Forgotten Existence

As soon as you put down your bag and stood in the cement courtyard ,where you once stood as a child with hands on your hips, your aunts and uncles swarmed the place , each person delivering his and her remark: You have grown fat, have you not been eating well.

All that you wanted to do was to sit there feeling the breeze in your nostrils while rocking the old chair without a word. It wasn't allowed. In a way you were lucky that they didn't poke you with their cracked fingers to probe. The room where you had once slept was now occupied; but your mother had arranged another upstairs. The book shelf was moved, there were some more books, you couldn't see yours. The ink-stained tablecloth and the rough wooden table were gone as well. 

Perhaps you didn't notice the changes when you were here few years ago. But those things from the past existed in so many things, which were still there, but placed at   different places. Besides there were many of them which you couldn't recognise since your memories were partly saturated; too many people and places.

You forced your mind to backtrack and strove hard to retrieve. In vague flashbacks you could see the long winding pebbled road leading towards your childhood friend's house. He didn't live there anymore. On the edge of the courtyard there were potted plants in your school days, now many of them had been replaced by the likes of your nephew and niece, your bonsai trees were cloistered. The plants' roots had grown larger, it was hard for you believe you had planted them one Sunday morning after you had swept the courtyard.

After early dinner you slipped in below thick blankets, their colours revealed by the flickering yellowish candlelight. It dawned in your mind that it was you who had been oblivious of the changes; those cousins of your who were in kindergarten when you left home now were already in college and many of them recognised you because they were told by aunts who you were. 

What was bound to happen had happened and more will inevitably happen, but the thing that troubled you the most is your lack of sensitivity and ,now ,finding yourself in this state of realisation you wondered why you hadn't paid any attention. There were remarkable events, events that you thought you would never forget, they were also events you always cherished and helped you shape as the person you had become. 

If you hadn't forgotten paragraphs from books, then how come you had forgotten your own stories. You had forgotten so much of yourself that you when turned around to find something genuine you only saw others. 


The candle was burnt out only the smoldering wick was visible and, soon, it would fizzle out just like life. The candle was there casting its yellowish flickering light and then the smoldering wick indicating its departure, these would be in your mind for a while. 

But the changes in life could not be as insignificant as that of the candle's. You could be your own chronicler, but you would do it in your own words.