I gazed tranquilly,
as the pristine orange sun
rose through
the thin veil of the mist.
She stared into crimson clouds,
as the sun set down,
and meandering tides
bathed in the moist twilight.
..
The same moment,
the same sky.
Just that two little humans
Stood at two brinks
of the same sun.
She was mighty scared.
She did not have a single clue about where she was.
It was such an alien place. There was a lot of noise. There were many voices: some hoarse, some screaming, some thick and that sweet one. It was a frenzied atmosphere around her.
A touch of cold air made her wet skin shiver, and she grew even more anxious. With great courage, she decided to have a look around. She clinched her fists, and so slowly she opened her eyes.
It was all blur. There were clouds of green and nebulae of tungsten white. Slowly a tiara of ivory boxes unfurled from the light brown sky.
It startled her.
She blinked twice or thrice, and it became clearer.
The baby girl smiled with relief, when she finally saw the face of her mother for the first time.
She stood over the ruins of some city that must have been buzzing with life until some time ago. She picked up the dead flower that lay besides her feet. “What a destruction!” she thought, as she gazed across the horizons. The remains of a once flourishing planet were surrounding her. There was neither a movement nor any trace of life.
As she paused for a while, the events of the past played out there, in front of her eyes.
It was a judgement day to say the least. Clouds rained fire, oceans heaved and the planet quaked for once and all. The most developed species were destroyed as were the most primitive forms of life. Those poor creatures struggled, they fought back, and they tried their best. However, they were just too small to succeed in conquering their own demise. It took sometime but eventually all of them were gone, wiped out.
She saw that all happening with such nonchalance. She was never inclined to help them. However as the time flew by, she started feeling this knawing agony. It was a terrible void that even she could not really deal with. Finally relenting, she decided to shed all those inhibitions and her mighty ego. She left her den in the pursuit of the signs of life, if there was any to be found.
She was now frantically searching for some survivors. She had travelled through those hollows. She wandered across the planet and floated over the mountains and seas. Her solitary voyages however remained naught but a vanity. Her journeys did not bear any fruit. She was sorely missing something in this quest. She knew that things cannot go on in this way for long. There were a lot of questions she had determined to find answers for.
It was after a lot of futile efforts, that she decided to take a break and re-energize herself. That is why she had stopped here for some time.
Nothing except silence breathed as wind whistled sinisterly in the air. She shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling that crept in her mind.
She again looked at the dead flower in her hand pensively. “This solitude is almost menacing, I have to find a life, any life, here at any cost.” She finally conceded it to herself. “What am I without a life around? Why have I become so vulnerable to disappointments? I have never tried to create anything, but if it needs could I?” She asked herself a gauntlet of questions.
“It was I, who reigned supreme for all these ages. It was I, whom all feared and none could escape. I was the entity that held no bars. It had been my choice and only my way. I was the one who could rise above time and heck, even alter its flow… “No! It’s not possible! I can never now, be so weak!” she uttered. A denial rather than an affirmation was apparent.
Hope was the feeling she had so despised for eons. It had created obstacles in her way at every point. When those poor living beings resorted to their hopes and prayers at her first sight, she just used to laugh at them. She had taken such immense pleasure in crushing those hopes. But today, she was afraid that she, herself, was falling prey to that very same venomous feeling of hope.
She gave up her attempts of feeble denials. “All I am left doing is to voyage endlessly in these empty hollows, with no respite or reprieve?” There was no point in refuting the undeniable truth. “If there is no hope, I have nothing to defy. If there is no pain, I have nothing to relieve. If there is no love, I have nothing to take away. And yeah, if there is no life, I have nothing to end. I have to try even more. Life has been omnipresent and it has always reborn. It will be somewhere, somewhere below into the ocean or in some remote cave. I have to search; I have to try even more. If something comes alive, I will get the scent of life before anything. Because all may end but I never shall.”
The Death then, having made up her mind, stood up. She spread her wings and started her search once again as she clung on to that one last hope of finding a life.
It was a typical spring evening in the sub-continent. A breezy wind and a warm atmosphere made it really pleasant. Some of those kids at the orphanage come here as it was also a boarding school for poor children. This day most were especially happy. For after a long time, their parents and relatives were paying them a visit. It was a rare time, when they were loved and felt really cared for. That then was an evening which was certainly warmer than usual.
At such a merry moment, there entered a man, their teacher. He used to take their language classes. As much as these kids adored him, they despised his coming at such a special time. So much so that just at the very sight of him, almost half of them quickly disappeared.
He was used to this routine and neither did he expect those nine years old kids to be different. Instead he lured them, chased them and finally brought all his class together. As these kids told him about the moments they had just a while ago, he now understood the reason for their unusually upbeat mood. He shared their joy and let those kids soak in their momentary happiness.
He was about to start his class, when he realized that one boy was missing. He asked the others his whereabouts. Nobody had any idea. He told his class to sit where they were, and left the classroom to search for his one missing student.
After a few minutes, he found that boy sitting behind a massive tree alone and quietly sobbing. The teacher silently sat down besides his boy. He gently asked of him. “What’s wrong?”
Looking at the street ahead, the child replied,” Today all those boys met their relatives. They are so lucky. I’m still waiting for my mom. She had told me that she will come to meet me. That is why I am sitting here and waiting for her.”
This teacher tried in vain, to comfort him, “Then why are you crying my dear? She will come within sometime. Come on now, let’s go to our class. We will have some fun and as soon as she comes, I will let you go and meet her. Doesn’t that sound better?”
Boy did not answer for a moment. He finally, for the first time looked at his teacher, with those sad lost and empty eyes.
He slowly spoke, “You know what? It was three years back, when she dropped me here, she promised to come back and meet me!” His teacher, stunned by this, felt completely numb and was searching desperately for some words, of comfort. Finding none, he just sat besides his boy, as the sun sank deep into the west.
………
Somewhere far away, a woman looked at that same red horizon from her ghetto. She was totally lost in her thoughts. As much as she had pleaded for Condonation, however her conscience had never obliged her.
Why did she strand her son? Her reasons were best known to her alone. Did she have any other option? Could she have ever given her son a life without misery and with a father? Probably even she was lost for answers of those questions.
She did it for what she hoped was the best of her son, but the cost of her act was enormous. His silent cries had troubled her for all these three long years. She had tried to ignore them, not to hear them, but only if silence could have ever be unheard.
She had promised him to come back. She knew that she had made a promise and she had reneged. But at the bottom of her heart, she might have just wanted him to forgive her and if he ever could, to forget her.
She had just kept waiting for the day when her son would abandon his wait and the agony would relieve her.
………
Those four eyes remained empty and the wait remained as futile as ever, as the sun sank deep into the west.
Traces 