in a hurry.

He arrived at the storage room after a few minutes of walking but was stopped at the entrance of the storage room by the airport security.

"What do you want here? There is storage area ahead, do you have any clearance given by the counter?" The security guard asked him in a semi-threatening tone.

"Yes, I have it." Bilal said with a frown on his face while passing the clearance slip.

"OK, go to that guy he'll help you to find your parcel." Said the guard while pointing toward a worker in a blue suit.

After arriving where the guard was pointing at, Bilal gestured towards the worker and the worker immediately came toward him and asked. "How can I help you, sir?"

"Help me find this parcel." He said while passing the clearance to him.

"Okay sir, come with me." That worker took him toward the inner side of the storage area, that place was just too busy, dozens of workers were roaming to and fro in all directions doing their jobs, and many forklifts were lifting and placing humongous boxes made up of many different materials.

"26790 6543A, 26790 6543A, 26790 6543A...." The worker was mumbling the code while searching for the parcel, his search ended on a big box wrapped in a layer of polyethene with a silver tag over it.

"Here's your parcel sir, it would require a forklift to move it, I'll be right back with a forklift." Said the worker and hurried off to the distance.

"I wasn't informed it's gonna be this heavy, I would've taken the office's trolley, how I'm gonna deload it at the destination now? Sigh!" He ranted while cursing his bad luck.

Then the worker came back with a forklift and lifted the parcel and asked: "Where's your vehicle located at, sir?"

"It's at the parking lot on floor 3."

"OK, let's go"

Both of them arrived at the parking lot when Bilal pointed towards a truck in the distance and said.

"You see that Red and Blue striped truck on the 3rd row? That's the one."

Bilal quickly got off the forklift and opened up the backdoor of the delivery truck with the keys in his hands.

"Put it in the middle of the space right there."

"Move aside for a moment sir, it can be dangerous if you stay there"

"Okay sure."

The worker gracefully placed down the box in a very skilled manner with his forklift and said "All done sir, I gotta get going."

"Hey wait!" said our hero while taking out a five Dirham(2) cash from his side pocket and gave it to the worker as a tip.

"No sir, it isn't allowed for us to take tips." The worker protested not taking the tip.

"It's alright just take it, I quite like your service." Said Bilal while persuading the worker.

"If you are insisting then I'll take it." He took the tip and went off into the distance on his forklift.