The Hand on the cheek

Goodbye, my child!

I saw my father caress his youth once again, with the glimpse of regret,with a glimpse of drudgery. Into the eyes of life today,he saw the beckoning of a coup that he never lead,of a sadness that was left uttered on the lips of a boy, who had lost his toy in the wilderness of approval and tears. Left behind were the crevices which no longer recognised the boy, but paid heed to the man,left were the crevices on the walls of regret, the glimpse of the life that the boy had once seen, it was all left in the ocean in which the son washes his hands, calling it the opportune time of his life,leaving behind a strange smell for the man to pay heed to,once again. A smell that he had left behind in the same wilderness from which he came,a smell that he couldn't relate to,anymore, but like a phantom limb,the nostalgia and the pain came aching back,once again, leaving the man in the wilderness, at the behest of the kid who was left behind,staring and dreaming at the crevices of life, wondering when would that return, when would he return. 

I saw him drown the last time,in the aspect of time and in the aspect of his soul. He drowned,oh mourners,oh detesters, he drowned! The man who could unfathomably caress his youth has drowned. The crevices, he knew of the world are no longer open, the caves the he survived are no longer lit, the clocks that he changed are no longer accurate and the lives that he lived, all faded, except one, which drowned with him at the gasp of the boy who saw it all, who dreamt it all, a boy who wept with time, a boy who shrugged his shoulder at life and realised that the man was the one who drowned. He drowned,oh mourners,oh detesters,he drowned! 

He heard the siren, he heard the bell of the boat which was to take him across, he heard them all. He wasn't ready, he still had to extol the boy for his remarkable achievement and rebuke the man for his unfathomable failures, but the time is nigh, when he has to decide to either vaunt the boy or be ashamed of the man.He makes a decision in his last hours and he rebukes the man, for the child can withstand success, but the man cannot withstand failure, but he leaves the man with a note in his hand written with the final letters - Fail better tomorrow! With those words, he has harked to the calls and he has paid his dues, his last breath was of remonstrance for the child, and inspiration for the man. The boy who died lives once again, in the belching of words and sentences,to remonstrate the man who could never understand him. Alas! They both never could understand each other, for in the mirror stands the past, present and future of a man who has lived, died and lived once again.