As I step out into the warm summer’s evening, the great curtains of rain sweep across my face. Dripping wet, I pursue my journey across the city centre, my face resolute and determined. I know where I’m going this time – I’m just not entirely sure of the best way there. But we’ll figure it out.
It’s late and I’m pushing my luck a little. But I think I know where I’m going now. I think I know what I have to do.
I stop at a nearby ice cream van to help me push on. I ask the friendly Indian man at the counter for the most invigorating, life-affirming ice cream cone he can find, one that will grant me luck and allow me to persist in all my travails. He says he will see what he can do.
You can believe every thing I say. You can take me at my word because I can’t lie. I physically – mentally, psychologically, whatever you want to call it, I don’t mind – cannot – and, I have to say, can’t really see why anyone would want to tell a lie. I mean, I know I could say one, without realising it, but really, I would never want to tell someone something that wasn’t true. You know?
It’s gotten me into trouble a fair few times – but to be honest, to me it doesn’t feel unusual. I don’t feel very different to others. I just feel confused sometimes. To be honest, the world can be a very confusing place.
“Here you go,” says the man, a sparkle in his eye. He hands me a cinnamon and vanilla flavoured ice cream covered in sesame seeds, with a chocolate covered biscuit sticking out of it.
I pay him apologetically with my slightly damp money. “Take care,” he says to me as I wave him goodbye.
“I will. Have a good night!” I said, and cross the road. By the time I’m halfway up this next street, I can barely see the distant glow of the van through the dark screens of rain, flooding the gutters, running down the streets, dancing ripples in the puddles, streams and streams and oceans of rain …
“Mmm, thank you Lord,” I whisper, opening my mouth to catch the rain. Even though it’s pouring down, I only catch just enough to trickle down my throat and barely quench my thirst. Walking in the rain, on your own and trying to keep warm is hard work, even in a sultry monsoon night like this one.
I’m not especially religious or spiritual, but saying those words, “Lord”, and “pray” remind me of my family. I need them more than ever now, or that’s how it feels.
Isn’t it funny, how the time when you move away from someone or something or it moves away from you, you start really cherishing it? Wanting to wish it back, will it back, full of hunger for that which you didn’t always value before. From the first time I reclined under a banyan tree, settled down to sleep under a newspaper on a park bench, stretched myself under the loving stars and gave myself up to the heavens, I remembered my family and how they gave me everything, and asked for nothing in return.
