The Stories I'll Never Read

 

Today, an ordinary day was made somehow a little less ordinary while passing by very ordinary souls. Sounds a bit unappealing, right? Read on then.

Today, while walking on the street near my place I saw diversity, I saw different worlds. Worlds that are humans themselves. I thought walking down the road would give me time to think, to rationalize, to disentangle, to organize my thoughts but as it turned out I could not because I was too mesmerized by the very ordinary strangers who passed me by, who were too occupied with where they were headed, what they were doing, who were they with, what were they talking, to notice that I was looking at them-curious and wondrous.

What could one possibly wonder 

about a stranger who you've merely glimpsed

and in all likelihood

would never meet again? 

Everything you don't know about that person, which means a lot. It's amazing how much an appearance can talk, how much a body movement can narrate and how wild your imagination can run as your eyes take in another soul.

Passing by strangers on a busy street is like the passing of thoughts on a sleepless night. No sooner had we processed one thought, another comes into focus- all bright and glaring or at other times just a blur, something we see but do not recognize. Yes, I admit that those strangers are as insignificant as the distant buzzing of a bee but you see, those passersby are also people just like you and you have a story. So do they.

Looking at those people I realized that they have a direction where they are headed and that they aren't just passersby. They have people who know them and acknowledge their presence. They have people they share their moments with, people who make up the world they are living in. The insignificance of a soul is, thus, very subjective. Just a blur in your eyes, but a clear crystal image for them.

I see two people chatting, sharing an evanescent bubble of joy and I wonder- what are they to each other? When and how did they first meet? What brought them to this moment? And then I move on to another beating heart. As I swim through the ocean of souls, the wonders of this mortal world leave me content as the persistent worries of my life fade to a background noise amidst the crowd of stories that embrace my own uncertain soul.

We can never categorize people; each one of them is an enigma that is to remain unresolved by beings we see but do not know. It makes me a bit sad that there are umpteen stories the pages of which I will never smell, never touch and never read-a title-less book that will forever remain shut and so we'll have to resort to judging by the plethora of hues that make up its cover page.

Yet, in this vastness that abounds, you will find the stories that will make you want to never turn the last page, the stories that would find a place to stay even in the uncertainties of your heart-those mysteries the strings of which would disentangle themselves and become your meaning of the word "world."

By Zunairah Husain

1st year, B.A. Psychology Honours