The Last Night of Our Lives

It was on a night in the middle of the year, plenty of seasons ago, that a wise-fool, blurted out the words, ‘Tonight is the last night of our lives’. His friends that were walking beside him thought about it. Some laughed, some nodded and some smiled in agreement. Most of them were able to comprehend the meaning of what was said, but none of them including the wise-fool could foresee the gravity of the words that were spoken on that night.

Green leaves of spring wrinkled and faded away to become crusty brown crumples of themselves in autumn. They then fell down and was just dust on the road until it was buried in the layer of white ice of winter. Spring came again and new life weaved its way out of the water that the ice melted to form. Meanwhile, pages of the calendar flew away.

If time could be called a thing, it would be a beautiful thing. It is ever flowing, only in one same direction, always making its way, without getting deterred to only one final outcome. But on its way, time affects everything that touches it, in very small, meaningless and yet beautiful ways and none can escape its touch.

And none that was in the group could escape time and eventually gave in to walk on the path that was laid before them. This path, the path of life, goes in curious fashion. Where it leads and where turns, none understand or predict. But I believe, if given indefinite amount of time, it will make sense. For the same reason, small bits and pieces of this path of life, often start making sense after one has walked on it a bit farther and can look back to see a slightly bigger picture.

Each one of the individuals in the group had started out on their own unique and diverging paths of life few years ago. Few crossed for a short time in between but most stayed apart. Until one day, with a bit of luck, all their paths converged again.

Initially, they were filled with merriment and excitement with the thought of meeting each other in one place and all of them awaited the crossing with much anticipation. The day finally came and it was true to all what they hoped for. But there was something more to it, for they could feel that it was more than just seeing and meeting each other again. They knew that there something bigger at play. They all felt it but none spoke about it. They could not ponder over this peculiarity for some time as there so much to share, so much to hear and so little time.

But there was one in this group who wanted to know about this feeling more than anyone else so he took it to the wise-fool. He barely was able to express what he wanted the fool’s insight on. But the fool was not called wise for no reason. He smiled at him and asked him to go for a walk with him again. This time, just the two of them. He told him, ‘you remember, I said many years ago that tonight is the last night of our lives’? His co-walker said he did. The wise-fool asked him to explain what he understood in his own words. The individual told him, ‘I think you meant that tonight will be the last night where we can live and enjoy to the fullest. We are going to be busier and more committed to our work and so we will never get to enjoy a night such as this again’. Then the wise fool explained it to him finally. He said, ‘What I meant at that time was, that this is the last night of our life as we live it now. This is the last night of us as we are right now. This night will never come in our life again. You can arrange for an exact same scenario with all of you, anytime in future and even then it will not be the same. Because, we will not be the same. Each one of us would have walked farther on our paths of lives and that would have made its beautiful impact on us. That night, few years ago, we left a small piece of ourselves to be in that night forever. We moved on and we kept walking. The path that we walked on, slowly and surely changed us. However, our pieces that we left in that night, have always been the way we left them. And they will continue to live that moment as we were then. This curious feeling that you can’t quite understand is the joy of finding that piece of yourself again. You can not go back in time and live that night again. But you all just found those pieces by being together in the same place. And not just yourself, but truly the person that you are. It is like seeing yourself in the mirror but seeing yourself from that night’. The individual was lost for a while in his thought and then replied, ‘But where do I find my piece? Is it on the road that we were walking on? Where do I see myself?’ The wise-fool answered, ‘In the eyes of your friends. For they see and know who you are. There is no curtain and no deception in their eyes and that is when you look in their eyes, you find the joy and peace of finding yourself again.’

The individual understood now and they both returned to the group and were happy and content in the remaining time they had. Their paths had to diverge again and so they did. They kept on walking in their own paths, making their stories and leaving their impressions on the path itself but they left a piece of themselves in that night that will always be walking together in that night and will continue to live on…

P.S. This will be my last post on this blog. I just realized why I couldn’t make myself to write another post for 2 years. Because since I left this place, I have never been the way I was here. And only the person I am here could write. This is the last chapter of ‘A tale called JUET’. And even though the name will be attached to me forever, I won’t likely be coming back. As I write this, I recall when in 2009 I wrote the first post here, and as far as this small blog goes, it is more than what I expected. Which brings me to all of you reading this. I thank you for being a part of this tale. Needless to say, without even a single one of you, this tale would never have been as beautiful.