It was a small night. Whispers of a moon passed her path. Above, the stars gentle as they were, seemed too far away. She didn’t know why she was walking. Or where. It seemed a world away from the lights of the city she had grown up in. Yet, here she was. The lanterns of the resort seemed further away now. The laughter there aching away into a vast emptiness. The rustling of the leaves no longer scared her. Instead, she oddly felt comforted. She welcomed the non-beingness of human beings.
All too long in her life, for too too long she had awakened her life to death. To the fakeness of living. She didn’t know if this walking would lead towards life.Perhaps, life itself didn’t exist except in the mind. It didn’t in her mind anyway. She had had it. A life of love, hate, anger, despair. Tiredness. For what all of it? To achieve some normalcy? It didn’t seem right – this normalcy that others crave was to her just an invitation to surrender. She preferred not surrender – she wanted to fight the paths that others seemed to think was destined for her. Life passed before her, kissing her toes. A childhood where nothing exceptional happened except people dying. First her grandmother. Then her brother. Ouch, that had hurt. But not hard enough. It was more a stunned disbelief. That bugger was lucky enough to get away with it. But other times it was a sense of what if. A remorseless adolescence. Turns and twists of weird friendships. None aching their sense on the heart long enough. And then, boy, you had to grow up. Big time.
A different country gave her happiness. For a while. She had lost and gained. Again. And again. Till she thought she had no more to lose. Nothing to gain. Her life was defined by another soul. Mating its path into hers. Leaves touch her. Ah, touch, how she had longed for it all her life. The sweet drooping caress of a loved one. Slender roses of showered kisses. Life gave too much of it though. It was a sickening sweet that condenses those moments to a melted memory. The waves were closer to her now. Seductive. Calling. Feet wet. Toes trickling the sand. She had thought love was to keep. But its cobwebs were all that were left. Dancing waves now passed her ankles. The moon still looked just the same. The stars just the same.
Only her life was changing. And that was how it always was. It is always your life that you change. Conversations merged. People shouted in her mind. All those passions. All those logical reasonings. Nurturing a love she had had invited her to surrender. But that love had surrendered to other. Torn to shreds, she knew she couldn’t connect her mind to that wonderful space between thoughts. Those touches that connect. If life taught her that she ought to be logical, and practical, she was. Surrender. Surrender. Yeah, this was practical. Good bye cold ice memory wrapped in moth balls that consume themselves by the flame that consumes her. Upto her neck now. Her feet no longer touching ground. Water water water. She didn’t feel free. Nor happy. Just dead. Just dead when the last wave passed over and water sucked her last breath. She had surrendered. And the rest was all a sea that remained. The moon was just the same. The stars just the same. Just.
