On a gray day

The weather was melancholy. No sun could be seen. Gray clouds sulked in the sky. They seemed to be swollen with tears, but the stitches at their seams were probably stronger than the pressure welled up inside. It didn’t look like it would rain.

There was no one around. When the weather turns gloomy, people try to escape its dirge by withdrawing into the recesses of their homes. Life sustains its vitality by soaking in the sunshine. The Gray is feared and avoided.

So I was alone, an empty sitting area in the fields.

I didn’t rustle a leaf and the air didn’t stir. In silence, we shared the ache of the clouds.

A black figure appeared in the distance. Someone had just entered the grounds. She was walking towards me.

When she was near enough, I recognized her. She was coming after years!

The air welcomed her with a gentle sweep. My leaves rustled in rhythm. She looked up and smiled. I hadn’t really changed with the years.

She climbed up the green benches, and sat on the third bench from the top, facing the topmost bench, the way she would always sit. She looked around. The smile spread. There were some treasures that would always be hers, like her memories, like me. She looked up to soak in the leaves and the branches overhead. She had always felt in them a divine caress. She felt the same today. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, as if taking in all my years that had passed without her, and softly breezed out all the years that she had stayed away from me. The gulf of years was dissolved in a single moment. She was back in her past.

They had been a group of six friends. They called themselves ‘The Aksa’. And me they had named as ‘The Aksa Zone.’ I was a part of their legend. Like an indulgent grandfather, I would snuggle them with warm sunlight peeping through a blanket of leaves. Thus they would nestle in my lap for hours, sharing their deepest secrets, sincerest dreams, and naughtiest plans, and I would be a silent listener to all their stories. I didn’t realize when they became a part of me.

She saw the rose bush nearby, and started. It was still there! She held it with a tender glance. The same memory warmed us both.

It was their last day together. The next day one of them would go abroad. They didn’t know when again they would sit as one. They spent that whole day with me. Smiling, chatting, teasing, taking photographs, cloaking the tugs at the heart, determinedly not looking at the ticking hours. The sun sent its last rays, its gentlest, to bless them. The time had come. One of them took out a poem, dedicated to me. As the poem was read, the words washed us all away in a flood of memories and tears. Together, we lived that moment. The moment that was the finale.

Silence followed the poem. It was a solemn silence, the song of their friendship. Then, one of them stepped down the benches and plucked a rose from that bush. Instinctively, the others also got up, and joined their friend. Together, they placed the rose on the lowest bench, and closed their eyes in a silent prayer.

After that, they all started their walk, it seemed, into eternity.

Today, they had returned. Through her.

Or would they all come back in person? For presently, I did see another of the Aksa girls coming towards me. My heart whirled in joy at the thought. I looked up at the clouds. They were still sad. How I wished they would cheer up a little! I gave them an affectionate scolding for being so difficult and told them to pay attention to my little girls.

My two happy girls shook hands at the foot of the benches. After radiantly smiling their “Hi”, they immediately proceeded to their favorite seats on the benches. I chuckled at the thought that they only had to ask each other any formal question, and the seal over their souls would come off. It happened within a moment. And it seemed that Time stopped. The world stopped. Just their two voices kept speaking.

They filled in the blanks of the intervening years. They looked back on their shared dreams, and mused about their current realities. They smiled at the secrets they had held dear, and unveiled the new secrets that the years had given them. They made the complaints against life that had hitherto been unspoken. Their anxieties rained, and their minds were purged. They consoled each other. They strengthened each other.

“I feel revived now.” One of them giggled.

They got down the benches for a little walk. One of them looked up, and smiled, “It’s a beautiful day today!”

I looked up ready to nudge the clouds to pay heed to what they had just said. But lo, behold! My sulky clouds were smiling too!

Japinder Gill