Darkness had fallen sooner than dusk had arrived. Trying to stroll through the sidewalk of the highway, when every step feeling laden, falling off from where I wanted them to be, every hold seeming to be weaker to support, every onlooker scorning at the unkempt demeanor, I was sure I ll reach, since I have seen this all the time. I knew that this was not fair, it was a broken promise, the happiness of a morning sun, shattered by an unscrupulous downpour, a torture of the solicited soul to take me back to what I used to be! A failed endeavor... I wished day after day that I had never tried this... never!
The gate was still locked, just like I had left it in the morning? No, its from the other side now. Carelessly fumbling for the keys, when I realized that I had left it at the bar table. Rocking the gate aimlessly, bellowing to open it, I felt the lights go off from the doors of one neighbor to the next, as if to watch the inebriated drama in the darkness of their darker minds! At the corner of my right eye, I could see bicycle headlights, dim and obscure, swaying across the road in that tenebrous late evening, coming closer to me, with an equivocal mumbling as if from a bee moving past behind me, evanescing at the corner of my left eye... I wish every morning that this was not repeated, but it has become a lost hope, a hope that still has its literal meaning, just its meaning alone!
There was no sound from inside... I kept on shouting to open the gate, trying to climb over it at times, slipping my feet at the wet cylindrical bars, falling off on the muddy, concrete gate step. I could hear sneers from across the street, with two heads looking at the besotted melancholy. It became unbearable, when I walked groggy across the street, asking which bastards wanted to watch the drama. Sooner, I felt the heads slowly moving inside and the crackling of an old door, closing through the darkness. Dragging over the filthy soil across the road, I walked back to my gate, crying out loud on the mistake I did again and repenting over my weakness from refraining. It was getting too heavy for me to stand up, holding the gate, slowly my toes aching and me falling on the steps, with a jouncing sound of my head against the stone side by. I was still conscious, though it was hard for me to raise my head more than an inch.
I lay there with blood oozing out of my head in the darkness of the night, when I saw a small light go on in the front room, the door slowly opening and a little seven year old feet coming out. The left foot first, then the right foot, stopping for a minute as if something was pulling it back, I could not see him completely from where I lay. He took a key from his little trousers pocket, stealthily opening the lock, sooner I could feel his soft little hands on my forehead, pushing me into an obstreperous uproar over the promise I had broken to him. I tried to raise my hands to grab him, but they seemed to be paralyzed from the pain. I tried to mumble to him, but words were not coming out... Suddenly I felt him cconfused, running away, splashing the muddy water on the way, into the house. Soon, my head was feeling heavier and I could not stay awake, falling slowly into a coma...
I opened my eyes to see that it was already 8. I was on bed inside my home, when she was sitting there next to me, crying at her misfortune, when my son was at the table, trying to put a steel glass stand on another steel glass, that was already standing on the tea flask. I touched her palm, looking into her eyes with a million apologies, and a silent pledge that I will not repeat it, this time with my eyes putting it straight that I have understood my mistakes. I could see the blossom of happiness in her eyes, and a smile on her lips. She moved to grab the boy, lifting him and placing him on her lap and touching my right hand as if to make a promise, holding the boy in the other. I secured her palm for a few moments, assuring her that this will not happen again...
It was already late for office! We walked out, myself locking the gates from outside, giving the key to the kid, while telling her that I ll get the other key from the bar while returning in the evening...
When conscience soul takes a back seat to ones temptations, there is not much of a hope!!
