The illusion of control

Have you noticed how silent the world falls when it snows? There is a mesmerising silence as you look up at the foggy sky and revel in each of the magically crafted flakes of snow that gently land on your face.

As everything turns white, the world goes quiet. In places where it doesn’t snow often, this becomes all the more obvious. Because everything just suddenly stops functioning. The entire state paralyses because the city has been covered with a white blanket of frozen ice. Screeching, terrifying messages are sent alerting citizens to avoid movement as if there is a lethal peril out there. But when it starts to snow again, nothing really matters. Everything we think we can control is out of our reach. It is just an illusion that we can control so many of the external factors that affect our lives. Because the weather and its consequences are one thing we can do nothing about. We just wait for the whatever-named-hailstorm to pass, so we can continue our chaotic lives.

Snow is a chance to stop. To stop and marvel at how wonderful even the simplest and smallest of things can be. Look at how delicately and elegantly a snowflake is designed right before it falls to the ground and melts. Look at how every single thing you view daily (but never really notice on your hasty way to work or wherever your routine takes you) transforms simply because it is covered in white.

Sure, snow causes trouble too. But let’s stick to the positive here.

Listen. Listen to that beautiful silence as the world surrenders to these tiny flakes of ice. Just stop and take it all in, with all senses. And be grateful for all that we have but constantly want more.

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It’s coming

Stop. Quieten down for a minute and listen.

Do you hear it?

Wait.

Activate all senses.

You’re bound to feel it.

That uncanny sense that something is imminent.

It’s coming.

Just be prepared.

Breathe.

And above all…

Simply smile.

Also part of Weekend Writing Prompt #205

Grave intuitions

She knew something was wrong. From the moment she approached, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was just not right.

Perhaps it was the feeling of the air. The way her breathing had changed. Or the fact that her heart seemed to race a bit faster.

They used to call her a psychic, for she was very often right in the things she sensed.

Maybe she had a very strong intuition, one that guided her blindly. She was used to following her instincts, allowing the voices inside of her to perform spontaneous actions without knowing why.

But this time there was something grave in what she felt.

Something was terribly different.

They found out how right she was the minute they opened the door.

The depths of love

“How do you know its real love? And that it’ll last?” Jennifer asked her godmother that question as she was putting on the veil of her wedding dress.

Her godmother smiled at her and wrapped her arms around her. “I asked that very question too on my wedding day”.

“There is no single answer. It depends on the things you are willing to do for the person you love. Acts that go beyond yourself. That demonstrate you value something more than your own person”.

Jennifer looked at her godmother, her thoughts wandering.

“I’ll tell you a story,” her godmother began.

“There was an emerging photographer who was out on a photoshoot session one day. A beautiful young girl walked through his set at the very moment he clicked and captured her on film. He couldn’t get her image out of his mind. He was fixated on her gaze as she wondered off in a hurry. It penetrated him and remained with him so strongly he desperately needed to see her again. He searched and found her later that week in the hair salon where she worked. He conveniently forgot his cap there, so she in turn found his studio in order to return it to him. He asked her to pose for him for a few shots. She didn’t know it at the time, but he published her photos in a well-known magazine that brought him further recognition for his work.

Their encounter was brief but it changed their lives forever.

She was happy by his side. He made her laugh and she loved him for it.

She loved playing in front of his camera. And he always managed to capture the perfect pose, enclosing her beauty and charm in a single shot.

But one day, when she went into the dark room to get some film which he needed, a bottle of developing agent fell onto her head and into her eyes. She was rushed to the hospital.

He ran by her side, sweating with agony at the thought of losing her. At the thought that something might happen to her.

The doctors said her pupils were destroyed irreparably and the only way to see again was if she got an eye transplant.

Would you give up your eyes for someone else? Would you forsake ever seeing anything ever again, simply so the person you love can spend their life viewing the world? Could you feel a love so strong and profound that you would voluntarily hand over one of your main senses to someone else?

He never even thought about it. To him there was no need to discuss it either. It was a conscious decision it took just seconds to make.

In the operation room, he was lying next to her, holding her hand. His eyes wide open, his last memory was flashing before him. It was his last adrenaline-rush ride at full throttle on his cherished motorcycle before he handed over its keys to a random caretaker. He was giving up one love to save another. Tears were streaming down his face. The doctor told him to take his time. He needed to stop crying for the operation to continue.

He said he was OK. He turned around to look at her one last time. To capture her figure, her lines, her face, so that he could remember her forever. Just before the anesthetic kicked in, his gaze turned towards her, imprinting in his mind her image to last an eternity.

She woke up and saw light. After days in the darkness, the glimmers of sunrays hurt her eyes. But she could make out the people standing in front of her. Family and friends who came to wish her well.

He wasn’t among them.

She thought he had abandoned her.

She didn’t know that he had condemned himself to darkness in order to give her light.

She wasn’t aware that he loved her so much, he gave up his eyes for her. That it mattered more to him to make her happy even if it meant losing something he valued.

Can you imagine a love so great and perfect that it would mean more to you to see your partner happy regardless of if it destroyed you? That would make the other’s happiness your priority? That would erase every trace of egoism from your actions?

What if there was one person like that for each of us? And we spend our whole lives searching for them? Someone who would love us so deeply they would literally give up a part of them for our own wellbeing? Selflessly and unconditionally”.

Jennifer was fighting back the tears. She was deeply moved by her godmother’s story, which was interrupted by the sound of her godfather’s white cane sounding at the door.

She had been told he was left blind after an accident.

Only now did she realise he wasn’t the one who had suffered the accident. Her godmother was.

He gave up her eyes for her. And in doing so gave her the world.

Obscure emotional shadows

Emotions are like an invisible shadow that clings on to us ever since we come into this world. They serve to help us taste life to the maximum. They may enlighten us or confuse us according to the situation. But in essence, they are what makes us stand out from every other species. The fact that we can feel things, sometimes (too) deeply.

We talk of and experience emotional outbursts, because sometimes our feelings get too difficult to bear.

And we often get carried away by what we feel, that sense of excitement, the adrenaline rush, the fear even. We let our emotions dictate our actions and sometimes this results in complicated situations.

So, we are prompted to follow our heart – our feelings – but to take our brain with us. To be smart in the things we pursue and we feel we desire, but to make our decisions wisely, logically and rationally. It’s not always easy to think before you act. Because sometimes your heart pulls you faster and stronger than your mind can convince you to think. It takes you to places you shouldn’t be, places that are as exciting as perilous, ones that can cause both happiness and pain. Your heart can easily drag you into situations you cannot return from, no matter how much your brain may try to take over afterwards.

Emotions are our strongest asset but also our greatest curse.

Magic waterfalls

©Dale Rogerson

“Look”. She saw his hand rise and point to the source of that calming sound they were hearing a while now. It was still the beginning of winter and the water was flowing rapidly.

She always loved that sound it makes. She found it stole your troubles and drowned them into its soothing flow.

“Listen”. She said. They stood mesmerised with the sunrays bathing their faces. It was a welcome touch in that cold morning.

Whatever happened, waterfalls had a magical way of making everything better. And of bringing them closer together.

Water, after all, is the source of life.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

The sting of an aroma

It only took a single whiff to feel it in the air. It was intoxicating. It filled your surroundings like a thick cloud embracing every angle of your body, pulling you tight inside its mist.

It was sensual and romantic at the same time. Bold yet timid. It smelled of spring and flowers and fruit, but had a touch of oak and spice.

It was arousing. The kind that seared into your very veins and whose scent drilled through your nostrils, remaining with you hours after you first put it on.

It was the kind of perfume that gave away the woman who wore it.

And he was certain it was her, the minute the aroma stung his nose.

It was hypnotic and poisonous. Just like her.