As she sat, waiting for the bus; She could feel the trickle of sweat cascading down her neck. But at the same time the sudden temperature drop and a cold gush of wind chilled her to her very bones. Flabbergasted at the ever changing minds of the weather gods, she ran to a nearby cafe, in hopes of drying off.
The cafe was crowed and the hustle of people annoyed her to the point that she decided to walked out in the stormy weather; which seemed like the grey scale of doom would wail out its misery anytime soon. Out of the corner of her eye- She finally found an empty bench which was canopied by an umbrella. Though the bench was occupied by an old man,she went on her way in hopes that she would have come company till the storm passed. Just as she got closer- she realised that the man was smoking a cigar and having a very sensitive throat to smoke, she thought of going someplace else when the rain started pelting on her back. She quickly jumped under the umbrella with a peevish smile on her face as she watched the startled look on his face.
They sat in awkward silence as the smell of stale smoke hung in the air and the only light -was coming from the lit end of his cigar. "Weird weather, eh?" He asked, to which she just shrugged. Finally noticing her uneasiness, he put out his smoke and gave her an dry smile. Noticing his relaxed posture, his aged wrinkled skin, his small beady eyes, she tried to read as to what kind of background he may be from, when suddenly he said, "I smoke to die."
Curious by the way he told me such a private so easily, she just shrugged and said,"Hey, no judgements. Do what you gotta do, but smoking is never the answer, nor will it ever be. There many other ways to be sad and pretend to want to die. But you know they say to each their own."
He just smiled and lit another smoke. "Do you like the world?"
"Yes...no...well most of the times" she flustered.
"Why? What's to like- good people die, bad people die, strong people die, weak people die, chaos is hiding around every corner of our life, we can't wait to live but at the same time we die without living. Smokers die, non smokers die. Everyone just have a different amount of time allotted. That's it." he said.
The despair and the morbidly of the truth behind his statement made her skin tingle . She couldn't figure out if it was out of astonishment or if she just was uncomfortable with the thought of having such a morbid topic as a 'small talk'. His piercing eyes stared curiously into hers while his words sunk in.
"Listen here mister, you might think you have nothing to live for, and this whole "world is an evil hell and we're all just waiting to die" is not the way to go about. I agree, we're all on a time limit and there chaos and imbalance everywhere. But that's the thing, that's where the true essence of living truly lies. Waking up, taking shit from people, finding happiness with your loved ones, feeding yourself, taking care when everyone is trying to take you down, stumbling across problems at very moment and waking up and repeating everything. That's the guts, and courage we all need. The moment we run out of that courage portion, our time ends too."
Seemingly startled at the girl's outburst he asked, "Why is there so much imbalance in every equation though? There is good and there is bad, there is calm and there is angry, there is supposedly a white and black area, but that's bull. We call know that it's all grey, no white, no black. So if there is a god, why is he so unfair? And who made him the leader of what we are granted and what we are not, what lies in our fate? Everything is twisted in ways I refuse to fathom. Explain me this whole equation of this God?"
The ends of her lips curved upwards and she said, "Imbalance is the very existence of balance, like bad is of good. Everything is intertwined in a network that is out of reaches of us mere humans. The faster you accept that- the happier you'll be and the faster you'll leave the world peacefully. The worlds full of misery- we hardly need you to add on, so try to keep you head above water. And keep swimming."
The old man's wrinkles suddenly seemed to disappear as he tried to inhale the depth of her words as silenced enveloped them.
As they parted ways, she quietly quoted her favorite author, "The world is not a wish-granting factory my friend." To which he gave a sad smiled and they quietly slipped into the shadows, probably stained forever with insight they've never asked for but unknowingly it's marked them. For good or bad? We'll never know.
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