Time Flies

It’s 8:40 a.m on a foggy day. I am watching school children walk up the road below my house to school. There are ones who are independent enough to go on their own and there are the little ones who are accompanied by their guardians. I love to watch the toddlers – their happy, adorable, cherubic faces and cherry cheeks glowing with excitement to wear little neat uniforms and tiny shoes. Somehow, I see my childhood in these children and my heart fills with a youthful glow.

Today, unlike on other days, a thought strikes me. Now before I mention what it is, I have to tell you where I am. Every summer I go home(maternal) with my daughters to escape the blistering Bangalore heat. My house is in a hilltown, so naturally, schools here close during the savage winter months.

By the way, I have taught at the same school many years ago before I moved to Bangalore. So this morning, I am looking at the children walking up to school as I have done several times in the years gone by.

I realize that between the time I used to watch them long ago to the time I am watching them now, almost two decades have gone by. But where did it go? I don’t feel it; I didn’t see it! The faces of the students and their guardians look the same to me. Like time freezes every year around spring and I watch the sequence on repeat. But no, these are unfamiliar people. Perhaps some young parents are students I have taught, or maybe even toddlers that I used to look at and adore back then.

Where has that time gone and how come I don’t feel the lapse unless I reflect and contemplate? Yes, between that time and this, I got married, have two daughters, a tween and a teen, but me? I seem to be the same every year. Has age taken a toll on me? I don’t think so. Not yet atleast. I still see my childhood in these kids and feel joyous and alive.

I too have taken my girls to the school bus and back in Bangalore. Maybe someone like me was watching me and maybe they feel the same as I do. Maybe that’s the way we are supposed to feel… not be aware at all times that the years going by are taking our years too. Maybe we have to feel young at heart, rejoice in the humdrum and just live life.

But today, I can’t help feeling that time has literally flown but I haven’t with it; I am frozen.

They do say time flies right?… But do we feel it?

Image courtesy: Google

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This blog post is a part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla
in collaboration with Zariya Healings.

Wallflower

[Fiction]

Bedtime, the time of the day the woman dreads the most. After an exhausting day at work she should be looking forward to it, but she doesn’t. Her job doesn’t interest her anymore, it only adds to the stress. If it weren’t for the financial independence, she wouldn’t be doing it anyway. Her husband is lightly snoring and she smiles thinking, ‘he was awake seconds ago. I wish I could fall asleep that way too.’

She turns to one side, curls up her legs, closes her eyes, silently praying that they don’t haunt her tonight. But she is not spared on this night as on any other. She shuts her eyes tight but can still see them crawling up the walls and curtains like silhouettes of spineless creatures. They wriggle on the floor, float in the air, fill up her room from one end to the other and eventually converge in her ears. Her eyes bolt open and she feels stifled as their intense mumbling starts in her ears… whispers!

She hears them everynight… whispering things that she chooses to ignore. They make her delve into her conscience and acknowledge that she is merely surviving. They buzz in her ears and tell her that her life is immensely hollow, that her relationships are strained and not meaningful anymore. They insinuate that while everyone seems to be living fruitful existences, she is squandering her life. They taunt and jeer her and provoke her to dream of a life she could have lived, instead of this void. They remind her that people, things, occasions, seasons, years are passing her by while she is unmoving, unnoticed!

She breaks out from their smothering only to feel more wretched from the aftermath. She closes her eyes trying hard to fall asleep, but one poignant whisper still hovers strangely in the silence of the night. It tells her, “Grow out, you are not a wallflower!”

The woman contemplates, ‘Can I?’…

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This blog post is a part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla
in collaboration with Zariya Healings.