Author: Awungshi97

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Nu, your eyes are really tight shut now.

How I wish to wake up from this slumber,

But the cold touch of your skin sting back me to reality.

How you’ve fought on till the very last.

And how our hearts yearn for one last time with you.

But knowing you are already in His embrace, comforts our dreary souls.

How you slipped away unwilling to leave us all behind. Pa will never be the same, if only you’d seen how he broke down for you.

Asang sobs uncontrollably blaming herself for letting you go alone. But you are most satisfied with her care, aren’t you?

Apé, she comes home just to see you lying there, cold and still.

We’ll always keep close to us the things you taught us about life, taking Apé as the ideal model.

You fought on with all your will just to see your favourite (Amo) returning on the 8th but it breaks our heart to bits to see you give up earlier than that.

Ako, always the lively and funny one sat there in silence, as if he had forgotten how to smile altogether.

I promise that I’ll take good care of myself from now on ’cause I know you’ll not be around to correct and scold me for my sloppiness anymore.

Never gone you are, just gone ahead.

Preparing rooms for us as usual.

I am gonna miss you mama.

I shall see you again.

Till then take rest.

We all shall dine together again someday, My Love…

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With your Divinity face on, you asked of Him to give you “renewed heart, spirit and mind.”

But go back to brewing Lies and Misconceptions about your neighbors the next day.

Your Doctrine seems applicable only when its favours you and when you kneel with your Affiliation to Reverence.

Is it all Glory and Splendour to pray everyday yet fails to uphold your ground as a Good Human Being?

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matt 7:3)

Why whine all the time about the wrongs your Neighbor has done to you?

When you yourself fail to halt your ‘Ego Train’ even for a minute and let conscience of Self-reflection kick in.

Keep Your Religion and Your Faith, we have no need of it –

However let Humanity usher your Conduct, always!

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If these days of Quarantining have taught me anything, it certainly has to be – Minimalism. My heart usually doesn’t cope well with parting things that have been long lying in my possession. So much so that you might as well called them Artefacts now, some are really that old. It basically could be anything: like my old tattered pair of Pumas, a rusted chain, a coin, tshirts or even class notes from my college days.

Though, I have thrashed them all in the Bin now. Not gonna lie, I parted with them on such a heavy note that I wanted to scavenge the very Bin and retrieve them back. Fortunately I didn’t and it has taught me a thing or two, “You’ve got to let go of certain things from your past regardless of how good they once were and no matter how bad you feel about it.” They don’t contribute a dime to your progression you see. As you ran your fingers over them, the memories trapped inside each of the items suddenly resurfaces and look up at you almost as if begging you to save them, reminding you of how they were once a part of you. I let go of some things I never imagined I’d ever part with. This ‘to and fro’ of ‘whether to or not to’ went on for 2 days straight. I finally did threw everything out except for the things I really really have need of in my room. Who’d knew weighing the ‘pros and cons’ of things that will be occupying space in my tiny room would be so demanding.

Somedays I just stand at the door or sit on my black chair in a corner, scanning and admiring my room – now so spacious, airy, trim and sorted. My heart seems to have gotten bigger, lighter and rejuvenated too. There’s so much room for me to grow as a person now and the mere sight of possibility at ‘starting everything afresh’ is comforting.

Allow me to quote from a Film (Fight Club,1999) that’s been on my Amazon Prime’s watchlist for a long time. I finally watched it last week after stashing away such a gem for 3 months. And certain line by the character, Tyler Durden(played by Brad Pitt) is etched in my head. The line goes, “The things that you own, end up owning you.” This line speaks for itself and need no further deciphering.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” they said. Yet there’s a hell lot of people who haven’t received the ‘lemons of life’ yet. So I consider myself as one of those lucky few, and these will definitely be included in my list of Life’s Lemons.

Wrapping this up I have concluded that this Lockdown is first of the many Lemons I’ll be encountering and me picking up the art of Minimalism, my first Lemonade.

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Some days you feel alive, content- just as though you’ve moved on and your mind finally seemed to be at ease.

But other days, it sucks the life right out of you.

You find yourself lost in thoughts about the days you’d spent with them.

Or of the false promises- unfulfilled.

You feel daylight stretching; and the still, chilly nights now short-lived.

Moving on, is a process.

Healing, is a process- and a pain stacking; time consuming one at that. 

Another hapless thing is:

There’s no fixed duration as to when you will be restored.

You know being with them was not right but it feels all the more wrong to be without them.

You know you’ve got to admit your defeat by now.

Yet, every faces in the dim-lit subway reminds you of them.

You see them in the movies you watch, feel them in the songs you listen and in every little things you do.

Writing this after a Year and eighty one days.

One thing is certain, confronting the truth is the only way out of this procedure.

And your accepting capabilities of the reality decides when you shall see the light of day again.

You don’t have to stop loving them or despise them.

Instead, give your heart it’s due time to regenerate all the vigour you’d lost watching out for them.

And then- Fall in love with yourself all over again.

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Envy strucks!

You see…He! She! Him! Her!

They all got the Time-slot when Anu was still young, graceful, beautiful, strong.

A boy of 13 he was, wallowing in his bed at night as the usual hunch of homesickness kicks in; trying hard to muffle his sobs with the quilt,

Murmuring the prayers she taught him.

Craving for yet another one of those tight and warm hugs she gives him- especially like that one he got, the night they felt the tremors.

“She is at the final stage”, the guys in white aprons said.

“Huh! they know shit about her”, he smirked.

But when the truth hits, ‘It Hits!’ Doesn’t it? Time moves even faster then…

He confided in her about his discontentment of not showing Anu how much he love her. She persuaded him to tell his Anu everything; the serenity he got after the ‘tell-all’ was ineffable.

She was his rock when Anu was fighting her own battle and he – his own. She is the reason, he got through his lowest point in life. She is the reason why his Anu now knows how much ‘he loves her.’

Being the Almighty Being He is,

He granted us the extended time we needed, manifesting His ever lasting love yet again.

Who’d knew this Wrinkled, Aging, Ailing and Weak version of Anu will be his only Dose of consciousness.

Anu was ascertained she will name him “Yishaq” as he was born to her in her old age.

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