The inscrutibility of being

He looks up at the evening sun. He sees the children play, he sees them open their mouths and scream with all their might. He sees them clear as day. But he doesn’t hear them. He doesn’t hear anything. All he hears is silence. All he’s heard is silence for the past few years. He opens his mouth to speak but the words don’t come out. He ends up saying garbled gibberish and they look at him, confused, with polite smiles frozen on their faces. He realizes the futility of his efforts and smiles back and slowly lifts his hand to pat them on their heads one by one. They walk away, their duties done, smiling and giggling and talking to each other. Their voices nothing but faint murmurs to his ears.

He slowly walks back to his chair, his walking stick lying next to it, forgotten. He must remember to use it more often. His body isn’t what it once was. He is no longer the 6 ft. something, strapping young man he once was. He can barely stand now.

He thinks back to the old days; that is all he does now, think and reminisce. That is all he can do. He thinks about his childhood; his mother and his father. He thinks of his brother and sister. He thinks of his son and wife. All dead. He thinks about his nieces and nephews. Deserters who left him in his time of need. He thinks of his grandchildren. The only ones he has left; all so busy in their own lives that they can’t spare 5 minutes for him. But he doesn’t blame them. He doesn’t hold them to fault. He can’t. They’re his flesh and blood and his love for them goes beyond petty annoyances.

Then he thinks about his own life. He thinks about his childhood, spent in splendor during the British Raj. He thinks about his youth, spent laboring to get back to that splendor. He thinks about his drinking, gambling brother who left nothing for his children, save a loyal uncle. He thinks about his sister who died too young. He thinks about his mother, the wise woman who made one fatal mistake that led to the downfall of his entire family.

He thinks about his life spent doing menial jobs in order to feed his family. He thinks about the lands he was deployed to as a soldier, about the back-breaking labor he did. He thinks about his wife, the crude, harsh-talking woman he loved. He thinks about his one and only child, the son who defeated all odds for his parents and his children and left the world far too early. He thinks about the wars he fought in. He thinks about the Great War his uncles fought in. And he wonders if he should still be here.

He looks around once more. He tries to hear, but there is nothing but pin drop silence. He looks around and he sees with razor sharp clarity the sun fading into the mountains. And he wonders, how did it come to this?

I wrote this about you when you were still alive. I sometimes forget you're no longer here, I catch myself wanting to go see you and it suddenly hits me that I no longer can. You always seems so unbeatable to me. It all started with you and I am so proud of you. I wish I had said that to you while you were still here. But I know you're in a better place will everyone you love and I know I'll see you all again someday.

Love you, dadajan.