Lamp post

 

There is a lamppost emanating a yellowish, pallid glow. A glow enough to illuminate the bench she is sitting on, amid the park she had often frequented. Occasionally, a breeze blows and ruffles the leaves on the trees and the pavement. Sometimes, the yellowed leaves fall off the trees, which line the pitch-dark night, onto the ground. The whole spectacle is punctuated by light from the lamppost in the backdrop.

She has been there for an hour or two, she cannot remember for how long. It isn't that cold, but she does feel chilly sometimes. Somehow, just sitting there makes her feel more comfortable and sung, shrouded in her thoughts and at more peace than going back to her home. Occasionally, some people walk past with their backpacks, rucksacks, or their bikes either alone or in groups of 3s and 4s some quiet and some giggling away in a language she doesn't quite fully understand. All she understands is that they are happy, at least at the moment. And that is something she should try out too. Maybe, this is something she must commit to her memory. And sometimes, she steals a glance at some solitary couple walking in the middle of the park holding hands and enjoying their walk. How fleeting all of this is, she thinks. But maybe fleeting isn't always bad as long as we realize that change is the only constant of life and nothing stays the same, at least not in the way we expect it to be. She realizes how cynical she has becomes - from an utter romanticist to this! Everything appears to be an unwarranted hyperbole of love and affection.

Her phone buzzes a couple of times interrupting her train of thought. She decides to turn her phone upside down. She isn't a fan of attending calls at times, but it is often herculean to make them understand. In the following second, she asks herself, does she understand what she wants? Thrown into this existential crisis, she looks far away and thinks of that solitary couple who had walked past some minutes ago.

Her head soon turns into a milieu of thoughts that she cannot process. Thoughts of everything she has seen and touched upon in this life, career, health, relationships, travels- taken and yet to be taken. Traveling young, extensively, has taught her that every few kilometers, people are different and that it is our differences that make us characteristically beautiful and poetic. Else we would all be prosaic, breathing in and out the air of redundancies. Differences should be celebrated instead of casting aspersions. Traveling young has made her challenge the stereotypes and break the norm of what has been and step out into what could be. But it comes at its cost. And you often have to weigh the odds. And then make a choice. You realize it is often not free will. More importantly, you realize that free will is nothing but a misnomer.

She looks down at her diary and wants to write but words, for the longest duration, have eluded her now. In a soulless pursuit, she takes out her hand to pen down her random, littered thoughts but her hands freeze, as the air around her turns crisper. She realizes it is time to leave. She has forever been on the run, never really reaching anywhere. She closes her eyes, smooths away a wisp of hair from her eyes, sits upright, and tries to relax as the lamppost flickers for a minute.