Sitting down in a corner, observing the expressions in the face of people who visited the house on that day, I had many things to write and share; my thoughts seem to have fallen down and lost under the dead leaves of time, such that I am now unable to write what I then wanted to write.
I am not getting the beginning to write about that sad ending!
When the priest was waited for, I heard someone inquire ‘did he arrive yet’?
When the ambulance was waited for, I heard many inquiring ‘did they bring ‘the body’ yet’?
Validity of his name is expired. His name was of no use anymore. He was referred to as ‘the body’.
Death is not as much a concern for the dying or the dead than it is for those who are left behind; men stood silently with men whom they knew. Men stood staring at ‘death’ leaning against the wall, or they searched for life on the floor as they stood looking down, plunged in thoughts of what is inevitable! The old among them – what must have been going on in their minds? The young, they were aware too in the attributes of death that doesn’t discriminate the old and the young.
Time chose to slow down; is it the fear of death or the respect for the dead that the men in waiting had lost their voice as they spoke to each other, that I could only hear whispers that failed to beat the tick-tock of the clock’s pendulum that oscillated between the two ends of now and then.
Which one of my word is perhaps the last I will speak? Which one of my deeds is perhaps the last I will act?
Faith in the plans I draw for the time to come is lost when I see the heap of dreams lying scattered in the silence of his wife and children. Yet I know that it is in that faith and in the actions that follows that you build and leave a legacy for those you will leave behind, though life never fails to throw at you examples of stark realities as this that instantaneously ripped away through the center a piece of dream that was core to the existence of that family.
There was a silent question that perhaps everyone asked in their minds un-doubtful of this inevitable touch of exhausting time, and perhaps a silent resolution in their hearts to make their life better, as they escorted ‘the body’ on its final journey!
Human race have grown its capability to annihilate races in pursuit of power and positions; yet, how humbled they become when they see reminders of that inevitable moment when you carry nothing that you fought for, rather, you are being carried to a place that you’ve been reminded all the while!
Shahir
