as i was driving home, every fragments of what i had left behind recurred to me like a cancer striking back after certain period of remission. once in a while i'd glance at the passing trees and the sun rays that filtered through them. they made my mind wander to those days when my grandfather used to pick me up from extracurricular activity at school and i'd hop on the back of his motorcycle.
we used to pass this particular road that used to be my favorite simply because it looked like one of those beautiful roads i watched in movies. also, somehow, this road gave me certain feeling that i couldn't decipher. it's silly. but then i thought i had figured out what it was.
because ten years later as i traveled home for my grandfather's funeral and happened to pass that road again, i could still feel it.
it was a sense of longing.
a deep ache for something beyond my grasp, because either its lost forever or it lived in the obscurity of the future.
we used to pass this particular road that used to be my favorite simply because it looked like one of those beautiful roads i watched in movies. also, somehow, this road gave me certain feeling that i couldn't decipher. it's silly. but then i thought i had figured out what it was.
because ten years later as i traveled home for my grandfather's funeral and happened to pass that road again, i could still feel it.
it was a sense of longing.
a deep ache for something beyond my grasp, because either its lost forever or it lived in the obscurity of the future.
i got a call from my father the previous day that my grandfather passed away. he finally gave up. stroke had sabotaged his life for nine years. yet i felt not a slight of emotions. i didn't even bother shedding a tear. probably because he had been sick for such long period of time, i had learnt to let go long ago. but when i passed this nameless road, i kept pondering about the last conversation with my grandfather that seemed to have been permanently erased from my memory. about all those years i spent alienating myself from my own family. how from someone whom being away from her family had her cried every night, i grew to be someone who didn't feel comfortable being surrounded by them. how loneliness used to bombard me without any mercy, until i dived too deep in it and it became all that i wanted.
i was too engrossed within my own thoughts i became unaware that i had driven past the road to a more bumpy one. the roadside trees were replaced by vast paddy fields. and i could see the sun slowly dip below the horizon as the night fell, casting a warm red light that bathed the earth.
this road.
it seemed unending.
this road.
it seemed unending.