The Night Sky Lantern

He was 17 years old today. It has been long since he wanted to become 17 again. Perhaps it was the conversation with that girl at the grocery store which prompted him to come back at this age. How often he tends to forget the little details of his life? He used to sleep with his brother when he was 17. Now at the age of 63 he is used to the habit of sleeping alone and to him it seems like an eternity that he is sleeping all by himself. Going back at ages have these discomforts attached to them. Time is something which you will not like to touch, but rather you would prefer to observe from a distance. Its like fire or Sun for that matter.  That is why it is always nice to go in a single flow like everyone else. Nice it might be, but not nicer compared to the enthralling experience of traveling in "the space" which you can never touch. Traveling itself is a misleading concept when dreams become reality and you can submerge yourself into complete oblivion. It leaves a pleasant headache of confusion and then the death of loved ones becomes irrelevant. At the beginning he traveled 20 years or so to feel someone’s soft lips for the first time, all over again. The first sensations are important and time captures them in a capsule. It’s a drug which only a few can live on! He is now definitely one of them.

For the last five years or so, he has lost his senses of desperation, anxiety and most importantly sadness. It is the third which he misses the most. It is this thirst of sadness which provoked him to come back again. It was the age when he lost is dignity in front of many. Perhaps this incident will make him a bit sad, again. Losing someone is not a pain anymore, as he tried it several times. The constant sequels of same events with the people he knew in life makes it obvious and ridiculous at times. Perhaps it destroys his potential to love them once more. But he feels nonetheless. These tiny pieces of feelings are like precious stones. He enjoys over and over the feeling of being hugged by his father on a nice windy summer evening. Father’s eyes were wet and his unshaven face was leaving love bruises on his nose and lips. It was a terrific sensation. A sensation of security, more than love! He is 17 today. His father is still alive. He is sleeping in the next room. He can hear him snoring. But he feels suffocated as he is no longer used to sleep with a chubby 13 years old. He looked at his brother. The next day, this kid will bring him shame in front of many. But the child’s face was so soft and innocent that he could not resist himself from kissing his forehead. His brother made a grumpy sound and turned his back to him. He was not thinking like a 17 years old, he realized. Not once in his regular life he found his brother adorable. Then suddenly he had a thought. The thought made a sound which shattered the calmness of the night. Their quaint house could suddenly feel the jolt of his fears. The thought came like a gush of winds into his mind. Perhaps the incident of being apparently insulted by the lack of strength to pull out his brother’s bicycle from the mud, in front of the girl he had a crush on, would not be as humiliating as it was the last time round. Perhaps he does not have a crush anymore. He tried to remember her face and name, but failed again. Just as he made another failed attempt to feel sadness. He woke up, deciding to stay there for the night. He got himself out of the room and stood alone in the long stretched balcony and stared at the stars. The night sky lantern is what he calls them. Time has never collided with them nor did he ever keep track of it anyhow. Suddenly he felt something on his head; it was a hand, the soft and warm palm of his mother. He looked back, as she asked him about his troubles and things which are keeping him awake. All of a sudden he remembered that this did actually happen on the night before the humiliating incident. But he could not remember the reason back then, which made him wait at the balcony, in the middle of the night. Nonetheless it was a tender sensation. His mother’s face looked brighter as the light from the night lanterns glowed on her. He should come back again at this night of life, he thought as he smiled backed at her.