A Street That Has Changed Over Time

I look down from my window at the street that appeared to be covered with candy floss. Summer had danced into India, and the trees had blessed the road with their babies: pink flowers, each equally beautiful in shade and texture. 

Beyond the street a river flowed, a little slower—she was getting older. She looked fresher, still, compared to when I was little. Back then, she bent low and carried carelessly thrown plastic on her back. Over the years, loud and relentless protesting had gotten the government to act. In her eyes, the sun, a magnificent ball of fire, could be seen dissolving into the sky. It lowered behind the apartments across the street, pulling over itself a cloud blanket. 

In the faint peach of the setting sun, I looked at the tree, on the road, its majesty being praised by the last rays. Like the river, the tree had aged too. It had grown, and shed its leaves and had grown them again, several times. How wonderful must it have been to have such a presence? A presence for others. I take myself back in time. After school every day, my bus would drop me off there, right under the tree. I never once stood bothered by the sun’s rays. My friends and I had cycled past it, through its shade, just like we had cycled through time. 

A breeze blows, ringing the windchime in the window next door—someone else lives there now—and brining with it the faint smell of sandwich, from the small restaurant downstairs. The smell gets stronger. I realise with a whiff that they do not make the same sandwiches anymore. 

As the summer air blows the smell further, street dogs, a dozen of them, come chasing the treasure. The dogs do not know me, they were only puppies when I saw them last. My eyes follow them, and eventually rest on two figures, both holding hands to support each other, and wobbling. Experience had made them frail and wrinkly and had bent their backs. It is them, that I realise, why old-age is called the second childhood: you bend lower and lower until you can bend no more. Then you become a part of the earth: the very place you emerged from.

I throw my shrug on and rush downstairs, skipping steps. I had to meet somebody. I had to meet change, and embrace it. I had to embrace it with my arms wide open and with my whole heart. Still running, I throw open the gate of my building.

Leaves spiral on the road that I now stood on—I am a total stranger. I look around myself wildly, my heart aching with fear and memories: how swiftly the seasons had passed by. I did not want change, I wanted the time to turn back. Just a little would be enough. 

The wind comes and sweeps everything away. I had embraced change. I look around myself wildly, my heart burning with joy. How wonderfully things have changed. How gracefully change has danced into life!