Tonight, a friend stayed over. We had a simple fare of parathas, mixed vegetables, and a spicy, cooked salad of rajma, chanaa, and soya granules. On a whim, then, we went to Peter Donuts to bring back hazelnut cappuccino and custard-filled donuts. He stopped elsewhere for chilled Coke.
Then we sat in the balcony, shivering a little in our thin cotton clothes. Slender plumes of smoke climbed away from his cigarette to the moon. We spoke of the time when we were children; when much of our world was crossed barefeet. We spoke when youth so young clogged our pores. Somewhere we laughed at some of our ideas that carried the thumbprints of a naive past. Even as we snickered, we somewhere knew that those ideas were true.
Another cigarette was lit. Smoke again snaked towards the sky. I looked beyond at a tree top that seemed to anchor two tiny stars and a muddled moon. That little patch of a busy sky could have been anywhere. It could have been anyone's. Yet, I saw it as childhood sat between us...barefeet.
Do we ever grow up?
Despite everything we do. Yet, despite everything we don't.
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