Foglights

There are many reasons why I was awake that night, not least of all being the fact that sleep deludes me whenever my mind is in agony. That's quite an unfortunate habit, because there is no mental pain that a good sleep wouldn't ease, especially if loads of love and its healing powers are not available. Still, that night I was wide awake, staring at nowhere-in-particular in the darkness while nowhere-in-particular stared back at me. In my mind echoed the sounds from the recent and not-so-recent past; in my room echoed every step that the the arms on my bedside clock took. I turned to stop that clock; the commotion was getting too much to handle. It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn't shadows from outside. Moving, vague shadows of nothing-in-particular that came and went as if I was in a train compartment. They began to disturb, and thus I got up to close the curtains so that my room could be freed from the crowd.

Drearily I got to the window. It had been a long tiring day, but I couldn't sleep till I stopped thinking about it, and I knew I'd continue to think until I dozed off. I was trying to draw the curtains, but drawing curtains is one of the many things that if you try to do too swiftly, you get nowhere at all. I pulled at it twice too hard without success. The third time I managed eyes-opened-wider and a slow, concentrated speed. It was then that I realised how foggy it was outside. The world was blurred, and not just in my mind. I tried wiping the tear in my eye to ensure I could see just exactly how hazy it was. It helped, for this time I caught the one unmoving shadow at the corner of the scene in front of me. I looked harder for I was sure there was someone sitting there, humped, and I wondered who would do that at such an unearthly hour in such weather. I somehow remembered exactly where I had left my torch some hours back, and thus had no difficulty retrieving it now. The fog dispersed the light of my torch, but even in the foglights I could finally make out it was a real person sitting crouched at the opposite corner of the building with not too many clothes either. I knew it was cold outside, and was instantly paralysed by a fear when I saw him unmoving...a fear that easily superseded all the pain I imagined my mind was cluttered up only an instant ago. I switched on my lights and put a jacket and slippers onto myself and moved out with a blanket and the torch in hand.

Outside, I felt it was colder, darker and much foggier than I expected. Still, I was moving swiftly despite the cold, un-gloved, un-capped, un-socked but undaunted nevertheless for I was worried. I reached the place I was headed to, but found no one where I expected to find him. I turned back and saw my window; he should have been there, I saw him only a few minutes ago. I flashed my torch in all possible directions. Fog dispersed and reflected the light, but I still saw nobody. I tried calling out, but neither did I know who to call out for, nor would any voice come out of my mouth. For an instant I feared he was dead, but if that was true his dead body couldn't disappear right. That was a relieving thought. For the following few minutes I didn't know what to do. I was rather numb and could feel or think nothing at all. I stared at the ground where the light fell on nothing-in-particular, and in the dim light in the dense fog wrapped under the darkness of the night, I suddenly felt clear. Clear about what?I don't know...but it was as if everything escaped me completely. I had nothing to worry or smile about. The world came to a stand still. I switched off the torch. I didn't need it any more. Even as I retraced my steps back to my home, I was able to 'see' in the fogged darkness, and I was cent percent sure I was going on the right path.

I got back home, got rid of the jacket and re-opened the half-drawn curtains. There was no one at the opposite corner. Whether there was ever anybody there, I wasn't sure. But it didn't matter any more.

I slept.