It indeed is a pleasurable experience to stroll through the woods when the sun decides to put its feet up for the day. One is then greeted by a frigid zephyr; a zephyr that compels stultifying emotions to take over for a seemingly boundless amount of time. And then, this inflated bubble of psychedelia is suddenly popped up by the tacks of commotion and palaver, which perhaps demand our attention more than the cavernous and mystifying thoughts that the wind blows into us. It is sometimes in moments such as these, that one begins to understand the conditional equipoise that exists in nature. The equipoise, which instills a sense of humility in the eyes of a fly on the wall.
It was one of such days when I decided to take a hike in hopes of being one with the holt that I was about to conquer. I started off after taking the assent of the most aesthetic vesper that I had seen in years. It was a delight to relive the memories of this place, where I grew up to be the man I was. Even after living most of my peak years here in the mountains, I was still awe-struck. Walking for a while, I began to relive all the moments spent here. My association with even the most trivial features of my town’s panorama was long established, and why wouldn’t it be? For me, everything that existed in sight, growing up as I did, had a unique story in store for me.
As I walked, the azure above me started to flaxen, almost as if melancholy herself had decided to lope through the woods. While most of my memories brought back a smile on my face, there were a few whose recollections started to disturb my overgrown fondness for reality. To my despair, I too was now thrown into the unremitting pool of befuddled thoughts. With each of my steps I started to recall even the faintest memories of gloom that I had lived through. Though time had passed, I couldn’t help but uselessly deliberate myself upon instances that didn’t matter anymore. I was stuck.
After a while had passed away (a while which seemed to me like ages), I felt myself being sucked out of the pool of sadness that had caged me. I halted, as my senses returned after their detour from welter land. I found myself standing in front of huge chalet, heavily fortified with a huge iron gate and two stern guards at its entrance. Behind the bars (of the gate), you could see an embellished garden, reflecting not just the colors of green, but the colors of elite as well. Looking inside, I noticed three children, approximately 10 years of age playing with a rather colorful and ornamental toy. Something, that only kids from a large town and an even larger pocket would have the privilege of owning. In front of the iron gate, across the road, there was a dilapidated building, which I figured was to house the attendants who worked at the chalet.
It was a tumultuous noise from the skies, that had pulled me out of the pool of my contemplative misery. A noise which grew louder as seconds passed, as if indicating someone’s grand arrival. As I looked up to see, I saw a whirlybird slowly pacing through the atmosphere. Here in the woods, we might witness the rarest of nature’s phenomenon such as thunder, storm, snow and rains on a daily basis, but witnessing a plastic yet theatric phenomenon on the stage of skies, such as a helicopter flying right above us, was a rarity. The helicopter made a noise that pierced right through the tranquility of the setting.
As the chopper made its way through the empyrean, its mechanical sound started to faint out, making sound of laughter stronger. As I looked around to search for joy, I saw a group of children, smudged and patched, running out of the cracked, yet welcoming doors of the broken building that stood in front of the chalet. They darted towards the direction of flight of the helicopter, spreading their hands in the air, trying to seize the rare bird which made its way through the stratosphere.
I saw them whizz in happiness, with some of them occasionally tripping, yet getting up as they ran. I drove my gaze towards the children who were indeed behind the iron bars. Seeing them still busy with their expensive toy, I realized that they were not least bit affected by the helicopter passing over them. Nor did they even turn to see the sight of merriment and joy, that I had just witnessed seeing the faulty, yet carefree children who tried to reach for the limitlessness of the skies with their tiny blotched hands.
It was then I suddenly realized that though poverty and affluence are but human constructs made to threaten the impartiality of life for each and everyone of us, nature has still ensured that people, who live surrounded by walls made of opportunity and plenty, can sometimes never place these walls in between pillars of genuine cheeriness and high-spirits. Such strong pillars of life can only be built by people who try to reach for the stars, rocketing with something so immaterial like hopes and dreams.
–END–
