I was at Chapter 9: The Talent Show of
an undisclosed 1940s novel which I had stolen from an old fashioned bookstore
at the corner of Claymore street, just opposite of Claire Street. The cover of
the book was plain dark blue with the title of the book engraved on it in
golden sunlight as ‘All About the Stars’, the pages were light coffee brown and
had bright orange stains at the edge of all pages as if it had survived from a
burning library. I pictured myself as a king-size bee succumbed to a pool of
irresistible sweet nectar from a golden sunflower, having already read three
chapters midway of a 4 hours train ride journey to the other side of town to
meet someone special to me which I had not seen for years.
As I got up from my reading mantra, I
caught a long glimpse of my surrounding in this old train travelling
to Doncaster. A grumpy old man was swearing at everyone at the end of the
train, half of the riders were pretending to sleep so that others would not
disturb them except for the ticket inspectors of course, there was a young
couple kissing their hearts out under the no kissing sign, there was a guy
speaking loudly on the phone in french because he had missed his flight
due to the usual delay of the trains into the city and a group of kids who
suddenly started dancing on the blue cushioned seats to a R&B song by a
local artist played on the train through the ancient tech speakers.
Then I switched my attention to this bubbly little girl who started dancing where she was, beside her mother on the other side of the train just after she had observed the same bunch of kids dancing but as soon as the group of kids left the train to their destination, she immediately stopped and sat down quietly without showing any signs of thrill. I looked at her and asked myself, 'Why do humans behave this way?', I wanted to tell her 'Don't stop, dance if you feel like it'. The special thing about mothers is that they have natural instinct to their children. I noticed the mother was keeping an eye on her since the very beginning simultaneously reading the papers about a politician who hung himself. The mother elegantly put down the newspaper on her lap and calmly took out her set of house keys that has a plastic flashlight attached to it.
She intentionally knocked the flashlight onto her right palm as though the batteries were dysfunctional and with that gesture, the lights perhaps will be brighter even before turning it on. She pressed the button and shined a ray of light upon her child as though it was a blessing, to make her child to feel better and ...it did. Her child quickly closed her eyes tightly and produced a smile so natural that everyone wanted it.
The mother kissed her daughter’s head and continued to whisper into her daughter's ears , “If you can’t find the sunshine, then go on be the sun, Rosie”.
