Water Colors

It's been raining since early morning here. I woke up from a lazy night at the sound of the pitter-patter of raindrops attacking my glass window panes like the fury of a woman when she hits her lover and then rolling down the same glass pane like the melted anger rolling down her cheeks when her lover takes her into his arms.

It's a cloudy gloomy day with a pregnant sky and rain showers. The world around me seems to be wrapped up snugly in a fluffy grey blanket. With leisurely steps I open the door leading to my balcony and immediately my arms closes around myself in a futile attempt to ward off the slight chill in the saturated breeze. Yes, Fall's knocking on the door. As I stand there with my hands on the wrought iron railing of my balcony I see the greens being washed away by the rains in the distant and at that very instant I get that all too familiar smell which money can't buy - I inhale the smell of the wet earth. The Jasmine tree looks half-blurry as if someone has sprayed water-colors on it. I don't wanna go to Heaven or Paradise or Jannat or whatever they call it. I am already there.

I felt the rain soaking in through my cotton robe, retreated my steps back to the shade where I pulled a chair to perch myself on it and again turned my face towards the hazy horizon. And I see a girl on a same drenched morning rushing to that balcony with dancing eyes, arms stretched out as if inviting the Nature into her abode. The thought never once creeps into her mind to retreat her steps back under that shade. She stands there with her head tilted towards the sky, with her pinkish mauve robe becoming a second skin with every fleeing second. She stands there without a care in the world, with her eyes closed to all kinds of adversaries, oblivious to the Satan, the Devil, to all the Yin in the world. She stands there with a smile on her face with the soul objective of her entire being concentrated on inhaling lungfuls of that priceless aroma of the wet earth.

Suddenly she fades away like a figure on a canvas which slowly gets blurred when excess water drops are sprinkled on it. Or like the handwritten letter of a forgotten someone whose words slowly fades away with the growing wrinkles on the face of Time. I keep staring at that vacant place where she was standing some moments ago. The past hitting and rolling into the present as those raindrops which hit my window pane and then rolled down its surface with nimble strokes.

I stretch out my hands from under the shade and feel the rain at the tip of my fingers. Overcoming the sharp instinct to withdraw my hand, I keep it in mid air for sometime. Yes, it feels good. It feels good to connect to the only medium which connects that girl to me. A small smile slowly creeps to the corner of my mouth unknowingly as I look at the raindrops dripping down from my fingertips, one after the other. Maybe the essence of that girl drained off this Me in this same way sometime, long back... and I didn't even realize when.

Do I want her back? Do I miss her? Do I long to be her, again? Yes.

But at what price? Am I ready to trade all these years of priceless experience and realization just for that one moment of blissful innocence?

Nahhh ! I'm not willing to let go off Myself for the Me, I could have been.