by Harish V
[box]Anjali is hit by an epiphany when she gets over her fear of the ocean and walks across the shore. Harish V tells her story in a piece of flash fiction.[/box]Anjali removed her footwear and hesitantly walked to the edge of the shore. She had decided enough was enough.
She didn’t know where her fear of the ocean stemmed from, but she was tired of watching her friends’ jaws drop every time she admitted she’d lived in Chennai for 25 years and never stepped into the water. She gingerly approached the incoming wave and felt a surge of excitement as she experienced the curious sensation of the surprisingly cool water lapping against her feet in the hot sun.
She felt strangely liberated yet acutely aware of everything around her. Every sense felt heightened. She walked along the shore, trying to catch the next wave. That was when she noticed her footprints in the sand.
She couldn’t comprehend why she was so fascinated by the image.
The vast sea made her feel utterly insignificant in the universe’s scheme of things. Yet her footprint was a reassuring confirmation that she did leave something behind, and at some level, she probably did matter.
She noticed how her heels had left deeper ruts. She remembered how her mother used to admonish her for walking heavily. It is unladylike, she’d constantly scold.
She noticed how little grains of sand at the edge of her footprint slid into the cavity. Like little hourglasses constantly reminding us of how fleeting time is, she thought.
She noticed how both her feet had almost landed in a line. She smiled as she remembered being pushed to participate in a fashion show by her classmates in college and how she almost had the coordinator in tears by the time she learnt how to walk the ramp.
Almost in a trance, she kept walking backwards – staring at her footprints – each step conjuring up a different memory. Before she knew it, she had reached the Elliot’s Promenade and with a sigh, she hailed an auto to go home, still lost in a swirl of memories and emotions.
As the auto turned sharply into her street, suddenly everything clicked into place. Her mind was clear. It was a moment of epiphany.
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, “I forgot my sandals.”
Harish is a blogger who is currently looking for a blogspot theme with dust and cobwebs, for that’s how long it has been since he actively blogged. He occasionally writes and clicks photographs, but only if he manages to pry himself away from the unhealthy hold Twitter and Facebook have on him. He tweets as @_curses.
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