Synopsis: Love is an eternal feeling.
The early morning mists formed gossamer trails through the valley, their frail beauty a stark contrast to the dark, forbidding forest that loomed behind them. Here and there a hare sprinted through the unkempt woods, and the sight was a guerdon for the solitary trekker. I could hear the sound of rustling leaves, or was it just the heavy wind? Maybe it was the fata morgana of a waterfall looming up ahead. Many a traveler had spent mornings in the beautiful early sunlit hours in these parts, but unless one can reach the ultimate aim, he will always be a tourist manqué.
I paced past the little boulders that swept over the specious grass in search of further adventure. The wind was strong yet mollifying, and the fungible weather was a beau monde in the backdrop of the rising sun. A peculiar warmth had spread over me with the first tinge, just like the feeling of first love. Through the foliage was a transpicuous sight of freshness. The mist was still allowing vision for only a distance, but it was unusually lenitive. The favonian winds blew like a zephyr, and the mirage of this morning spread in my mind as an intoxicating soporific, while the virgin aurora was like a sip of newly-brewed coffee.
My walk was taking me uphill, and I had cottoned to these straits now like heat to fire. There were no footprints in the rocky path, but I knew people of many versatilities had traversed here. I like to think them as snowbirds, who have flown along this hewn road to summer lands. They had a vision which I share, and there was no way to know if nature had mulct them of their victuals. I felt that this journey was not for me alone, but for all of those wary wayfarers. To prove that they had not been wrong, and to show myself that I was not alone.
I am a writer. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a struggling writer, nevertheless. After years of solitude and recluse, I wove my dreams into a fable called Snow Flower. It was a book, a long one, that spoke of the clairvoyance of a peasant. I liked to think of myself as that peasant who suffered for his simplicity. In each section I have envisioned myself as the different seasons, and portrayed his life, his love and his tragedy. But after two years of the release of my book, only two hundred and twenty six copies had been sold.
She walked in that day bathed in the morning light of the dawn. Off the dust laden book shelf she picked up a copy of my book and started reading the first page. Her pellucid self and honest expressions commoved me. By lunch, she had covered half the book.
At the end of the day, during which she read and I watched from the counter, she had finished the book. She finally came over and asked, "How much?"
"It's not for sale," I said. "In any case you have finished it. Why do you need to buy it?"
"So you were watching me the whole time?" she ventured.
"You were hardly hiding," I joked.
As her lips broke into a smile I took the book and opened the front page. Her name was Rose. I wrote:
"To Rose, from Hirak."
And the rest, they say, is history. If only it had been otherwise...
Sometimes the things we do in life are just the things that we dread. The desuetude of life fails to imprint in us the lessons one learns from experience, and for me, one who has lived in his symposure of dreams, life was a confabulated reality.
It was a williwaw that now blew from the valley side, and the first drops of rain seemed to etch five years of lonesomeness. The tears that had magically appeared from the vague memories of happiness were now washed away by the lithe droplets. I walked along like a myrmidon towards the destiny that awaited me. The rain drizzled its fealty over my volatile senses, as if to assure me of its company. Oft in the svelte trailside I could now envision the foundlings of nature. The mist had now evaporated, and the calcavade that composed me and my paraphernalia moved ahead in search of alleviance. The forest had now cleared and I could see the peaks in the distance. They were the famous Blue Mountains above the Valley of Waters. The sight of heaven seemed to slake my year long thrist, and to awaken my extant self once again.
I had now walked quite a distance, and my vantage point was not far. I could sense the change in the winds from the west to the east, from pace to slow. The rain had once again magically gone just as it had appeared. It was the feeling of anticipation at this time of the year that I yearned every moment of my life. It was the cynosure of a palindrome that was my life.
As I swept past another final rockface I had reached the point that they call the Empress Point. Slowly I walked to the edge and looked at the vision that awaited me.
A year after our marriage I had brought Rose to Australia on a summer trip. She loved to trek and I wanted to feel nature to look for fresh inspiration. And it was here that we had come along one day.
I remember how she had slipped on those very pebbles that I now pulled out of my bag. I remember how she had slid along the edge of the cliff. How I wanted to grab out for her but with cowardice I had fumbled. I remember the feeling of remaining there, alone, waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell me all of it had been a dream. Or a nightmare.
Now when I looked out into the Valley, the distant music of the waterfall greeted my cottoned senses. Above the horizon lines I could behold the conglomeration of the clouds kissing the sun. I was once again in her arms today, and she was speaking to me just as she did every year on this day.
"Forgive me once again, dear," I said, as the rain hit me again and rendered me divine.
"My love," she replied. "I loved you that day when you let me go, I loved you when you told me you really loved me so, I'll wait for you here, but I want you to live, and keep our dreams aglow."
The words from her lips turned my tears into a smile. I put the effete pebbles back into my wayworn rucksack and paused. Across the miles the clouds had now disintegrated into separate masses and were drifting away in different directions. Her empyrean self was gone, but she held me like an adage in a nonplus. I turned back towards the direction of the busy world, my destination isle.
As I retraced the footprints that a lonely traveler had created with his wet feet while on the forward journey after a brief spell, I knew that I would be back here amidst her sagacious collage. But for now, another year would be mine, if only for this little while...
Hirak.
The early morning mists formed gossamer trails through the valley, their frail beauty a stark contrast to the dark, forbidding forest that loomed behind them. Here and there a hare sprinted through the unkempt woods, and the sight was a guerdon for the solitary trekker. I could hear the sound of rustling leaves, or was it just the heavy wind? Maybe it was the fata morgana of a waterfall looming up ahead. Many a traveler had spent mornings in the beautiful early sunlit hours in these parts, but unless one can reach the ultimate aim, he will always be a tourist manqué.
I paced past the little boulders that swept over the specious grass in search of further adventure. The wind was strong yet mollifying, and the fungible weather was a beau monde in the backdrop of the rising sun. A peculiar warmth had spread over me with the first tinge, just like the feeling of first love. Through the foliage was a transpicuous sight of freshness. The mist was still allowing vision for only a distance, but it was unusually lenitive. The favonian winds blew like a zephyr, and the mirage of this morning spread in my mind as an intoxicating soporific, while the virgin aurora was like a sip of newly-brewed coffee.
My walk was taking me uphill, and I had cottoned to these straits now like heat to fire. There were no footprints in the rocky path, but I knew people of many versatilities had traversed here. I like to think them as snowbirds, who have flown along this hewn road to summer lands. They had a vision which I share, and there was no way to know if nature had mulct them of their victuals. I felt that this journey was not for me alone, but for all of those wary wayfarers. To prove that they had not been wrong, and to show myself that I was not alone.
I am a writer. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a struggling writer, nevertheless. After years of solitude and recluse, I wove my dreams into a fable called Snow Flower. It was a book, a long one, that spoke of the clairvoyance of a peasant. I liked to think of myself as that peasant who suffered for his simplicity. In each section I have envisioned myself as the different seasons, and portrayed his life, his love and his tragedy. But after two years of the release of my book, only two hundred and twenty six copies had been sold.
She walked in that day bathed in the morning light of the dawn. Off the dust laden book shelf she picked up a copy of my book and started reading the first page. Her pellucid self and honest expressions commoved me. By lunch, she had covered half the book.
At the end of the day, during which she read and I watched from the counter, she had finished the book. She finally came over and asked, "How much?"
"It's not for sale," I said. "In any case you have finished it. Why do you need to buy it?"
"So you were watching me the whole time?" she ventured.
"You were hardly hiding," I joked.
As her lips broke into a smile I took the book and opened the front page. Her name was Rose. I wrote:
"To Rose, from Hirak."
And the rest, they say, is history. If only it had been otherwise...
Sometimes the things we do in life are just the things that we dread. The desuetude of life fails to imprint in us the lessons one learns from experience, and for me, one who has lived in his symposure of dreams, life was a confabulated reality.
It was a williwaw that now blew from the valley side, and the first drops of rain seemed to etch five years of lonesomeness. The tears that had magically appeared from the vague memories of happiness were now washed away by the lithe droplets. I walked along like a myrmidon towards the destiny that awaited me. The rain drizzled its fealty over my volatile senses, as if to assure me of its company. Oft in the svelte trailside I could now envision the foundlings of nature. The mist had now evaporated, and the calcavade that composed me and my paraphernalia moved ahead in search of alleviance. The forest had now cleared and I could see the peaks in the distance. They were the famous Blue Mountains above the Valley of Waters. The sight of heaven seemed to slake my year long thrist, and to awaken my extant self once again.
I had now walked quite a distance, and my vantage point was not far. I could sense the change in the winds from the west to the east, from pace to slow. The rain had once again magically gone just as it had appeared. It was the feeling of anticipation at this time of the year that I yearned every moment of my life. It was the cynosure of a palindrome that was my life.
As I swept past another final rockface I had reached the point that they call the Empress Point. Slowly I walked to the edge and looked at the vision that awaited me.
A year after our marriage I had brought Rose to Australia on a summer trip. She loved to trek and I wanted to feel nature to look for fresh inspiration. And it was here that we had come along one day.
I remember how she had slipped on those very pebbles that I now pulled out of my bag. I remember how she had slid along the edge of the cliff. How I wanted to grab out for her but with cowardice I had fumbled. I remember the feeling of remaining there, alone, waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell me all of it had been a dream. Or a nightmare.
Now when I looked out into the Valley, the distant music of the waterfall greeted my cottoned senses. Above the horizon lines I could behold the conglomeration of the clouds kissing the sun. I was once again in her arms today, and she was speaking to me just as she did every year on this day.
"Forgive me once again, dear," I said, as the rain hit me again and rendered me divine.
"My love," she replied. "I loved you that day when you let me go, I loved you when you told me you really loved me so, I'll wait for you here, but I want you to live, and keep our dreams aglow."
The words from her lips turned my tears into a smile. I put the effete pebbles back into my wayworn rucksack and paused. Across the miles the clouds had now disintegrated into separate masses and were drifting away in different directions. Her empyrean self was gone, but she held me like an adage in a nonplus. I turned back towards the direction of the busy world, my destination isle.
As I retraced the footprints that a lonely traveler had created with his wet feet while on the forward journey after a brief spell, I knew that I would be back here amidst her sagacious collage. But for now, another year would be mine, if only for this little while...
Hirak.
