Summertime

The sun at its radiant best. Angry blue skies. Arid earth. Hot collars.

No cloud cover. No respite.

A few harried salesmen and other sundry parched throats trudge along towards their destinations. Beads of sweat wet the foreheads. Their thirsty eyes look up in hope at those delightful soft drink hoardings. High up in the air, the hoardings look down at the tired souls and give hope. Magical blues and revitalizing greens. Cool cubes of ice floating in those tall glasses with multicolored nectar. A sight to quench your thirst while a greedy corner store awaits you.

A sun burnt cart puller. Dark sweat laden skin and thin sinewy muscles bounce off the sunlight while they exert the very last bit of energy left in them. The malnourished man pushes them to the extreme to carry his cross and inch towards his destination and to the few rupees that will feed his family this evening. Each step costs a fortune in blood and sweat, but ironically, is worth only a few pennies. A drop of life trickles down his forehead, works its way down to the bridge of his nose, finds his parched lips, ignores his kiss, finds the chin, drips down to wet his bare chest and dissipates into the wetness of his chest.

The cart puller curses the sun. But then he repents. He is poor. He has no education. But he is wise. He knows deep within, that the sun may be merciless, but the sun is still a friend. Not like the rain.

The sun is always angry. But it is honest.

The rain, it is enticing and beautiful and pleasurable. But it is sly.

In the rain, no one will hire his cart. An empty cart is directly proportional to an empty stomach. Sorry. Six empty stomachs.

Not far away a man in his air-conditioned car looks out at the world. Cradled in his seat of luxury, awaiting a traffic signal to go green, he looks out at the beggar knocking at his window in disgust. The beggar, deformed and probably deranged, brings his sun burnt thirsty lips close to the expensive window pane. He knocks on the window and makes a sad face. A man pleading for life sustaining bread and a nourishing drink of water. A man begging to live.

In his mind, the beggar too curses the sun, for the sun cares not for those who have little. He sides with the rich and roasts the poor. The beggar tries to open his mouth. But his dehydrated lips give up. He mumbles some words that say nothing but mean despair. The man in the car, however, can hear nothing. His ears are tuned to the throbbing music that reverberates through the expensive beige interiors. He breathes in cool air and gestures to the strange life form outside his window. Be gone you creep. “Why the fuck cant they work. If I give him money I know I will end up feeding the beggar mafia”

The beggar trudges away towards other carriers of hope that await the signal to go green. One of them holds the key to nourishment.

And then there are the children. Hopping and skipping to nowhere. Their unruly hair and their oily pigtails braving the mighty sun, making friends with the scorching sunlight.

How can they be unaffected by the mighty summer? Does innocence nourish, shield, and protect. Or is it the benevolence of the sun for those that will, hopefully, one day, bring about compassion that the worlds needs.

The sun lives in hope and burns with anticipation. He lights up those little lives and is optimistic. One day, before he collapses into himself to become a supernova, these little ones will work up the magic of innocence and sing songs that extend compassion. One day they will eradicate sin. On that day, everyone will see the light.

God looks down at the sun. He looks down with a wry smile. A glint in his eye.

“They will not understand because they are not programmed to”

“Not many will understand that my greatest creation is not man or the sun or the water or fire or the planets. Not even the universe. Not love. Not the heart. Not even the brain.

My greatest creation….

Equilibrium….

Which I created in abundance….

Right and wrong
Rich and poor
Hot and cold
Life and Death
Love and hate
Creation and Destruction
Cyclical
Interdependent

For that which sustains also destroys
One feeds the other
One negates the other
One leads to the other
One balances out the other

Fuzzy logic… yeah… equilibrium…. My greatest creation