.....Part I

It would be his last weekend in the city. The road diverged ahead of him and he had to choose one. And choose did he with a heavy heart. He did not want to end this last weekend like this. He wanted it to be a pleasant memory. He had called her out for one last date. He hadnt heard from her. She did not respond to his calls. As usual, he thought. He was dressed in a dark blue cargos and a loose fitting full sleeved tee with a comfortable floater. There was a strange forlorn carelessness in his walk. His dress, his walk, reflected his attitude. He walked towards the park. He wanted to sit on the concrete slabs of the park where they had spent a memorable evening recording the sounds of the tens of those chirping birds leaning on each other's arms and also one morning which neither of them wanted to remember. He turned his head to cross the road. As he crossed, a couple walked right past him. He waited for them to move past and started walking behind. They must be in the early twenties, he thought. They were holding hands and the girl whispered something to the guy. He noticed the guy holding her hands tight,hurrying up the steps and turning back in intervals and starring back at him. A stalker probably, they would have thought, he assumed. He slowed down his walk to give them a feeling of ease and peace of mind. Insecurity and fear - Fata Morgana -a mirage of human mind that drives people to the edge, he thought. He smiled at the couple's reaction to a normal stranger walking behind them. What is it that makes the girl take refuge and want to be protected by a man even though she could have taken care of herself if she was walking alone? A sense of surrender, he thought, making the man feel that he is the protector sent from heaven to save her, feeding his ego handsomely in the process and she herself feeling secure and satisfying her ego of owning a man completely dedicated to her. Love is a form of surrender, a complete ablution they say. He wondered at his own thoughts. Has he started analysing everything in this world? Is he growing wise or insane?