The Dream

She stood there for what seemed like an eternity, contemplating if she should or should not let go of her inhibitions and take that leap of faith. The air was cold and the night dark. Countless stars adorned the sky and the moon, the moon was new and crescent. Questions raced through her mind; the answers, unfathomable, ambiguous and overwhelming. It seemed like a simple choice to make, she didn’t really have to do much anyway, but the consequences of her actions plagued her, ghosts from her past haunted her and memories of a similar happening still fresh in her mind.

Innocent! No that she was not! And yet she felt almost ignorant about matters of love and trust, of life and hope. Well, maybe she was, she thought to herself. Love and trust she had given once, unconditionally and what did she get in return? Once bitten twice shy? Damn right! Yes! Why not? No one was taking her for a ride again. She wouldn’t let them. Walls guarded her, walls around the fortress that was her heart. Innocent, pure and magnanimous that it was. Her fortress! Indomitable, impregnable and unconquerable!

How does anyone trust anyway? How does one take that leap of faith when everything around us seems to suggest otherwise. What with people falling out of love faster than they fall in to it? What with hurt, pain and hatred engulfing the world around us? Look around and you can only see lying cheating and deceit. How does one look past all of it, ignore every sign that says you are going down (and there are a lot of signs, more than the good ones anyway) and find the courage to lose themselves?

And switch to the world that is not your own, one that is a figment of your imagination, one built, caressed and nurtured by writers, big and small and look and for an answer. And again you encounter such monstrous things, men conjuring up djinns, fearful dragon riding evil kings and shrewd and cunning men and women with their insidious plans and propagandas, out to rule the world. How then do you trust and love and live happily ever after?

He tossed and turned in his bed, impatiently waiting for that beautiful woman to put an end to the endless questions in her head. Never once wavering, never taking his eyes off the gentle glow emanating from her fair skin, or her dark eyes that failed to conceal the doubts jostling for space within her, or her gentle, skeptical smile. Yes! He was bowled over by those little things that he saw in her. Mustering every ounce of courage, he tells her, “Place your hand in mine. I am not asking you for more and believe. Believe in love and life and everything nice. Believe in you and I and what we can be. Lose yourself, live for the minute, live for the moment. Take a leap of faith, here and now.” And then he stood there for what seemed like an eternity.

And ever so slowly she stretched out her hand and skeptically put it in his. And he held it gently and firmly, careful not crush her hands, but firmly enough to reassure her that he meant every word he said. His heart was racing at break neck speed; gazillion things were pounding his head as he waited for her to say something, a gesture, a word, something, anything. And that smile, that smile he couldn’t take his eyes off, angles across her face, but this time all those apprehensions, those whys and why nots and the what ifs were left behind. It was a smile that was as careless as the whispering wind, as free as the falling rain, as pure as the oceans blue.

Yes it was a dream. A dream as real as can be. A dream which had him, her, the shining stars and the crescent moon. A dream that was his as much as it was hers.