Thursday, May 30, 2013 @11:17 PM
I took a walk today.
'Twas after French class, a relatively non-eventful day. Trudging home amidst the indecisive drizzle. Long, quick strides, that of a tired person too weary to consciously know what he wants to do next, but impatient enough to want to do it. Stomping through the grass field to the beat of a tune in my mind whose sole purpose was to keep me going. But I was fine with that.
The breeze caught me.
A scentless perfume. A soft, silken hand.
I looked up.
I felt as I had not in years, if I had ever. I
felt. I was overwhelmed.
I saw stars of the flickering streetlights and the yellow-lit windows. I saw clouds of the flowing trees, swaying in the breeze. I felt as if I were swimming and flying at the same time, swimming in air, as it were. I felt so light, as if the calm wind could pick me by the underarms and lift me.
By this time, I had already turned the corner. I walked past my house.
It had been a while since I had walked down the street like this. Not ignoring everything that passed by, not thinking about something that happened or will happen. And it was nice.
It was like waking up past midnight, dragging one's pillow to one's parents' room, and gazing at the face of one's parent as he/she slept. And seeing how much they have changed, and how much they really have not. How much they've aged, and how young their spirit still is. A tiny wrinkle or a stray white strand, caused by a thought that was, before, yet un-thought. A worry that was, then, not yet existent.
I was, by now, at the end of the road. I considered my surroundings, and then I turned back.
Wait- I knew that smell. The familiarity of this whiff... what is it? Of youth? No. Of dreams? Too early. I catch the scent of fresh leaves and smile as I see the lush, overflowing garden of the house nearby. I return. Was it... it smells like Christmas. Or perhaps the time period is irrelevant. It doesn't smell of turkey or ham, or visitors or wine. Perhaps it is homeliness. Though the allure of Christmas (which was, to me, not extraordinary) seemed hardly proportionate to what I feel now. I grimace at the scent of dust from a nearby construction site. Humans. Always ruining everything.
I was at my gate by then. I'd have to press the doorbell, but I hesitated. I did not want to end this sensation, to break the night with noise. I paced about. I pressed the button.
Yet the night did not dissipate. The doorbell joined the cacophony of strangely distant sounds, like the laughter of an old man down the road, or the conscientiously soft playing on a piano. The barking of my dog. The rustling of leaves.
Then, I realised. The night would never dissipate. It
could never dissipate.
It could have been decreed that I was to be locked out of the house for slightly short of half an hour that night. But it was okay.
I was fine with that.
I sat on the floor of my porch, smiling at the stars and breathing in the breeze, as if I were talking to an old friend who had all too much to say. It was bliss. For I had an idea, just an idea, about the mystery that I had carried with me from the days of my greater youth, when I was heartbroken, or happy, or insecure and sad. That I will carry with me to my last breath in the night.
That what I smelled wasn't happiness, or childhood, or Christmas, or anything that could end.
What I smelled was
eternity.
And I'm fine with that.