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By Vishal Date: 2002 Mar 23 Comment on this Work [[2002.03.23.00.16.20287]] |
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So I'm walking down the street the other day, aware but not really concerned about where I'm going. I'm surrounded by the fabulous African sunset, the watery pink merging with blazing reds, oranges and the minutest touch of that deep blue which gently heralds the approach of night. Not threatening, a quiet reminder that the stars are shedding their shyness slowly, the same stars you used to point out to me by the lake on the clearest nights in the world. Remember how annoyed (and amused) you used to get that Orion was the only one I could ever recognise. But you weren't on my mind at the time. I've managed to do a pretty good job of erasing you from the conscious parts of my brain. I remember the sense of relief I felt when I first realized that I could no longer remember your face. The image that I once thought was as close to a divine sight as I would ever experience, was now as blurred and hazy as an old Polaroid, or the faxes we sent each other on that godawful paper. I turned a corner, barely escaping tripping over one of the vendors that you used to grumble about. "They're a BLIGHT Vish. I'm not against anyone making a living but why do they have to corrode the view for everyone else. They're the carrion of the city..." But I digress, I still do that by the way. Then I looked up and saw you, I have no idea where you came from, you just appeared, and something, everything in me just, stopped. It's not because we stopped to engage in that stomach wrenching small talk that intimate strangers do, for you and I are destined never to speak again. A bystander wouldn't even have detected the slightest pause or sign of recognition. But for a fraction of the moment, that look on your face, the one that used to light up a room and rock all my worlds, fluttered, and died. And now, the image of your face and your smile, my god your smile, are clearer than ever before. All it took was that one glimpse, and now it's as though all those memories have drunk from some fountain of youth,and I have to start forgetting all over again. I have forgiven you for everything, but this. Your power to annihilate my strength astounds me. After all the pain, and ugliness, Why are you still so beautiful? |