Crossroads

I believe we are going to meet again. Not that I can state any reason for it, but it’s one those little unexplainable feelings, that without rationale or logic, sounds like a voice inside you; but a voice you nevertheless trust. So yes, I believe we are going to meet again. Maybe it’ll be just like the movies – at a cafe of some random beautiful city, surrounded by bright light across the windows and a dark aroma of coffee mingling the senses. Probably, you’d be sitting a couple of tables away, with a friend, while I’d be hastily trying to feign interest in a novel. Our eyes would search for each other, slightly confused if it was indeed that singular familiar face from our pasts, and then, the sudden realization when everything pours in.

Flashes of those silent tales playing in our minds shall feel like movie reels, of memories that enclose us, still; memories that had been considered long forgotten, until that very moment. And maybe, we’d even have a little smile on our faces, not because of our ending that was anything but happy, but for the sake of the little familiar feeling of comfort that we get from the things of our past. Like those little brown shoes that you used to love when you were seventeen, or that old little watch you had which wasn’t fancy, but you still kept it because it felt like home. We scavenge around, hoping to be better versions of ourselves, only to crash back and realize that we are only what our memories are.

In this little dance of our remembrance of the elapsed time, there would be one question I guess we would want to ask each other. What if everything that had happened – our tiny moments of togetherness, our moments of shared joys and tears, and the bitter end that tore us apart – was just a prelude to … this? Like a perfect story that the universe has crafted, or just like in the movies, where things break apart, only to be  fixed again. Like how every time things are meant to fall back ino place, and all that we ever needed was some time without each other.

And we’d probably fidget in our seats at the cafe table, mulling over the choice of walking towards the other’s table, to correct our wrongs. To put this story tabled by the universe in the way it was supposed to be. But, let’s be honest, shall we? Out of all the possibilities, walking up to each other’s tables is as scary as it’s comforting. Because, it’d mean to walk back to becoming the people that we were two years ago, or five years ago, or fifteen years ago. Not that we don’t like each other anymore, but because we are scared of becoming what we had been, before. Like the ebb of the tide, we evolve into this different version of ourselves, for the better or the worse, refusing to go back.

So, all that I know is, one of us would get up from the table, but rather than making for the path to the other, would silently reach for the door.  And the other one would be hoping that after each doomed step, there’s a turnaround, or a sign of recognition, but all that would greet the one waiting, is the jingle of the bell at the cafe door. At that very instant, it’d dawn on us that it was probably the last time we would see each other. In that very moment, the entire plan of the universe shall collapse and boot into oblivion. The scriptwriter would tear out our sheet of page, throw it into the dustbin, and realism shall kick in. And that shall be, the very tragedy of it.