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They sit across each other, sipping on their coffee. "So how's life treating you these days?" He asks. "I cannot put a finger on it!" she replies back. They have a bond that cannot be classified under any conventional nomenclature. They share the comfort of siblings and the proximity of close friends without ever delving too much into each other's lives. The encounters are few, but the exchange of words often unearth abstruse realities of life, be it about love, loss, parenting or personal challenges.
She knows she could seek advice, bare it before him like she feels it but her words elude her this time. The feelings crossing her mind escape the clarity of symbols and that's what she particularly seeks to solve in this rendezvous.

"I feel stuck" she manages, avoiding eye contact. He smiles. "That's how this age is supposed to feel, no biggie" He dismisses her concern. "Try to write it out" he offers. "I am sure you can find yourself in the confines of your writings, and you don't even need to share it with anyone except yourself."

This conversation isn't going anywhere she wants it to go. They absentmindedly nurse on their coffee mugs when she says it in a trance "I feel like I am on a dead end - like one of those 'not a through street' signs you spot when you are lost" - She feels a bit of a relief to have said that much. She does feel lost..or more importantly stuck, like she could identify before.

"When you cannot go forward, go up.When you go up, you have a clearer view of things"

She reflects upon the lines and a light floods her insides. They smile and get lost in the reverie of life, those souls that connect at a level that cannot be named.


Photo Credit - Chandra Elango, somewhere in NZ.