meeting the past

I was in 25th year of my life, of the age having maximum strength in human life… but wandering in forests of hopelessness. I was tied, frustrated, feeling alone and devastated, living a life of a failed student, a new member of an odd batch, a dull fellow… my vision was blurred to the extent of blindness, I couldn’t read, couldn’t comprehend. The words I had depicted on the walls and the roof of my room which were supposed to stimulate me, were now mocking me, challenging me to bear their sight… but I couldn’t… I didn’t want to look at them, I didn’t want to continue… didn’t want to survive. My dreams were appearing to be frauds of my brain… or they might be mere hallucinations of an oxygen deprived dying brain. I was deprived of success, since ages… I was deprived of hopes of success. And I was tired to this regular struggle to keep myself alive… I didn’t want it. I wanted to suicide, to show my dying brain the heaven of death, the aura, the greenery, what eyes see when near death. I was weak, with my hopes suffering from total flaccidity… and my dreams were rigid, hard but not moving, alas, they were also paralyzed.


My consciousness got reduced to take me somewhere near the stupor… and I felt like falling in abyss of my past. And there I encountered her, mere a teenager, unaware of her future… lacking the power of 25, lacking the information… but full of enthusiasm, willpower, a wish to break all boundaries, to create new records… a carelessness, readiness to accept the consequences, willingness either to reach the top or fall in valley, the confidence, a fire to fire back any attack… and there was me, old, experienced, ‘adult’, thick, numb, staring her and envying her like a granny. I wanted to tell her not to be this reckless, to stop the speeding… to look for the ditches, to seize the dimpled smile and to offer some wrinkles of wisdom, of the worry for the future and her horrid presence.


But she refused, as expected; she said she had to build her future with the stones in her presence. Her future was me, I knew… I tried to convey her, “hey immature girl, look at me, for I’m the consequence of your behavior. Look at my grades, and the failures… and the dark circles around my eyes due to unstopped tears. I’m not alive, neither I’m dead. I have the strength but can’t use it… I have the dreams, but can’t make them alive…”


And she neared me to touch my cheek, “oh I can’t believe that I’m going to be this big fat grandma at 25. I know experiences are bound to offer maturity, but premature aging is what you now call as a doctor- ‘pathological’. Look at me, I’m nothing except a struggler, still I made you to feel jealous of mine. I won’t change my behavior, for you’re the consequence, I can see through the time, unlike you my vision isn’t opaque… I can see the consequence of yours. You’re so close to my goal; I’ll never call you a failure. Letdowns are bound to happen; I don’t want you to lose the vigor… I’ll offer a push, if you try to stop in between. You’ve the strength of knowledge, and I have the speed, imagine what’ll happen if both are combined. If you lack confidence, let you be, just borrow the sense of recklessness from me… Look for me, I’m always alive in your memory, and if your old memory fails… search me in the pages of your ‘teenage diary’.”