Among all the stories I have heard till today, not one has not progressed towards ‘the end’; I never thought that in reality, we would actually get to experience what ‘the end’ feels like. This is that part of the story which never seems to matter as the story has come to an end, but when you get to ‘live the end’, ‘once upon a time’ stops to matter anymore. Despite living it, I still had hope for us, which seems evident from the unique yet confusing story ahead…...
One day, walking by the roadside I saw something lustrous, dispersing light in all directions like wisdom from a saint to his followers. I picked it up to see a crystal ball and started dreaming of all the things I could do with it, lost in my own fantasies; just then the rude reality of being questioned by a policeman abruptly squashed my flights of fancy- what was I doing outside in this pandemic without a mask, he asked me sternly. Scrambling around, I apologised and scurried away with my recent find, and that’s when I realised that the sudden silence had ironically pushed us into chaos, and now we were being fined not for overspeeding, but rather for not wearing a mask.
I reached home and decided to give the crystal ball a try. As I looked deep within, I saw buzzing streets with people fearlessly walking, chatting and smiling at all the people hurriedly crossing the streets-where were they going, I wondered! Going back to their jobs, excited to become captives to their desks once again, kids elated to go back to their friends’ houses to chat and bicker about things as usual- the menial problems they faced at home to the busyness of being out and about again.
The scenery then changed to kids meeting in school, high-fiving and hugging each other as if it had been an epoch since they had seen one another, and going to the mall together. I saw people going to ice-cream parlours and Starbucks. The thrill of the coffee going past the lips of the deprived Starbucks devotees made the whole atmosphere feel like home. Men and women entering and exiting shops like they had no clothes left to wear, and on the whole world, it seemed like the blanket of darkness lifted from above it, letting light shine on us once again. I then realised that more than the mall, I missed the commotion in it, more than the cinema, I craved the human connect-be it in the kicking of my seat, and obviously the popcorn, and I missed school but not as much as I missed my friends. And before disappearing into the cacophony of the present, the last scene I saw was daydreaming in class, but also repenting the idea of returning home. That’s when I realised that what I hoped to see through that crystal ball was normalcy, and just then I flashed back to this unforgiving reality. Now, all I could think of was the possibility of this normalcy to come true ‘once upon a time’.
This story is truly unique and the confusion is justified as every story seems to start from ‘once upon a time’ and conclude with ‘the end’, but this one started with ‘the end’ and hoped for a ‘once upon a time’!
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