Eternity

Another bend in the road! I had already lost count how many bends I took since I started out. I even don’t remember how many milestones welcomed me on my way; neither do I remember how many people I met. But I remember their faces, at least some of them. Some of them blank as the sky, some looked too confused, some dejected and some greedy. And some wore a smile always! My friend used to say some people smile when they are in unbearable pain. Funny thing I never realized whom my friend was referring to. I never bothered to think in fact. I was too busy smiling!

As the bend lazily blurred behind me, feeling of tiredness slowly gripped me. How long I had been walking? I tried to remember but I couldn’t. Then I tried to guess, stupidly. An hour, a day, a week, a year. I didn’t know. What I knew was that it seemed like eternity to me. Eternity cause I could no longer differentiate between day and night. Eternity cause I didn’t remember the way back to home. Eternity cause strangely enough I no longer remembered what I was running after when I first started walking this path. Just like my impatience grew each time I saw a new milestone, my desires too changed each time I saw a bend in the road. And after so many bends, and so many milestones, there I was wondering what I wanted and the why and when of the same.

I sat on the rock by the road with my face covered with my palms, as if I was trying to hide it from myself. As the blurred images of many milestones, many faces and many bends in the road flew fast in front of my closed eyes, I could feel my palms getting wet. And I felt eternity once again as I couldn’t make out if I was sweating or if it was the tears. For the first time since I set out on this journey I wanted to go back. I took my wet hands off my face and opened my eyes. Then I looked back the road. Strangely I couldn’t see the bend this time. I looked again, no it wasn’t there. Something inside me made me stand up and run towards where the bend was supposed to be. I kept running. My eager eyes wide open looking straight ahead and my heart hoping to see the bend soon. But hopes fade away soon and once again I was sitting on a rock somewhere by the road wondering how I lost the bend in the road.

Another eternity later, I started walking again. Only, this time I didn’t have any hope in my heart, my eyes weren’t eager to see the divine, and neither the smell of the wild flowers excited me. I was walking slow and tired to an unknown destination. Rather, there was no destination. I wondered how my face would look if I looked into a mirror. Would it be blank as the sky or too confused, dejected or greedy? Or a smiling face? Like a lot of other things and occasions in my life I couldn’t decide.

What you call it? Fate? Or do you call it foolishness? Was it my fate to end up like this, or was I foolish enough to do it to myself? Blurred images from my life started to fly past me. I could see everything from my childhood to teenage and to this day. I could see myself lying on my mother’s lap with her caring fingers running through my hairs. My eyes closed and my one hand on her lap and another twisted around her waist. Aah! That sweet feeling! I could feel the peace of it once again just by remembering it. Then I saw myself playing with my friends. Getting dirty with mud, throwing ball to each other trying to make a hit and run away. I could see how divine those faces looked, without any hint of a worry of this world. The images were moving fast and I saw myself sitting on a wooden bench under a banyan tree with Mukta. I know this! I do! That was the last day I saw her. She came to me running on that sunny afternoon, eyes wet in tears. She was hardly speaking and whatever she managed to say in that weeping mumbled voice was enough to make me cry too. Only, I didn’t make any sound neither did any tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t. Instead I took her in my arms, and let her cry her hearts out. I didn’t care. Many things were going in my mind and we were both silent for a long time except for her weeping. Then suddenly I kissed her on the forehead. I knew she loved that. When she asked me once why I always kissed her on the forehead, I jokingly told her ‘so that your soft lips aren’t hurt’. And, with that childish soul she had, she always loved it afterwards when I kissed her on the forehead. And that was the last kiss! I stood up and started walking with her still sitting there and looking at me walking away. I didn’t turn back.

And from that moment on I never stopped. I walked many miles, choose my own direction in many a crossroads, met many strangers and strangely never talked to anyone of them. And that takes the story to me sitting on this rock with my eyes closed as I watched the playback of my whole life. The same friend I mentioned earlier also used to say people see their whole life running in front of their eyes when they are dying. So, was I dying? I looked at my feet, my hands, touched them, and pinched them. It hurt. I wasn’t dead. Neither had I have the courage to relieve me of this cruel world. I wouldn’t have come so far if I did. But what differentiates between an alive me and a dead me, now that I sit here by the road without any destination to go or a way back home. I started feeling the dreadful once again. Some faces again started rolling in front of my eyes, some voices echoing in my ears, the feeling of someone running her fingers carefully through my hairs, I could feel it all. And once again, I was leaping into eternity.