For most people, the day after is a bit dull and boring but not for me. With a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in another, I took things deliberately. My 3 years Labrador who was sitting on my feet, took a turn on his back, stretched, got up and moved out into our roofed backyard. I took all the time to finish off the beverage and then leaned back on the couch. I sat there for sometime wondering what to do with the next moment before getting my lazy butt up, across the lounge area and dropping it into the backyard chair, besides my dog.
It is important to bring it to the notice of my lovely readers that its generally not like me to be lazy, not even on weekends but everyone has their times and moods. Today was mine.
I was wondering what my dog was gazing at as the life seems to be moving on slow pace. It was a warm winter afternoon. There was nothing noticeably outstanding, except the miles of stillness stretching across. I was curious how my dog look at things, life, his surrounding and us.
I started looking outside in parallel to his line of sight. There were trees, a lot of them some of which were bearing colorful flowers like red, yellow etc. Because of the fall season, some of the flowers had left their branches and created a round flower bed around the trees. Some of the birds were chirping in the trees. One could see a silhouette of a human form or two walking across a trampled-down path in a distance ever once in a while, but not very frequently.
While my dog was looking at all of it, I wondered if it made any sense to him at all.
I had always envied his peace and contentment.
I couldn't say my life is perfect.
There had been times when I had failed, I had fallen, it had dawned on me that not all dreams deserve to get fulfilled and I had been annoyed about all of it. There have been so many questions engraved in my mind which have kept me awake for so many nights in a row but couldn't find any answers to.
While sitting in all this stillness and silence, I felt that the turbulence of mind had come to a rest and all the questions had resurfaced again. At this moment I was not annoyed but was not satisfied either. I was still deprived of something that was absolutely necessary for me, I still don't have answers to my questions.
I wondered if nature was trying to tell me something. That if a shedding tree , if a blue sky stained with cirrus, if a trampled downed path can be beautiful; so can the deprived life with unanswered questions. I noticed my dog was looking at all of this distastefully, almost with droopy eyes. He was sleepy.
I looked at the book on the table at my right 'life as we know it'. Don’t know when I had left it there and forgot, so I picked it up and opened the bookmarked page. I flipped through its page and sadly more than half of the book was unread.
I made the book rest on me, closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried to make sense out of all this. It would take some time to accept the life and things as they had been so far and how they would turn up, in times to come.
Before I commenced reading, I allowed myself to breathe the emptiness for a while.
The slimy and warm tickling on my left hand brought me back. It was my dog telling me to get up. I noticed the warm afternoon had already melted into the cool violet evening. Like so many other days, I had lived through the day without progressing on my reading. It was almost 7:00 on the watch and it could be called a day.
Tomorrow its going to be an another day where so many things need to be taken care of and so many tasks to be accomplished. I picked the book from me, placed the bookmark where it earlier was and put it back on the side.
I got up and gave a last look at the silhouettes of the trees, the violet skies and the trampled downed path which could hardly be seen in the darkness. The whole day had passed and still what had not changed through the day about this whole view is the stillness, the long silence.
To all my lovely readers, I would like to bring to your notice that my 3 years old, shiny haired, cheerful, black Labrador always remains my best buddy, with whom I like to spend my lazy evenings, who loves me unconditionally, never judges me and cheers me up with a warm welcome after a long day. His name happens to be Ceasor.
