When I was a young girl, I can recall looking out of my bedroom window and absorbing the breath-taking view below. Waves of green caressed the blue expanse of the heavens. When an eye was turned from the picturesque horizon to the depths of the valley, a simple town and university nestled itself naturally into the crevices all around. I would spend hours upon hours just sitting in the window simply drinking in the beauty.
When I was a young girl, I can recall walking around with companions and being able to inhale this older air. This air devoid of overwhelming unsteadiness. One was able to simply inhale this air and exhale the same air with an easy nature. The air was free of stress and carried along the breaths from ages long past.
When I was a young girl, I can recall sitting in the first shadows of the wise limbs of trees. There was no sense of death upon the horizon. There was the ability to connect with the ghosts of the forests; it was possible to absorb the possibilities of lives long past.
When I was a young girl, I can recall riding in the backseat of the car, captured by my window and held a willing prison to the view and fuel to my imagination. Simple homes sank into the earth with trees curling around it, holding it steady. People strolled about in a casual, welcoming way. There was no push to go anywhere quickly.
I inhaled and closed my eyes.
I exhaled and opened my eyes.
I beheld this change. When I looked out my bedroom window, I saw the hills weren’t as brilliant. Where did all the beautiful green go? Why was I looking at these dull hills? Buildings were crawling all over themselves, all trying to occupy the same spot at the same time with no patience for the other to move. The buildings violated the hills in one of the most forbidden of manners.
I looked out to where I once roamed and breathed in poison. The venom in the air was the toxic nature of the city. There was a choking amount of stress. The air didn’t move. There was no graceful dancing in the wind. There was nothing. Nothing!
I ran to the trees and found stumps. I collapsed to the grave. Who dared to defile the products of Mother Earth? Who dared to take it unto themselves to murder the elders? There was nothing left to provide safe passage to the past.
I sat, numbed, in the backseat of the car, prisoner to the window. I was forced to stare at this horror. Pictures assaulted my mind and sank their harsh talons in with no hint of relinquishing their hold. The homes were outrageous and moving closer to each other. The comforting embrace of trees and nature was gone, all bare and cold. Gray colored the horizon. People shoved each other around impatiently, all in a grand rush to reach the end of their journey and drama only to begin a new one without getting off the initial train first. Everyone had to be somewhere now.
I looked to the far-off horizon and prayed for the recent ghosts to still be alive somewhere else. I prayed for none to destroy their woeful cries. I sent empty hope.
I closed my eyes and inhaled.
But I am too afraid to exhale and see.
~Chandra
