Still Searching...

I sigh as I settle down to write again. I wonder why my life feels so empty. Wait – let me check over my shoulder again. No, not there. Not yet. Not now. Then where? What is it I’m searching for?

I wander the streets with my hands in my pockets. The cold wind whips my face, stinging me and making me gasp with the joy of pain, with the joy of being alive. But the hollow wind reminds me of my own gaping emptiness, howling like a lone wolf before the moon. I don’t want the constant loneliness. But what am I searching for?

I wander past the two-storey wood houses. People laughing, talking at dinner tables and mowing lawns. Are their lives really as neat as those square patches of lush green grass? A kid runs out and tramples a freshly tidied flower bed, kicking up clumps of earth. He laughs and waves at me. I laugh back, then immediately feel achingly sad for him. For I know that he, too, will walk my path someday.

Now I head past the office blocks. Great ugly lumps of concrete, snarling at the grey sky like a bulldog without its lunch. The only building I like is the steel and glass skyscraper, rearing up into the sky like the jagged claw of a prehistoric dinosaur and ripping the sky apart ruthlessly. But the people inside do not notice the birds swooping past their windowsill. They exchanged the thrill of the wind on their wings for the golden cages long ago. The most pathetic thing is, they think they’re happier than the birds. I walk on, I know that I’ll feel even lonelier in a crowd.

Finally I reach the lake. I sit on a mossy boulder at the glassy edge, and trace every needle on the reflection of the pine tree. I’m slipping away into a quiet solitude, when it’s suddenly broken by a harsh sound. I hear a silly feminine giggle behind me, as the female is embarrassed at being caught with the male wrapped around her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here,” she says and flees for a more private spot. Then again, who ever knows I’m here? For a moment, I intensely wish to be that female. At least she knows what she wants. At least she doesn’t come to the lake all alone.

The loneliness grips me again. Desperately, I ‘sound my barbaric yawp’, again and again. But every echo makes me feel smaller than ever. I’m still waiting… I still don’t know why. Is it for a what? Is it for a who? Is it for you? I think I see you calling to me from the depths of the lake. Yes, I know you are calling. You will give me the peace I need, won’t you? I’ll join you in the lake – right now. Take me away… far away…