The Boy And The Old Man

To jog, to stretch my arms, legs, neck, body and everything except sexual organ, I reach park very early in the morning. First, I warm up my body before jogging like drinkers spice their tongue and mood before taking the first sip of the colorful wines.

The morning is not the same like every day. Small water loggings look like small lagoons there among the small grasses and tiled tracks. It has rained heavily last night. The air is still and the atmosphere calm. The wet branches look blacker, the leaves newer as the rainwater has washed away all the dirt that city pollution has deposited over them. The grasses look fresh. The birds chirp more. They even cry and fight with each other. The crows tease other the bird species with their idiocies. Some broken braches lie on the wet red track as if a young man was made to bend his head down forcefully.

I begin to jog.

I jog.

I stop.

I jog again.

I look here and there.

I jump into grass.

I dance.

I sniff the smell coming from either grass or trees or the leaves or anywhere.

Snif. Snif. Snif.

Like a dog.

Yoga people look at me, confused.

I stare back at them.

They resume inhaling and exhaling the air around.

I close my eyes.

Opening eyes, I start running, suddenly.

I run to the other end.

I pause, breathing, heavily.

I start to weep.

An old man comes near and asks 'what happened?’

I open my eyes wide at him. He gets scared.

‘Are you an old man?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘Yes, I'm the one.’

‘Ok.’ I stop sobbing.

‘Why were you weeping?’

‘Was I really?’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘No, I dint.’

‘Okay.’ The old man turns right and starts running quickly away from me, screeching, mad, mad, mad.

I look at myself, confused then begin running behind him, crying, where, where, where?’

The old man paces his speed. I do the same. He stops, suddenly.

‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing.’ Then I continue, ‘what can you give?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I knew.’

‘What?’ The old man tries to walk away, but I grip his wrist tightly. He shivers, looking at me and at his wrist, at times.

‘What do you want?’

‘Answer.’

‘Answer?’

‘Yes.’ I said, losing the grip around his wrist. He breathes calmly.

‘Were you a child one day?’ I ask.

‘Yes, I was.’

‘Do you still remember those days?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay, tell me one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Why don’t the past stop running after me?’

The old man thinks sincerely over my question and in place of answering he asks, ‘why are you asking?’

‘What?’

‘The past and all.’

‘I want to know, that’s why.’

‘What kind of past you are talking of, young man?’

‘Rain,’

‘Rain?’

‘Yes,’ I nod vigorously then I begin, ‘the old rains were nice when I was a kid. I used to focus on each single micro thing that I had seen in the morning after heavy rain of the previous night. I could feel the things around me. But now I can’t feel the things around me. I think, think, and think.

I could go to the gardens. I could see the wet mango trees. I could try to not let my slippers slip on the wet and slippery earth. I could smell the earth and the ripening guava. I could not run like this that day. I could sit and enjoy, seating on the broken branches. The branches on which I once wanted to climb but never did but after………..