Monday, November 04, 2013

Waiting for the milkman


Dearest Martha,

I have decided to leave this city and go meander and trundle in the countryside. This time, there is much less of a sense of escape and more of a feeling of adventure, of possibility. There is a calm belief that there are places out there as yet untouched by man's inexplicable dissatisfaction with himself often manifested in meandering mercantile mishaps. Everything's for sale. Nothing is sacred anymore. I guess nothing's ever sacred but for that one fleeting moment in childhood when you grasp the entirety of the universe and you feel at one with it, when you know without a sliver of doubt that it's all for you.

Do you remember waiting for the milkman in the evenings by the roadside? The counting of cars. The hellos, goodbyes and welcome backs. That little corner of the world. Who would have guessed where that road would lead us? It took one leaving and that world was behind us and all the times we travelled back, it seemed we had travelled further and further away and were only strangers in the houses that once we called home. It was odd feeling that way, and all the childish questions we had never found an ear willing to comprehend. Yet I believe the hills love us still and whisper our names, for we were born there and the river knows the feel of our feet but I cannot help feel that I have walked so far on that road that I might never return for now I long to be in the sky.

Will you come with me Martha? I don't know where this road will take us but I want to walk it with you if you will come. I can only promise that there will always be ground under our feet and if it should shake and rumble, I will always hold your hand.  But if you do not come, I will go with the memories of old days and whenever I get the chance, I will sit by the roadside and wait.

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