The Dream

He was always waiting for the moment when everything would fall into place. When all the sadness and mundaneness of his life would emerge as part of the grand plan leading to that perfect moment. The angels would sing, and the wind would gush congratulations. No matter if anyone else on earth knew it or not, the universe would know.

He was a regular guy with a regular life. His work was allright, not something that he would trade his late evenings and weekends for, but in any case, there was nothing else being traded. There were always chores and responsibilities and duties and other tasks with similar meanings, and they helped melt the hours into weeks.

The world of letters is treated with suspicion and distrust by the illiterate, and with reason too. Their minds are less tainted with the notions of propriety and culture, and it is like a permanent vaccine against the illnesses caused by too many ideas. Unfortunately destiny had not granted him such priviledge and thus he often did sucumb to the malaises of those printed letters. Contrary ideas, spouting everywhere to influence and his poor little head couldn’t run far to escape till it was caught.

The magic of words and sentences printed in on an innocuous blank sheet is their ability to morph around everyday  aspects of co-existence. Especially, when the interactions were really quite superflous and professional. Our minds are really masters of the jigsaw puzzle, fitting tiny pieces to create many different pictures than what the cover may dictate. And so it was with this forlorn lad, with none but the sanction of those letters to comprehend the dissolute world around.

Life was well and the jigsaw puzzles did indeed fit into a picture; nevermind the jagged edges. Life was as the norms dictated, as the government wanted its citizens to be, as his organisation wanted its employees to be, as the TV ads wanted everyone to be. All norms were followed and balanced and repeated till they became his life and his story. He believed it to be like any other story he read, just the same mix of reality and imagination.

Till one day, he fell in love. To be fair, it was actually a day that he remembered his love, and did not let the thoughts express a surreal image but instead felt himself reminiscing those memories. It was a strange feeling. His heart raced faster than usual and his textbook reactions were muddled up. It was so different than all the stories he had read, all the messages ingrained. His instinct was to distrust this feeling, and he trusted his instincts and wanted to push it all away. But, this was the moment that he had been waiting for ! The universe did beckon. His heart finally felt light, and he realised that there was such a heavy burden which felt lifted away, which he had completely overlooked for so many days. The scary part was that it was not in the script. He did not know the next lines, he had not encountered words describing the path ahead. And our regular guy was scared, goosebumps lined his body as his drew his breath sharply in.

He suddenly realised that these crossroads had been beckoned by his own memories. A voice inside his head dictated, this is but your creation and what you create once, can be repeated at your will. At the moment, you may be slightly unprepared, but fear not, there is plenty of support back where you came from. Close this chapter from your head and you can return at a suitable time, suitably prepared to seize the moment. Letters are indeed so malicious and hazardous under their innocent bystander looks. The iron was struck when it was hot. He succumbed and distracted his thoughts away, like a skillful magician conjures the rabbit away.

Now, at this very moment, he is dreaming of that moment when it will all come together, when the jigsaw will rearrange without touching it, and when he will be who he doesn’t really understand but misses deeply, himself.