The hostel room was no larger than a prison cell — a cracked ceiling fan, three mattresses on the floor, and one shared dream that didn't fit within the walls: escape.
Brad sat cross-legged on the faded bedsheet, staring at his camera like it was a wounded soldier. It was second-hand, scarred by years of rough use, but it worked. Just enough for wedding shoots, passport photos, and the occasional street portrait that might — if lucky — get noticed online. Most days, it didn't.
He lived in Lahore, in a forgotten building tucked between mechanic workshops and chai hotels. The streets below were always alive: vendors shouting, engines coughing, people chasing time. But Brad wasn't chasing time. He was chasing a photograph — one single image he had dreamed about since he first saw it in a textbook: The Eiffel Tower, lit under a Parisian sunset, captured through his lens.
"Paris is too far for people like us," one of his roommates once said.
Brad didn't answer. He simply stared at a worn-out postcard stuck on the wall — the Eiffel Tower, black and white, with a handwritten note underneath:
> "One day, it will be my photo."
---
He spent nights editing photos on his broken laptop, and days bargaining with clients who paid him less than the chai they drank. It wasn't enough. Never had been. But Brad wasn't trying to be rich. He just wanted to belong to something beautiful, to prove that he could freeze time in one perfect frame.
Then came the agent.
Brad met him at an internet café — the kind where keyboards were missing keys and the air smelled like cheap aftershave. The man wore shiny shoes, spoke in fast English, and promised slow dreams.
> "No embassy lines. No rejections. I send boys like you to Europe every month. Paris, Milan, Barcelona. You want Eiffel Tower? I'll get you there — cheap."
It was illegal. Risky. But Brad didn't hesitate. He sold his camera lens, borrowed money from his friend, and put his fate in the hands of a smuggler.
---
But instead of seeing Paris, he landed in Spain, through the Dunki route — an underground network of illegal migration.
It was not a city of lights. It was a city of shadows.
He lived like a ghost, hiding from police, sleeping in underground stations, eating leftovers from trash bins. He wandered the streets with a fake ID and a real fear.
Three days.
That's how long his freedom lasted.
On the fourth, they caught him in a metro station — tired, hungry, and shaking.
They didn't ask questions.
They just deported him.
---
He returned to Pakistan with a fine, no money, and a silence that even his closest friends couldn't break.
One of them sold his motorcycle to pay Brad's penalty.
Another found him sitting alone in the hostel stairwell, his camera beside him, untouched.
He hadn't clicked a single picture since Spain.
Something inside him had died.
---
But fate doesn't knock twice — sometimes it drives by.
She saw him on a footpath, sitting with his broken bag and blank eyes.
She was in a white Corolla. He didn't notice her, but she noticed him.
Alina.
A girl from another world. Rich, educated, confident. Something about Brad's silence fascinated her. She reached out. One cup of chai became a conversation. One walk turned into many.
She didn't care that he had failed. She loved that he still wanted something more.
They married quietly.
People whispered, but Alina didn't care.
She loved him — enough to take him to Paris herself.
---
And just when it felt like a miracle had finally begun, fate stole her back.
A sudden illness. A hospital bed. A goodbye too fast.
She died in his arms, with the Eiffel Tower still a dream away.
Her brother didn't mourn. He took everything she owned — house, car, jewelry — and threw Brad out.
But there was one thing he couldn't touch: a secret envelope in Alina's drawer with her handwriting on it.
> "For your dream. I want to see your photo one day."
Inside, it had just enough money for a flight.
---
Weeks later, Brad stood under the Eiffel Tower.
Camera in hand. Eyes full of tears. His hands shook as he focused the lens.
He had made it. But she wasn't there to see it.
The picture he took that day wasn't perfect.
But it was his.