Oh to be alive

Silence: tangible, unencumbered, languid, lazy stillness. Awash with mellow sunshine, swathed, draped in iridescent light. Moments froze, melted in turn, vanishing as they were touched, by a frivolous smirk. Snatched forever, or just suspended hidden from time, sublime…      Silence, complete silence tore through the room, as he tried to make sense of the entire day, surrounded as he sat lost in thought, amidst a boisterous group of friends. It had been a while since they had met. More than two decades perhaps, but it all seemed the same.      Flirtatious and nervous laughter floated around; unfettered banter and a bonhomie that only came with time seemed to be the hallmark of the day, rather evening. He tried to shake himself out of the stupor, the strange helplessness he felt; there, yet not there.      He listened assiduously to the continuous chatter of a ravishingly beautiful woman, whose radiance seemed to fill t...

Unabashedly he stared; ensconced in his arms she felt safe yet scared. Eons melted away between them when he realized how much he cared… Tearing his eyes away, he waited with bated breath: broken moments, flanked by fragmented slivers floated in between, untapped. Unrequited, unresolved, in that moment he lived several lives, yet breathed easy again. Was life cruel or was it a warped sense of time instead? Or was it just a disconnect from another day, another epoch, that had suddenly manifest? Whatever it was, it made him complete, just a look was all he waited for, just a whisper carried ever so lightly on the morning zephyr, bringing tidings from her homestead. Was it all real, or just a story, neatly woven, deeply embedded in his head? Copyright Suverchala Kashyap