death of the day

maghrib just happened. i've always hated the twilight, the fading sunset reminding me of one more day where i didn't really do anything. i used to love it when i was little, it flagged the moment to end the exhaustive breathless childhood games we all played in the street, where it indicated the beginning of the end of the fun art of playing outside, after which mosquitos would come out, after which hunger, crankiness and resulting spats would set in. it means nothing anymore. it singals the emptiness of our adult lives, the lonliness as the azaan echoes through empty rooms.

today was my last day on the job. packing up one stupid pencil holder and one fake plant felt more momentous than my final day after 12 years with the same school and the same people, after four years of intese college, or even the first day i walked after three months of lying flat on my bed unable to walk from my bloody orthopedic mattress to the pot and back without getting so out of breath that i would see black spots before my eyes and have to sleep four hours after that to regain the strength to keep breathing. for some reason, it was much more than that.

maybe because today is also coincedently the janaza and soyem of the 19 yr old kid who died in that car accident. the kid who i saw incedental glimpses of in those 12 years of school, the younger brother of the girl who's face i practically saw everyday in those 12 years and who i actively disliked in every instance of it. maybe because in packing up the stupid pencil holder and in the process of walking from desk to desk saying bye and getting into the lift; the chain of events that would lead me to be delayed those 15 minutes that would make me catch bumper to bumper traffic that would make me hear the first strains of maghrib singalling the end of the janaza as i drove past the last green light and neared home, 10 minutes too far away to join everyone at the janaza.

there are echo's of sadness in this sunset. and tragedy. and guilt. and tears of the people i love. tears of my mother who fed him cerelac with he and my own brother were babies. my best friend who danced with him this summer, who spent the last two days crying. tears for myself, because of those damn fifteen minutes where i could have left the damn pencil holder and just done what was important, not been side tracked by stupid maningless insginificance and lost the chance to feel like i did something to assauge the huge weight of momentous tragedy so i can get back to my empty empty life hoping to never feel.