Stories of the open road

Take nothing but memories… Leave nothing but footprints…

By Pathum Punchihewa

Life reveals its true form to us, humans in such mystique ways. One day, out of the blue, life unveils its intriguing, miraculous and resplendent panorama in front of your naked eyes, and it might be the very moment before you die…

Did you ever wonder what really happen to Alice, in wonderland? Well, she met a genius cat who can disappear from tale to head; there was a ‘tea-holic’ mad hat man, a wise caterpillar who stuck to his Hookah, Queen of hearts with her army of card soldiers and et cetera, so far if the memory serves well… It was quite a fantasy story that makes you wonder and believe about such a world full of mysterious and wonderful, magical and flourishing matters. But when Alice is back, she is the same old Alice. When the wonderland started to be familiar to Alice, she just accepted facts and things just went on and on…

We dropped in somewhere into this grandeurs of a world from somewhere and began to wonder how lucent the world is and in the very next moment start to take the world as norm. Now even death cannot make us wonder! My friend, if you cannot marvel about how astonishing death is, you never can wonder how beautiful life is. Yet we are like Alice in Wonderland; just wandering through paving streets of life, looking for the missing piece, the purpose of life…

What really spins the wheels of life? What really Blossoms the sprint of existence…? Family…? Bonds…? Fame…? I believe it’s the purpose, what ignites your passion of living. When you reach to the purpose of your life, when you reach the peak of the Great Mountain, the only thing you can see is the abstruse, deep blue sky. You can see the whole world up to the skyline and it will make you complacent about your achievements… Nevertheless it is the end and dramatically all you have to do is look down and view the panorama of picturesque simulacrum of life and fly away from the peak. After you fulfill the purpose of life, after you understand the meaning of existence, literary it is the end... Death is such an apt word to replace ‘the end’!

Have you ever felt the tranquility of life? The sound of silence…? The reticence between two notes, between noises, between people, between life and death… My friend, the longest walk on earth is between birth and death… the greatest quietude is between a silent note and another silent note… between life and death… feel it my friend, discern it…

To this world, we came alone and we depart alone; withal we take with us nothing but memories. There is nothing we can claim as possessions or tenures in our short life but still, leave your footprints on world, on hearts… Then thou art the brave passenger of the greatest voyage, the longest walk…

I believe you Shakespeare… "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages…” Farewells my friend… That was our last act…

Published on Daily Mirror (21st April 2011)