Far away on a bridge, engulfed in blushing sunlight and filtering raindrops, a happy child was cycling by. She cycled in the speed of the breeze. The air was crisp, rustling her autumn hair. It was spring but her hair was still autumn. Her hair was like the stars in the sky, the mystery of its number always amusing her.

See, happy child had always denied the idea of stars being uncountable. There were nights she laid under the open sky determined to hold the count of the stars. But, that day, happy child cycled faster. She cycled in the speed of storm.

She didn’t want to confuse herself more. Like the thoughts that came to her and then danced their way back in a tease, she forgot them. She forgot the stars. She forgot them like the day when she forgot the ones she had already counted. Happy child was growing. She was learning to forget to remember and to remember to forget. Happy child called this freedom. Happy child thought that she was free.

Then, one day, the cycle stopped its wheel. The tires flattened to her weight. Happy child didn’t take the cycle for a fifth repair. She didn’t fight for a new cycle but instead stopped cycling. After months she completely forgot how to balance it. The cycle lay rusted at a corner. And, with it all her dreams of blissful freedom got rusted.

She had a perfect formless shape of how freedom fit like in the palm of her hands. But, now, her palms became bigger to create, to destroy, to gain, to lose and to let life flow in curves and turns. Days when happiness doesn’t feel like a battle, happy child is like a river in flow sparkling to the beams of aestheticism. She is singing rhymes of life with each birthday. She is happy sinking to each new realization of happiness.

Happy child is happy.

Joshna is a high school student of humanities at St.Mary’s.

 
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