Passers-by

The subtle comfort of the winter sun,
On this frigid skin.
It's a brief gain,
It's a fleeting regard,
Awaiting nightfall... whilst it withdraws its favour.

The fervent wind,
Again
Blows in my path
Its enchantment
Its enigma
Awaiting the solitude...whilst it withdraws its pursuit.

I embrace the sun,
I salute the wind.
Even if for a while,
Kind to me were they..
I walk along. Resolutely.
Awaiting the realisation..whilst I withdraw my delusions.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken

— Oscar Wilde

POISON

Adobe Backup File.

My eyes steadily glanced through the list of contents of 'My Documents'. Adobe Backup File. A plain yellow folder sat innocently amid a numerous "Bluetooth Exchange Folder", "My Muvees", "Updater5". I spent 30 seconds staring at it. I knew that was it...his personal folder. Smart guy, he had named it so intelligently. It could easily be passed off as a program file.

But I had to come to a decision, whether or not I wanted to open it.

I double-clicked on it, confidently.

What happened next was incredible. There were more than 500 items on the screen, running into a couple of pages. And NOTHING was organised into folders. I could see this muddle of photographs, a hundred VLC media files strewn all over, and very oddly named Word files. My heart started beating faster and I grabbed my cellphone and dialled his number.

It rang...2rings-4rings..I pressed the phone tightly to my ears, in anticipation of him answering quicker. It clicked, "Hello!" said a cheerful voice of a young man in his early twenties. "Umm..hey. Whereareyou?", I tried to sound normal, but I am sure my words tumbled out rather urgently. He laughed. "Keep talking to me for another 5 minutes and I'll be in front of you..", he said jovially. As soon as I heard that, I pressed the End Call button.

5 minutes. 300 seconds. Before my mind would go about breaking down those numbers into milliseconds, I inserted the pen-drive irately into the USB port. I quickly checked the size of the file- 4.59GB-3235 files, 106 folders! Damn. How would I copy it all in 5 minutes, now4?

The copying of documents had begun. I ran my fingers nervously through my hair , and rest my back against the wall. My body was trembling. Why was I doing this? What would happen if he caught me intruding his private space this way? How horrid he’d feel!
My gaze shifted violently from the tab on the windowscreen of the laptop to the surroundings. There was tension and jitteriness taking a complete control over my senses. My heart thumped wildly against my ribs.. I just wanted to cry..

I jerked the pen-drive out of his laptop abruptly and put in back in my bag. The contentitous windows were closed and I rested the machine on the floor of the campus. My nerves loosened and I buried my head in my palms and sobbed. Why, why was I being so distrustful?

"Oye!" he put his hand on my head. I inhaled nosily and lifted my face, to face his. "What happened?", he sounded confused. I watched his deep brown eyes scrutinize my face in apprehension. "I'm tired. A little hungry too" I said softly. Inside my heart, I was numb. Ashamed. And even fearful that I would be punished for this act of mine, someday. I could see a thick, black dot in my soul, fading and weakening out of its own helplessness..

That evening on reaching home I dropped my bag wearily onto the bed. Shaurya, my kid brother rushed out of the room- "Shut down the p.c. naa", he yelled from near the maindoor. I looked at him run out of the house with his cricket bat, so care-free, so guilt-free...

I inched closer to my bag and fished out that pen-drive. A sense of gloom bordered me as I opened Adobe Backup File. I stared at it blankly for sometime till I found something which caught my attention. It was a Word doc called ‘Yesterday’. I double-clicked on it...

"Everything inisde and outisde me is still. Absolutely still. Like someone is holding it so steadily, so assuringly. My inhibitions, my fears, queries, experiences, all quiet among this force. Your presence.

Slowly, I'm growing oblivious to the scene. The cars, the lights, the people are fading into a blur. The voices are merging with the sounds and the noise is dying so gradually. I am living each second, each nano second. Your presence and mine, in this huge canvas of activity. "

Tears rolled down my eyes so feverishly..as I saw my name at the end of the page.
"To Srishti"