What was it that he was communicating through silence? What were his eyes saying? Of all, how can someone’s eyes be mute? Do quiet eyes reflect a still heart? Can such eyes see dreams or at least nightmares? Or is it the waking nightmares that silence the eyes?
Preoccupied by my internal world, talking to the characters only known to me, and imagining scenes that might grace the blank screen one day, I was wandering through a sub-industrial part of the city on a misty morning. A place and time where you can witness poverty at its best (or worst?). Here, you can see people deprived of food, healthcare, shelter, attention, and most important, relevance.
People sleep on the grassy sidewalks of the roads under the sky until it punishes them for sleeping there for free by sending rain-filled clouds to chase them away to who knows where. One interesting thing that’s so surprisingly common is that despite being next step neighbors, they rarely (if ever) talk to each other.
This situation is the complete opposite to that of the tramps in Waiting for Godot who never keep quiet. This is, perhaps, because those tramps still have a hope for a savior but these ones don’t. Hopelessness has stifled the imaginations that are responsible for creating the urge to speak. Their desires have been crushed so badly that even their needs have stopped bothering them now.
Out of all these people, one man caught my attention the most. He was a bit farther away from others and sat without any support. Despite the apparent wimpy build, his posture was somewhat straight. When I looked closely, I noticed that his face was silvered and full of wrinkles. Those wrinkles were the only proof that he could smile.
His eyes — more emotionless than a wall — were staring in a direction where there wasn’t any apparent attraction. It seemed as if his eyes had left him, like everybody else, a long time ago. Or as if, his eyes lingered somewhere in the past and stayed there because that dimension was, perhaps, less daunting than this one.
What caused this loss? Was he regretting his decisions? Was he able to make decisions at all? His appearance, his demeanor, his eyes, answered no question. His still existence had enshrouded all the emotions that a human body is able to exhibit.
I thought about having a chat with him and ask him what troubled him. But was ‘what’ enough to encompass all that he might have suffered from? What if my interference stirred the apparent tranquility that covers his grieves so completely? Struggling to find an answer to these questions, I resolved to continue walking but a part of my mind stayed there…
Life becomes hard sometimes but hope keeps us afloat in such situations. The gleam in our eyes prevails because of hope which can guide us to the path of all the possibilities our mind can imagine. Don’t let this gleam fade away by not letting your mind to wander through the negative chapters of your life’s book longer than necessary(longer; time it takes to drink a cup of tea).
Originally published on Medium.com
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