The weird thing is that no matter how much you try to remember something, you are bound to forget at least some of it. Some call it age, others call it running of RAM space in the human body, but we end up at the same conclusion. Books are forgotten, stories are half-broken, lives half-lived.
Sometimes, we try to consciously remember things. We will run them past, think through every detail, every night. But every night, some speck of that story will fade away. We replace it with some memory in fear of losing it, but we hold on to whatever we have.
The most important thing is that though we forget, these things mould us. The books you’ve read, things you’ve seen, experienced, are what builds you. We may not remember them, but we know they have changed us and made an impact.
We know that events have affected us, words have moved us and touched us. And we don’t remember them because memory plays tricks on us. We grasp onto fragments of those memories, but it’s a relief knowing that they have changed us, even if in a small way.
Memory won’t be your friend through it all, but you are a constant example of memories. Memories have moved you, and made you who you are. And soon remembering is not the key, but imbibing is.
There are a few moments we experience that give us life. It’s the small things some of us fail to notice, but on looking back realize how much it affects us. It’s something different for everyone, but we enjoy it all the same.
When you ride a bicycle properly for the first time, and after ages of falling and bruising yourself, you are able to go on. You bump a little on the roads of life, but you fall into a harmony. An imperfect harmony, as you ride over pebbles and as your bicycle swerves on reaching a barrier.
But those precious moments when your feet fall into a rhythm with the pedals are ones to cherish. You feel the breeze you are cycling against and let your hair fly like in the movies. In that moment, though you know you might fall very soon, you feel like a hero.
Cherish those moments and make the most of out them. When you’re in a car with the sun roof off, you feel the thrill and your heart starts jumping. You know that after a few moments, you will climb down, feeling too cold or too bored. But that moment, worthy of being framed, is rare.
Ara loves gazing at the night sky. She would lie down under the blanket of stars, talking to her best friend Sam, wiling away time.
“We’re not special, you know,” she told Sam, who kept insisting they were. “We’re not, because-“
Sam cut her off, shaking his head. “Don’t drift apart, stay here with me. Stay here, in the present.”
They didn’t meet each other’s eyes, but kept staring at the stars. Ara grabbed Sam’s hand, an unspoken gesture they’d developed over the years. It meant “I’m here.”
Hours passed and they were still lying there, basking in the moment. Not worried about the sunrise, or the fact that any day could be their last together. They could be whisked away to join The Battery any time, this was all they had.
Many years ago when The Battery came into existence, Sam and Ara made a pact. Since The Battery recruited people only during nighttime, they vowed to sleep in the day.
“I’ll stay awake, if it means being with you. That’s all that matters. That’s the ‘special’ we have.” Smiles were shared, and promises were kept.
Everything was uncertain now, though. Their friendship rocked on an angry sea, threatening their ship to topple over and sink slowly. They knew this, Ara even tried talking about this, but was cut off as usual.
“We’ll escape if they come, Ara. That’s what we decided six years ago, and I’m not going to let you go. You’re special,” Sam told her over and over.
She writhed in her sleep that day. The light was too blinding, her thoughts were too meddled. All she wanted to tell Sam was that they were not special. She’d known this for the longest time, it’s what she grew up knowing.
Ara remembered her mother telling her,”We’re ordinary, Ara. We’re normal, like everyone else. We’re all the same, not special.” She couldn’t forget the way this haunted her after The Battery, but she lived by it.
Ignoring her heavy eyes, she got up and began writing a letter hastily. She knew what was going to happen, she’d known for quite some time. She could almost hear them coming for her and Sam didn’t deserve this.
It was the last thing Ara wanted to do, but there was no way out. Sam deserved more. He deserved a ‘special’. Not her.
The Battery came for her in the evening, when she was with Sam. She had stowed the letter away in his cupboard, and nodded to his words with tears in her eyes. This was it.
“Ara, are you crying? Did I do something wrong, I mean I can be pretty dumb at times…”
Ara shook her head, a bittersweet smile adorning her face. She embraced Sam, trying to hide the tears now streaming down. Minutes later, their moment ended. They could hear The Battery.
The world blurred and chaos reigned in those few moments. An invisible force was pulling Ara, and she started speaking quickly.
“Sam, we’re not special,” her voice was cracking.”We’re not, because destiny always gets to us.”
And just like that, Ara disappeared.
He stood there, understanding everything. Sam was broken as he felt it all sinking in. Nothing could matter now, but suddenly everything did.
‘We can only rebel against destiny for so long, till it gets to us. We’re not special,’ he shook his head, thinking. He went out and looked up at the stars. Fate would always catch up to them, and outsmart them.
He ran. He ran away from destiny, from The Battery. He knew that he would have to surrender to fate one day, but not that night.
That night he grieved. For Ara, for everything they’d had. For the truth, that they were not special.
This is a poem about how we are astonished at time that flies. How we dream of, yet fail to pen down our journeys through life.
MAP
Before me lies a million moments I am bound to forget And behind me lies a million memories I hope I can remember.
I’m hopelessly caught between the two Letting my mind wander Between the two worlds Yet marveling at How the two worlds merge.
How does time ignore my constant pleas To slow down And rush to explore what lies ahead Sometimes leaving me behind wondering what went wrong
And how does time slow down to a crawl After the usual marathon it sprints every day Forgetting an invisible target And waltzing like nature at night.
I’m caught in the midst of an ocean With no regard of the tide That ebbs and flows With no regard of me Who is strangling, struggling, against time Wanting to be set free
But what will happen after After we have been rid by time And the world has been rid of us
Will we be clung on to and cried upon Or will we be reduced to some insignificant speck of dust Blown from one place to another Always unmapped, unrecognized, unknown
By some magic Everything fits into a huge puzzle The whole of which is invisible to us But we can accept That when imagination meets reality Sense can be made.
But what if someday Everything starts to fall apart And we come to a point When language fails to express Our detailed thoughts and intentions
When the very tool that helped us communicate Will be the tool that ends us And severs all connection That previously tied us together
Will there be a time When all books Will be rendered invalid And all principles will have Molded into something horrifying We would not have accepted Before we changed
Will there be a time When we shed our skins And enter a new state Forgetting our morals Forgetting that we are mortals And declare a new ‘normal’
When the simplest of our senses Will have betrayed us And found a new path We once feared, To now follow?
Keep the fire inside of you kindling Don’t let it get snuffed out By fallen hopes And blurred out rainbows carefully concealing the storm And buildings burning to the ground
Find something to fuel your fire And keep you alive For if the stars inside you stop being bright You might stop emitting light And blinding your monsters
Burn for what you know And I promise you will find more wood to eat away with all your heart Burn for what you don’t For this is the only chance you get
Don’t pretend to save your fire Till you lose it Rage while you are alive Hang on while you can Hold on for the cosmos And don’t worry if you drift into insanity For I promise I will get you back But you need to promise me Your fire won’t die.
‘We’ve all come far from where we started. It’s been a long ride and we have more of it to go, for a journey can never end. Through it all, we’ve changed our favourite colour, developed opinions, gotten better at a few things and have clung on to a few things.’
Ben sighed and stopped typing. It was too much to take in at once. He stared at the letter he’d broken his head upon, and read it once again.
It was a letter from a close college friend, Michael, who insisted they meet up for a reunion. They had spent endless hours together, going on road trips, dancing to songs during parties, and life had brought them here.
He’d lost touch with Michael since the latter had moved to another state, but it seemed like a good time to meet according to him. His letter said:
“Let’s meet up and it’ll be like the old days with the guys! We can spend a weekend together, reminiscing old memories and making new ones.”
Ben was busy typing up something in an online journal he liked to keep, trying to collect his thoughts. He resumed.
‘The things we cling on to help us get where we are. Whether it’s a comfort song, or a diary, or a bracelet, we all have that something we can always rely on. And even if we’re not at home, that thing reminds us that home is not far, for we hold it in our very hands.
‘When we look back at these things that we don’t realise we still hold, it makes us feel human. Makes us feel like we are whole, once again. It seems unreal that we have come so far and done so much. It’s almost like we are in a dream, looking at out selves and wondering how our journey made us who we are.
‘Because every moment we share, every weird laugh, every twinkle in our eyes, sums up to this. Every choice we unconsciously make, every thing we have done and read, brings us to where we are. It’s beautiful to think about.’
Ben looked at the letter once again, with tears in his eyes. This was what he had clung on to. His friendship with people who never let him go, the joy they shared that fueled his fire, that had kept him going.
He called Michael and told him he would be there for their meet-up, and wouldn’t miss it for the world. Michael must’ve wondered why Ben’s voice was shaking, or why he thanked him two times, but he could hear his smile through the phone.
The roads in our lives are hopelessly tangled. Even the greatest of people cannot navigate through the maze of roads and find a suitable path. There are too many options, too many ways our story can turn out to be.
We know we have to pick one at the end. We know we have to decide and stick to our decision, or we won’t get anywhere. It’s unsure whether we’ll be able to change paths, but we have to get going. Or we’ll lose time.
Some of us will think through each road we can see and pick out the one which looks the best. We might not like it a lot, but we make our way through. It becomes monotonous, but it’s worth it.
Some of us will pick the one we like the most. It will be a tougher road, but our love for it keeps us going. We don’t know where we are headed, but are glad we are headed that way with something familiar.
And yet all of us end up someplace different and unexpected. Most of us either love the road, or think it was the best option. A few do both, but we still end up doubting the paths we’ve chosen. We still end up wondering what life could’ve been if we’d chosen another road. However, the best thing we can do is trust our selves to be our best self. Trust ourselves to guide us the right way, and make sure we have a journey about which stories can be told.
We’ve walked our roads And come to the end of our paths Having spent our lives Beside people we love And things we appreciate When it comes to turning away
We glance at a life that used to be But isn’t anymore Because of conscious choices we’ve made And ways we wanted to go
We can’t turn back time And relive the memories And hope to outlive our pain
After the strenuous journey Across muddy ridges Up steep mountains Against raging seas In the scorching desert Down the waterfall We reach the end of our roads
And are forced to part With those most dear to our hearts Not knowing if our paths will cross again Unwilling to blame this on fate and destiny And just hoping that this is not the end Of everything.
