I was scared too... there was the cliff in front of me... A narrow gorge...
A slender pane of wooden bridge connecting the two...
The depth below was appalling
I had to walk there without any support or railing...
I was standing there and looking at it with all my concentration trying to swallow my alto phobia and vertigo...
There was a rush and enthusiasm which was helping me, for I knew I had traveled far and wide to get here.
A journey no less taxing than the one I am faced with, may be even more...
There was the land I had wanted to reach, stretching vast, just across the cliff... My destination and may be even destiny, I hoped... For if it was the latter I am sure I would reach it, no matter what I believed...
But then, the crowd behind me were catcalling and jeering...
In the hopes of making me stay back, and not take this risk, they could not afford to lose me... The irony of it, for the means they were employing were not good, not good at all...
I had to take a deep breath... Before going on... But in all that stillness and silence, I could hear their taunts clearly...
The land across is foreign, ur mission inappropriate for a person of your potential, you would never succeed in accomplishing it, let alone crossing the bridge...
You don't even have a walking stick to balance you just in case, let alone a railing on the bridge...
That made me pause... The words were slowly trickling in, percolating into the gaps called self doubt in my made up mind...
I started to have second thoughts... Damn, I thought...
I should have bought a stick on my way here, like all those people who did...
Slowly I looked at them... They were threatening, pleading, staring, but always keeping a distance... But I was blind then, blind to have noted that distance, that give away... I could have done it... Damn those little gaps...
Now, I have turned back and traveled far... Traveled parallel to that cliff... I still see it... There are so many such bridges here and there... Waiting for me to take it one day... Still I have not bought myself a walking stick... But I know, it doesn't matter... I could have done it without it...
May be one day... May be not...
No comments:
Post a Comment