Puddle Adventure

After the rain had stopped, I stepped out of my house just like every other kid in the neighborhood to play out in the open. With rain, came the ubiquitous puddles, and with them, came a host of fun things to do.

I still remember – Looking into one such puddle, I would see the reflection of the house next to it. Blue sky, with small patches of white cloud would appear crystal clear in it. I would stare at the still reflection for a while, imagining that through this puddle, the image I beheld was actually that of a real world. Then I would bring one of my feet over the reflection of the sky, just an inch above the surface of the puddle, careful not to disturb it. Slowly, that reflection would turn into a real world.

Just like a parajumper would see his feet dangling in the cold air, a fraction of the second before taking the plunge from that plane, I would feel that at any moment, I could tumble down into the deep blue abyss right below my raised foot, into the infinity. The nervous excitement was very real, and thus I lived the adventure to its fullest, to the brink of toppling over.

Just when the illusion appeared to become too real, I would to pull away my leg from that puddle in that moment of fright and excitement. Stepping aside, I would wait and watch the puddle again, this time, with its surroundings. I then, used to chuckle at how I managed to create a reality in my mind, that was so very real, and that the adventure was so much scary, so much fun!!

The puddle, it appeared to me then, would lie there, awaiting its next prey, as I walked away to amuse myself with other indulgences of a typical child in the after-rain, knowing that the door to the other world lay ajar right behind my back…

So this time after the rain, watch out for the puddles… They await you!

Irony

"When he was in misery, and in pain,
Struggling and straggling,
She looked up to the ones
With riches and fame,

When he won that success,
That glory, that gloss,
She admired the one,
Who had these not!"

Fall Colours - Lost and Found

"The storm had passed, and it was bright again, though not sunny. The light was strangely homogeneous, and hardly managed to cast well defined shadows, thus ending up as dull gloom beneath the trees. The scent of wet soil was fading away even as the fresh leaves of green, of red and of yellow, the fragrance of barks, and the contrast of the sky, all invited me with open arms. Mother Nature was displaying her grand splendor, with occasional accent that was a distant rumble of clouds somewhere far in the horizon.

And so I went on, into the wild, on a trail guarded by the solemn trees guarding it since ages. Every anxious stride anticipated some deep mystery conjured by the mind, a pressing need, to be there – to the bosom of the woods. On I went on the snaking trail, where there was no sound, but that of crickets, and returning birds. No patch of land was to be seen, just hedges of green, and leafy vistas. Where it went to, I never knew. I did not want to…

Thus began my journey into the woods, with no desire to return; to come to be known as ‘lost’, and ‘to know’ to have been found by the wilderness."

A Short Story

He looked at the half-finished portrait, and knew it will never be completed. With the last bit of will-to-live fading, his heart wailed, and for once and for ever, begged for a concession of self-pity...