Tethered
A long time ago, in the midst of new horizons, love and the warm fuzziness of childhood, in the midst of parents busy building a world for her, yet somehow without her — she found solace in the green of that tiny plant that grew in the corner of their yard. Come rain or shine, it would be there waiting patiently, in no rush whatsoever to be somewhere. The plant, steadfast and calm, became her best friend — a companion that quenched that desire to question everything around her and yet understood that every answer had little meaning. Sometimes, she would look up wistfully at others walking by — wanting to speak and know more about them yet fundamentally unsure of the endeavor. A little sigh, and then gratitude ; as she turned back to steadfast, calm and green.
As the leaves stretched into branches, whispers of footfalls reached out to her. And with footfalls came friendly faces, conversations, little snippets at first, and with time, boisterous discussions. In some ways, these came to be the highlight of her day — every evening, nothing could quite brush them away — not the passing din of rush hour, nor the dawn of dusk. Sometimes milled around a table , sometimes on tiptoe by the sidewalk. Each conversation passed by day after day — a key cog in the wheel of each day, there, present, each day blending into the next.
Years passed by, and with the advent of adulthood — came the innate feeling of inevitability. Inevitable routine, inevitable action — inevitable goals, patterns. Dawn began to chase dusk in the face of increasing responsibility. The conversations, came to be figments on the tapestry of time — rose-tinted memories, that adorned but rather wistfully.
One day in the midst of the city’s bustle, as she took a look around her — she suddenly recognized very little of what was around her. It almost felt as though she was in an entirely different place. A sea of people, wave after wave, each caught in their own voyage. A feeling gripped her — a momentary pang of memory — of longing — for those very same conversations, those snippets from those evenings of old. In a daze, she looked at her surroundings. Suddenly, she spotted something familiar. The place beckoned out to her, so she stepped forward and entered the establishment. Familiar smells and sounds wafted to her, instantly placing her right back in the midst of another such evening.
Her eyes settled on one group in particular, young, carefree and exuberant, huddled around a table. As she approached them, they looked up in unison — pausing in the midst of their daily ritual. She smiled up at them, knowing that all was well, knowing nothing had really changed. She noticed the walls — the green had bedecked each wall, growing in every nook and cranny, now tethered — and she was too.
Turning her back on them, G stepped back outside, blending into the sea of people — her people.
