Of life and its absurdities

Your relationship with Miss Silwal looked much like life: a bit complicated, crazy, fleeting, and meaningless.

You’re turning 25 this May. The age is neither big nor small. You are not at the juncture to recount your life stories; your stories won’t inspire anyone, and they don’t have to anyway. At six, you never imagined that you would think so deeply—you were devoid of avenues to reach those depths. You didn’t understand life and death and the space in between. Like flowing water in the river, which everyone takes for granted, life flows on, and it flows on without people realising that each day comes with a warning, silently whispering that they are one step closer to perishing. You wonder if everyone thinks the way you do. You marvel if everyone pauses to review their life, its intricacies, and its blessings. In the quiet evenings, when the sun almost dips below the horizon, you feel restless, inundated by the urge to talk to someone, to tell people that you are being teased by the sun, and it is imitating your existence. When you find yourself talking like that, the person next to you smiles and sometimes lets out a shrill laugh. A laugh that tells you that you are stupid, perhaps even crazy.