Fiction Friday #1

“ Do you remember me ? “

Do I remember you ? Do I remember you when I wake up in the middle of the night and grasp into the darkness to find emptiness and the memory of you ?  Do I remember you when I’m still finding the ashes of the dreams we built, the pillars of which you packed together with your suitcase ? Do I remember you, when the pain of your loss keeps me aware of how alive I am ? Do I remember you, when I have failed time and time again to drop the habit of instinctively following a scent, a laugh, only to tap the shoulder of a stranger who asks me the exact answer I can now afford.

“ I’m sorry, no. Have we met before ? “

My heart did not soar the way I expected it to as I watched your face fall. 

Wake Up

Now, I don't know what they teach you in that fancy school of yours, but if you're not learning how to be a decent human being, you're not getting an education. 

Grades, and rankings, and random pieces of paper with fancy words printed on them may get you places, but they don't really matter in the real world. If you're blind to the pain of your fellow men, you're wasting your excellent vision. If you only work to climb and stab, and climb and stab, you're wasting those talented hands of yours. If you're only constantly thinking of your needs before everyone else's, you're wasting that wonderful brain of yours. 

Again, if you're not learning how to truly see, and feel, and touch, and evolve, you're not getting an education. At least not one about life. 

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

Myway, Godway, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue 

- Inner Voice 

Deeper Conversation

It is a marvel how the world works now. Touch anything and you trigger wonderful new worlds. It is a sci-fi dream and the gradual death of long, meaningful conversations. Before Facebook, Twitter, and means of instant gratification took over the world, life was still happening.

Go on out there and find someone who will sit down and talk with you about anything and everything. The Universe, science, culture, pop psychology, music, art, religion, literature, expand your horizon ! Some of the greatest inventions started through seemingly empty conversations. Stop, listen, wonder, rinse, repeat.

When you stop wondering, the wheels stop turning, the gears stop connecting,  innovation stops happening and then what ? And then, what ?

“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.” - Michel de Montaigne

Once, No Longer, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue

- Inner Voice 

Hero

You try too hard to fix things. You reach out to mend broken relationships but sweetie, those relationships aren’t going to look alright if you keep focusing on the cracks between the mended lines.

I hope you know that sometimes things have to be broken. If only because the effort of piecing together those chipped bits will remind you that everything is made up of little parts.

I hope you also know that some things cannot be pieced back again. Sometimes you’ll find missing pieces and gaps. And you’ll try to fill those gaps, first with the things that are within reach, and then. And then you’ll reach into yourself and wrench out a piece of you and try to fill those gaps. You’ll find that your wrenched out edges will not match those sharp broken ones Stop. If not now, then someday before you’re left with chipped off bits trying to be someone’s missing piece.

Everybody tends to have a secret hero calling. Listen carefully to the ones you answer. 

“Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.” - Brodi Ashton 

While We Grunt , Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue 

- Inner Voice

We Can't Stop

You are so, so affected by the others. You think it matters if you veer off the beaten path, you dread the way you’ll stand out if you stopped thinking like the crowd. Because you’ve been trained that it is wrong to be different. You think that if you stay silent, the storm will stop gathering, the sea will stop roaring. Truth is, life goes on, and it matters not if you keep on being somebody elses’ version of you.

Things lose meaning when you hold on too tightly to the script. It’s going to be scary, it’s going to be tough, but for heaven’s sake, just take that plunge ! How else will you learn to fly?

“ Run from what is comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious “ – Rumi

Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue

-       -Inner Voice