Haunting Hills

It’s 3.00 pm and I am stuck in the concrete jungle of ever failing dreams. But the sun is soft. Slowly breaking onto my shoulder and illuminating just my physical presence. Only I don’t recognize it. It does not burn my skin with the familiarity that I feel with the sun back home. And if I was to open the window, I know the wind would sing with my hair and caress my cheeks, warmly. But not with the fierce tenderness of the breeze back home.

The realization hits me at 3.15 pm, almost two nights and two days since my reluctant journey back from the hills. That for the last ten years that I have been adjusting with this fast life as my second abode, I’ve failed miserably. Because, no matter how soon the hills evaporate from my memory once I am back in the technological habitation, their drizzle keeps visiting me sporadically.

Think I still love the enormous climb of the slopes to the ease of the escalator. Think I still love the wilderness of the wind to the chill of the air conditioner. Think I still love the laziness of the small towns to the panic pace of every second in the city. Think I love the forgetfulness of the goat’s trails that help you find yourself to the sharp directions of the city boards, which lead you to loose yourself in the hired crowd. Think I love the tranquil flight of the birds in the valley to the mastered navigating skills of the creatures in the narrow skylines of the city.

3.30pm and I am still sulking. Around me I see happy faces, growing faces, greedy faces, hopeful faces. Not another has the shadow of loneliness painted on it. And then I smile on the loss. Their’s. Because I suddenly take pleasure in what they have probably missed. They are probably some empty vessels that have none so beautiful memories to cry on. They do not feel the grief of loss because they never felt the happiness of owning something so enthralling; the restlessness of butterflies, the carelessness of streams, the freshness of wind, the coldness of snow.

And so my heart retraces its steps and decides to settle down on the warm bed of compromises. Happy, it had something than nothing at all.