Lost

Heavy laden clouds loomed in the austral sky, threatening. The leaves whistled in the wind, the long slender trees swaying to the tune. From the fifth floor terrace Max could see people scurrying for shelter from the imminent downpour. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment in a perfect rapture; the wind tousling his hair, the warm hard concrete at his feet.

He dreaded the forty-five kilometre journey back to where he lived. The distance, still, may not have been that great, but the thought of the streets bustling with motorists and people and, not to mention, the odd critter wandering about itself exhausted him. Then there was the rain: Motorcycles didn’t come fitted with windscreens. Max detested having to make this courtesy call. Disdain clearly showed on his face.

At times, the choices that one has to make aren’t choices at all. That is, unless one wishes to totter on the other side of the thin line that divides what is viewed by the all-knowing, collective mind as acceptable from that which is not. How Max enjoyed doing just that: totter, barely on the right side. But that was before he began to realise that even a schoolboy’s jape is supposed to have some ascertainable point; before he realised that he was being branded as the rotten apple of the lot; before he realised that wary mothers warned their children about kids like him; before he realised, suddenly, how alone he felt.

The first of the large droplets of water reached the earth – it had started to drizzle. Max looked towards the north. The sky wasn’t as dark there. Beams of sunlight had stolen their way around the clouds. “Look mammy, God’s blessings,” he’d tell his mother as a kid. He flipped open his cell phone and dialled a number from memory.

“Hey, is it raining that side?” he said brusquely into the mouthpiece, and then uttered something with the semblance of gratitude and hung up. He drew a tentative conclusion – maybe he could reach home before the rain got to him – and kick-started his motorcycle.

Inspiration, unpredictable as he is, never comes by when you want him to; never when you’re peering into the screen of your laptop, trying to get inspired, or sitting on a park bench on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, thinking. It was when he was approaching a crossroad, battling his way out of the midst of a flurry of vehicles, that inspiration flashed by.

He thought, “How does one find something that isn’t lost?” A good part of one’s life is spent searching: Searching for answers, a purpose; for happiness; for peace. But when were all those ever lost to begin with?

Against common sense, spurred by an obscure thought, Max turned left at the crossroad where he should have turned right. For turning right would see him lying on his bed, at rest, in another half an hour’s time. For turning any other way would eventually lead to him being utterly lost in an alien city; a city which was intolerant to “outsiders” like him.

A smile began to exude, slowly turning the corners of his lips upward. He felt excited. His heart fluttered.

Nobody dared vouch for his sense of direction, but Max felt he was on the right track, heading north. Maybe he’d find a new, shorter route? The possibility, however, slowly evaporated as the roads narrowed. Narrower, and narrower still, the roads became, until the curbs on either side scraped at the cars that presumed too much. Tall concrete buildings gave way to precarious, shabby hovels.

Decided uncertainty contorted Max’s brow. All the excitement was gone. His heart still fluttered, even faster now, but it was different. It filled him with a steadily escalating sense of foreboding. He felt stupid. He wanted to cry; bawl like a baby just separated from its mother.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be,” he told himself, hardly believing it, and carried on, refusing to ask for directions.

After a series of wrong turns, he realised how foolish he’d been. He finally conceded, stopped and looked around for friendly faces. As Fate would have it, at that very moment there was a power outage. Everything was thrown into darkness; everything seemed bleak.

The sporadic motorist plying the street flooded it with light. Max could discern the vague silhouette of an auto-rickshaw in the distance. Auto-rickshaw drivers were notorious in this city. Robbery, theft, rape, murder – the culprit, inevitably, an auto-rickshaw driver; the victims: Innocent people who either were tourists, or couldn’t afford their own vehicles. But, they knew every nook and corner of the city.

Max approached the auto-rickshaw, his steps fraught with uncertainty. A face glowed in the glimmer of a burning matchstick as the driver lit a cigarette. It was thin and drawn, and had a pallid complexion. The deeply set eyes had an unkind disposition, the drooping sacs below them adding to the effect.

“Excuse me, brother.”

He turned and loured at Max. A chill ran down his spine, and he began to stutter.

“Ah-h, c-could you… could you… d-direct me to… towards Cunningham Road?”

The driver breathed a pall of smoke and said in a disgruntled voice, “Take the next left.”

“Thank you,” Max managed to utter as he turned around abruptly and started walking away. The surly man yelled after him, “Come here a minute, boy.” Max looked over his shoulder, apprehensively. The man was coming after him. Max was suddenly aware of his built, his broad shoulders, and heavy arms. And was there something in his hand? He couldn’t tell. The man closed the distance between them with huge, vehement steps. His gait exuded hatred.

“Hold on there!”

Max braced himself, clenched fists; every muscle in his body screaming. His nerves were as taut as the strings of a bow. He never backed down when a fight was brought to him.

“First you take a left, and then carry on straight till you reach a fork in the road. Take the right lane there, and after, follow the signs. It’s about twenty-five kilometres down.”

Max stared at him, shocked, or surprised rather. He let out a heavy sigh, and let the tension flow through him. The disdain in the old man’s eyes had been replaced with warmth. His face bore a softer expression, something Max couldn’t read. He was grateful and told him so, and left.

******

In retrospect, Max realised that he didn’t quite know what he had expected to find from his unseemly misadventure. But, it wasn’t in vain. For he had found something he would hold close to his heart for a very long time to come: He had found God in the person of that human being.

~ by Sayan on October 9, 2008.