I am pursuing Happyness. She just ducked in the alley across the throughfare and the signals turned. I curse the traffic. Two seconds too early and I would have had her, but the universe conspired to let her escape.

Its been a good chase. Albeit tiresome at times, but I got to touch the hem of her skirt at times — and then Happyness vanished again; gossamer as the morning dew on a single blade of grass.

The wheels spin on the highway as the Poets of Fall sing a late goodbye and I see Happyness in the highway up front, beckoning. And I light a cigarette-from here to the salt plains of Utah.

The airport terminals close in and I see Happyness checking in into immigration. An immigrant dream. Six degrees of sepraration between me and her as the plane taxies off the ground. An ocean between me and Happyness.

The fingers move over the braille lettering and the lips quiver, the tongue stammers and then they utter…a sound. That eyes can’t see. And Isee Happyness again blooming in a smile only to gurgle into soft peals of laughter, to vanish into the darkness of sight.

The cesspool of human failures swell as the flood waters take to the streets and there amidst hapless stranded people and submerged pneumonics of technology, Happyness, in bare naked bodies and footloose fancy kicks trough the failure of humanity — to play ball. That same infectious laughter and the sun shines again; amidst a carnival of rust.

The knock on the window and a planitive plea to buy a Spiderman. The earnest eyes shining through wet lank hair greased through the drizzling rain and as I hold out the tenner, I hear Happyness in the patter of feet of a little girl as grubby hands in clammy weather do cartwheels on the sidewalks. At a sale made….a deal closed….a meal on the platter.

The sale of morals….the deal of ethics…..and the compromise of talent. To do something which is safer, easier and then the breakout to listen to call from deep inside. My jeans are torn, my camera is loaded, my destiny is wide open, and i see Happyness, courting me with those intoxicating eyes. I start walking for a new tomorrow.

It is a moment or maybe a fraction when Happyness always hits me, welling deep inside my spirit and running through my veins, an unbearable lightness of being….for me the Living…..before it is gone. What is left is the road oft travelled….of reconciliation.

I see Happyness in a hijab on the market squares of Morrocco. Elusive as she darts in the crowd to lead me through the chase. A chase called LIFE.

As the boy stands on the burning deck of Casablanca.

While Humphrey Bogart turns his head and says….”Here’s looking at you kid”