SHAME

You often looked at her at some nights, when she was asleep so sound so tight. You said, this is the very child innocent who could drive a grown up mad and impatient. Every thing as you know always comes with a price, but as for this one oh what a tag! In such nighttime a new day would creep briskly, whereas sleep crawled like a snail. A hung mirror would reflect an image of someone too familiar: the face of an exhausted father who could have done better than hurting the ego of his own God-sent china. With all the foolishness you could muster you wondered what went wrong with all those years of breathing, of education, of all the travel to faraway lands, of the talking with wisest tongues, of the listening to wisest words of wisdoms! Another morning would unfailingly arrive, sometimes to discover your regret and how you wished to play back time or reset it altogether. Yet nothing was ever the same; you just hoped the damage was a mendable one. When the sun rose and fresh air entered your bedroom with chirping birds outside, your cracked china woke up. Her angelic face, she did not care. Her wings crippled, she did not notice. Instead she would seek something in the pair of eyes looking so unsightly last night. You gave her the best of hug. Or maybe you didn't. She said sorry, when you should have been the one to employ the word. Neither fully understood why adults behave the way they do. (25 July 2005)