From the very day he had come to this town, his daily life was more or less the same. He would wake up trying and failing to remember the fragments of dreams which hadn’t quite soothed him in any way. He would do this because those dreams were the only things that added any variations in his life. He felt like a dream junkie ¹ alright. 

Having given up prodding his brain for those fleeting memories, he would get out of bed. He would walk into the shower, turn the temperature dial just below the highest setting. He would brush his teeth while the water heated up and then he would stand under the spray. 

Wearing his towel, he would walk into the kitchen where he made his tea, and toasted a couple slices of bread. He would open the fridge to look at the contents, taking a staggering amount of time deciding what to put between the toasts. Having done that, he’d put on something that just worked on him. And after that, he’d eat his breakfast and leave for the day, stepping out into the world in which no one knew him, and in which he could be anyone.² And yet, almost everyday, he wondered who he really was himself. Same work, same mundane lunch and same wondering about what the dream might be that night. 

But, something changed this morning. 

He did fail again to remember his dream from the night before. He did feel like the shower water was a tad bit too hot for his liking, but chose to bear with the discomfort because it woke him up better. He did take over eight minutes to decide what to use for his sandwich. And he did think his work was meaningless. 

It was on his way back from work that he saw her. She had just walked out of the little coffee shop at the corner of the street. She looked around herself, towards the streets, and seeing that the walk sign was red, she stood waiting for it to turn green. And at that moment, when the sunset was just ten minutes away, she had turned the mundane road crossing into a spectacle for him to behold, as if an exquisite painting. 

She was oblivious of his observing gaze. She was attentive to nothing but the traffic signal that was hindering her from going on her merry way. But to him, she was also ignorant of her own radiance. The red sundress she was wearing, with matching heels made her look somewhat taller than she probably was. The white satin looking scarf added a layer of contrast. And then there was her hair, twirling down to her waist in tight curls and little waves. He noticed all this probably in the first ten seconds or so, and then he spent the rest of the minute burning the spectacle before him into his retinas. 

When he would think about her before going to bed, he would fail to recognize what was so enchanting about this woman that had caught his attention. He would fail to forgive himself this guilty pleasure of unabashedly ogling her in the middle of the street. He would wonder whether she would have been irked by his gaze if she were to notice. But at that moment, all of that was far from his mind. 

And then, just as he thought of walking a little to the right to take a glimpse of her face, the sign turned green. She crossed the road, where a car was waiting for her. Her nimble fingers gently held the handle of the back seat, and the door came open. She got into it, and closed the door behind her.

He kept looking, and then the sun drifted, the car rattling uncaringly away from it, and the world returned to its normal sad shapes and colors, the people to their normal sad state, a shift as cruel and abrupt as if it had been made by a sorcerer’s wand.³

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References:

1. POST: The Dream Junkie.

2. “he’d eat his breakfast and leave for the day, stepping out into the world in which no one knew him, and in which he could be anyone.” — Quote from A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara.

3. “And then the sun would drift, the car rattling uncaringly away from it, and the world would return to its normal sad shapes and colors, the people to their normal sad state, a shift as cruel and abrupt as if it had been made by a sorcerer’s wand.” — Quote from A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara; with slight modification.