To See Eternity In An Hour.

(The luminiscent dial of his watch told him it was 3.00)


It wasn't easy. Returning home after another futile day . Endless rounds of begging had almost ripped him apart. If only he had money for a drink. All images of him worming would blissfully fade away. Rather like those streetlights which seemed to stretch on forever into nowhere. Or maybe like those stars that seemed to be looking at him, twinkling down sadistically.

Those stars, and a decade went swishing past. The twinkle in Annanya's eyes far outshone anything heavenly. Some years blurred.... Sayan, and the same twinkle. He would be there at his doorstep too. There simply wasn't enough courage to face that faith.

"Baba....ekhono chakri pao ni? chinta korish na.... kalke to sure"
( Papa... you still didn't get a job?? don't worry. Definetly tomorrow)

Some tomorrows never come.

Every drunken laughter mocked him. Every smile made him cringe. When had he lost it all? And why?

Sayan..... he felt repulsed.
An old man lay shivering. He passed on.
The cold air knifed at his lungs, rather like his grief that cut through him, slicing him, wounding him, over and over.

"Baba..."
(Papa)

He was passing through the beach now and he could feel the coarse sand grinding beneath his shoes, his last pair. He thought he spied a couple in the distance, and muted voices carried through the waves brought him words like 'love'; 'forever' and a jaded, cynical smile spread over his face.

He passed on.
Perhaps, over the sounds he had taught Sayan to hear in a sea-shell, he could hear Ananya's recital, A 16 year old voice speaking at an elocution:

To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour

He understood what that meant once. Not anymore.

The world, maybe in another world might have been his to see and show Sayan.

Eternity...Rather like the vast sea before him, streching on, changingand mutating with each new wave. Rather like the world around him that transformed with every new beat of his bleeding heart. Rather like every ray of the Sun, each that brought more light to the forsaken.
Rather like Sayan his only Hope and Love.

And Love?

Ananya could yet come again

A fiery red broke out on the horizon.
He would wait till the red faded into full daylight.


(Beyond the fog, the could barely make out the steeples from which the church clock was striking four)