THE HORIZON OF MY DREAMS- SHORT STORY- PART 2-BLURRED HORIZON

Horizon can be so deceptive! It’s like mirage in the desert. One moment it is just within reach. You run towards it and it moves away inviting, tantalizing. Those who know its reality do not fall prey to its deception. It is however possible to possess the horizon however illusory it might be, and I know it. Reality dawn when you lose that horizon of your dreams, and I know it too. Life moves on. I have a past full of treasures, a job for support and a child for company. I am becoming selfish though for my child. I have to tell you, my child, my dear, my dream now or never. When you grow up you will understand why I had to be cruel and selfish. In a quest for a very successful life for you, I have sent you to the boarding school up in the hills. You did not want to go but my ambitious self would not budge. I promised we will meet on weekends. In some remote corner in my heart is the desire to show that I will not fail in taking care of you. Believe me it will be tough in the beginning but in the end we both will succeed. My job was keeping me away from you for hours and you were anyway spending time with others. Sometimes I failed to pick you up at the appointed time, and you had tears in your eyes. It won’t be any different but we will get used to it. Besides, you are not very far from here. I can come to you any time you want me. One day, when you will grow you will realize how this separation helped you in becoming an independent, disciplined and knowledgeable person. Our sacrifice will not go in vain. I am taking this step for your future. Deep inside I also know I am doing it because I have a promise to keep. I have to ensure that you do not hear people saying –‘only if the dad was alive’! Does life moves on for persona like me? Why do I feel my life is stuck at one place? Everything else seems to be normal. The same people are moving around. They are happy and giggling. The cycle of time moves in the same direction. Seasons come and go. The river is still flowing under the bridge. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Clouds deliver rains, sun burns the skin. But why the moonlight is not soothing? Why it looks so lonely? Am I lonely? Should I be? There is hardly any change in the daily chorus. Why is it then I do not feel like returning home after work? Why it does not look inviting? I am becoming workaholic. I am still in office when everybody else has left. In today’s global village, one can work 24x7 but my job contract does not require me to do so. I do get some extra payments but I am not working for that extra payment. I know I do not want to return home. Its empty walls close on me the moment I enter as if to crush me into powder. Sometimes I go without having anything for dinner. Lying awake on the bed does not shorten the night. Many a times my hands reach to the phone to talk to my child and then I withdraw. Five years is a long time but not long enough to forget the loved one. Five years can be very long years in a life of solitude and desertion. Every day comes as one more day of futile struggle. Every night come one more night of depression. Somehow I try to fight it out and remind myself of the goal ahead, the goal of making my child, a child of our dreams, the most adorable person in the world. It keeps me going. I do not know what would have happened to me if we did not have the child. My whole life circles around the life of my child. I am the horizon of my child. I hope you are listening, I will not fail you. My loneliness will not come in the way of your dreams because your dreams are my dreams. Continued