Curious One

After moving out of my parents’ house, I had been living in Cochin for almost 3 years. But if you were to ask me for the names of all the families next door, I couldn’t tell you.

Turns out that I’m not alone; no one interacted with each other. In Mumbai at least, there used to be this necessity to reach out and build bonds with people who lived nearby, but here in Cochin, life was as blank as a straight line.

One day, I was the only one in my house, busy watching the idiot box, when I saw him running on the balcony, with a single LED light bulb smaller than one centimeter; the running entity could not be seen. I turned everything off, frantically shivering from fear but at the same time, I laughed for some odd reason, as life was too monotonous for me. I looked in front of me into the dark depths of the space I was in and saw two eyes looking at me. And we both looked at each other, and he smiled. The vision dissipated as the figure ran out of the house immediately.

I could hear screams from my neighbors, and for the first time, the entire neighborhood came out, all clueless faces looking at each other. Everyone started running and wondering about the thief in pure amazement at what they had just seen!!! A thief. Alas!!! They could not find the thief, and all went back, putting their curiosity to rest. Now the entire area was not calm and started interacting with each other about it the very next day. It was night again when one of the screams came out, and there goes the shadowy figure again. All the people are out, the search starts, and it continues until 5:00 am. All excited, charged up.

This became a regular saga; every day someone would see the shadow, and the entire area would come out, drinking tea, coffee at night. The reserved area was now in touch with everyone around. So much laughter and joy!!!

As days passed by, their friendship deepened.

If you ask me about the thief, the search is still on. The shadow figure is still to be seen sometimes. But because of this shadow figure, everyone became friends. And even today, feeling oddly relieved and cheerful, the people of the entire area gaze up every morning. The sky above had turned into pleasant, pearly silver with a patch of rosy red where the sun was about to rise. A group of birds on a nearby tree unfurled their wings and took off in the air, into the limitless sky, towards the rising sun, chirruping merrily, greeting the beginning of dawn, of the morning, of a new journey…

The thief who taught neighborhood and love still wanders around!!!

Meanwhile, I am still in the house, imagining that the man transformed into a cocoon on the balcony, sprang up with wings like a butterfly, and molded back down into the shape of a man. BLIMEY!