Like Snowflakes

Part 3:

Theo’s heart sank, and his face lost all of its color. It was precisely at that moment that Theo was dragged back to reality from high up in the clouds by a Minotaur clutching his hair and hauling him over.

Tears started to fall down his cheeks, mixing themselves with the slowly falling snow. Unable to bear the pain inside his heart, he leaned onto the chest of a very surprised Sourav.

Startled, Sourav flicked away the cigarette he held in his hands and patted Theo’s back awkwardly. It seemed as if Sourav suddenly understood something.

“I loved her.. with everything I had,” whispered Theo, to an empathetic Sourav and the cold Shimla winds.

The weak smoke rising out the front of the cigarette in the snowy ground tediously pulled itself towards Theo.

“Keep the dreams to your head, and never bring it to your heart” It whispered forgotten words into his ears.

The snow continued to fall on top of both of them, and silence reigned supreme.

“Can I have a smoke?” Theo asked, withdrawing himself and wiping away his tears.

“Sure bro, here you go.” Sourav fished out a Cigarette and a weary-looking lighter.

Clumsily, Theo sat on the snowy white ground and leaned on the building right behind him. Tears were still falling as he lit a cigarette for the first time in his life.

Taking a small puff in, the stink gradually disappeared and turned into something pleasant- overriding all his pain and sadness and reminding him of all the memories and the daydreams he used to have of her.

Out went his breath, and so did all his hopes and dreams of them together- sitting under a tree with his head on her warm lap, watching a movie together in the cinemas, having romantic candlelit getaways.

Suddenly, Theo started coughing- And yet he already missed the warmth that the cigarette smoke spread within his lungs.

Sourav had also sat beside him, smoking his own cigarette.

“Do you know… Do you know why she went so far?”

“They say it was depression, Iono anything in more detail sorry.”

Theo smiled wryly. The shining sun that had vanquished the darkness in him during his toughest hours, had been the one carrying the biggest shadow in her heart.

“Why is it that the brightest smiles always comes from the darkest places?” Theo asked the lonely winds.

A gloomy silence took over, interrupted only by fits of coughing from Theo. He had no idea how long he stayed like that, gazing at the moon and stars which paled in beauty when compared to just her eyes.

The last thing he remembered from that night was the moon slowly twirling and twisting itself into her eyes, and the stars around it becoming the twinkle inside them.

Once again, the years passed by in a starry flurry. The village boy had grown into a man well past his prime, with a potbelly. My story had reached millions across the country- a boy who could only see the skies, chasing after a cherished dream running away from the chains that shackled him back home.

The name Theo had grown in the hearts of one and all, turning into what it meant: A Divine Gift to Mankind.

But alas! Only my heart knows of the pain I bear!

Swept away by my dreams, I flew onwards and on, like a Kite with a cut string. I tasted the very skies, conquered the seven heavens- but in the end, there was no one holding my string for me to return to.

It was on this rainy day, wearing these drenched clothes, that I finally realized this. Tears were still falling down and never before did my hometown look so lonely and desolate.

I wasn’t let anywhere near my father’s body.

“Don’t even come near him, you Shaytan. You couldn’t give him any peace of mind when he was alive, and you’ve come back to torture him once he’s dead too!” They screamed.

“The presence of a Kaffir will taint the proceedings!” the Ustaad decreed, the damn snake charmer.

And the rest of the snakes followed suit, pushing me out. I could only stand still like a statue- far away from my house and the mosque- in the vain hopes that I might be able to get one last glimpse of my father. To be able to apologize for everything, and go back to the tiny village boy once more even if temporarily.

Woefully, I watched from a distance as my younger brother Yousuf led the proceedings.

“How dare someone who was written off by my Upa come here right after his death, on the very steps he was revoked of all rights to?” He cruelly questioned.

My little Yousuf, who was once a child who would come crying to me when a firefly would die in his grasp, had grown up so starkly! Within his eyes, no longer could I see the warmth of familiarity that I so desperately hoped for. All I was met with was unrelenting anger and hatred.

“Life isn’t a sprint.” A life lesson I had learned long ago came to the forefront of my mind.

The raspy voice of my guru in writing grew clearer with every passing second. And a few moments later, I could see him right beside me on the beachside. Wearing a hapless old juba worn out by their constant wear-and-use, sporting his grey beard, and wearing a thick golden rimmed glass, he smiled at me.

He didn’t have the long walking stick that I always saw him with, I noticed.

“I’ve always told you right, Hamsa?” He asked as he grasped my shoulder with one of his arms, with a very sagely look.

My face grimaced because I never did like being called Hamsa after I renounced everything related to my past life.

I was no longer Hamsa, dammit. I was Theo- a divine spark.

“This is that moment that you always dreaded, where you must accept who you truly are. You can always run away as you’ve done constantly, but do remember the only thing you can ever do is delay it. But inevitably, it will chase you down and consume you one day.”

“Everything you’ve ever run away from is still out there, waiting for you. Calling you. And one day if you don’t reach it first, it will reach you without exception” With his free hand, he pointed out to the wide blue sea.

As I blinked, he disappeared right back to the land of the dead.

I remember the first time I ever heard him say this. Back then, I couldn’t make head or tail of what he meant. And yet, when the legacy of Hamsa- who I thought had died off some twenty years back- finally caught up with me, I understood what my Guru meant.

When the story I promised to forget dragged me back to the village that I swore to never visit again, I finally understood what my guru was trying to tell me all those years ago.

Reaching into my pockets, I pulled out my guilty pleasure- A cigarette. Lighting it, I slowly closed my eyes.

Once more, I saw my Guru.

“Do you know what a writer is?” He asked me.

“Somebody who can think up a whole new world, isn’t it Guru-ji?”

“Wrong, you idiot!” He screamed as he bobbed my head with his walking stick.

“What you said is merely a thinker, someone who fantasizes of things he can never manage to capture. Thinking for hours and hours about a completely different world, and not getting around to writing it.”

“Then who exactly is a writer?” I asked inquisitively.

“A writer is someone who speaks the language of hearts, Hamsa.” He proclaimed, spreading his shriveled arms and giving a toothless grin.

All of a sudden, it seemed as if his face had grown both ancient and younger at the same time. Each wrinkle on his face seemed to be telling a different truth hidden from man since the dawn of civilization itself. And yet, in his face, I managed to see this innocence that I was only able to see in the faces of newborns.

“Writers are merely messengers Hamsa, a bridge between the people and the heart. What our heart says, we write. The language of the heart has no boundaries, my dear disciple. It lives longer than its creators, touches more lives than you ever will, and be more symbolic than you can ever be as long as posterity have their hearts open as well.”

“With just our hearts in the right place, we can aim for the stars and some more, my gullible disciple.”

These were the words that became my gospel. Instead of seeing a god in the skies, statues, and rocks, I began to see God within Man’s heart.

That was the day that I realized that the power of our heart transcends us all-whether in the form of poems, music, or tales. The language of the heart can never be buried by time.

“But Alas dear Guru, why is it that the one who writes our fate seems to be heartless?” I smiled in helplessness.

“Why is the language of my heart much purer than his?”

“Why does my heart still sing ballads of all that never happened during that cold night in Shimla? Why is my heart still bleeding in the hopes of a reunion with both my father and Cara?”

“Why do they both still live on happily within my heart?”

Everything slowly shimmered back into nothingness.

The rain that fell drop by drop on me slowly began to feel like the snow that fell on me back in Shimla. The water falling on me gradually turned into snowflakes.

Brushing it from the top of my shoulders, I moved my chubby fingers in front of my eyes.

I saw a tiny snowflake on top of my fingers, looking so simple and yet so distinctly unique once you look into it. A glamourous splendor of distinctive designs that will never again be repeated.

“Just like snowflakes,” I remarked.

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