Homage to the level-ground

Homage to the level-ground | Arushi Thakur

They have always been there.

The dewy drops have crystallised under my eyes.

I hear voices that pull me back,

one at every step,

towards the lane that I once deliberately walked away from

with such deliberate steps that I can still see their prints on the frail ground.

I retrace every step, going backwards.

But, I do not turn back;

Nor my head craning to look back at the colourless world,

Neither my torso turning to absorb all that I had once left behind.

My steps move backwards, every step placing itself in an accustomed mould.

I try to reach forward but I am pulled back by this dreaded familiarity where my heels feel a known depth.

Slowly, the fragments of the abandoned valley start appearing, a scenery that materializes on my right and my left.

It gradually spans forward, as I get sucked back into a place that I know by heart, the same heart that has forever longed to forget it.

The only difference is, it is all black and white now.

The trees still sway but the birds cannot be seen perching anymore.

The rustling of leaves momentarily brings a thought to me, one that urges me to run away from here.

And, this time, I am surprised to find that I can.

The voices aren’t pulling me back anymore,

my hair remains suspended having loosened itself from the dooming grip,

and my feet are free to tread their own path.

But this time, I turn around and walk down the lane on purpose.

My toes fall on the soles and my soles fall on the toes, telling that a story is being rewritten where going backward is the only way of moving forward.

I reach the end of the lane.

There is no wall to signal an end but I know this is the place I must stop.

There are no trees here.

The grave that I expected to find here is nowhere to be seen.

No dead dreams, no dead people are here.

But they were there.

They have always been here, haven’t they?

I stoop, and then kneel.

I think of a few words—a broken ‘please’, a half-hearted ‘sorry’ and a deceiving ‘no’.

I utter none.

I place my palms on each other on my heart, close my eyes, heave a sigh and get back up.

The trees appear, green.

The sunrays appear though I never noticed them vanish and now hit the ground where there is no path and there are no footprints.

There are no voices calling out to me.

Maybe an honest sigh is all it takes sometimes to address the grave that never existed.

I walk into the coloured world.

On the path which now appeared behind me, there stayed a shape marked on the ground—two dedicated calves, signalling someone has mourned here.