Out of the doors of my home.

I remember when I was a little kid, not so little; when I was 13 - a very ordinary boy of a small town; aspiring to come out of the doors of his home. I'd see my friends going out - out of the doors of their homes, to play cricket or roam the streets together. I didn't. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to go out of the doors of my home like many of my friends. I grieved it. And every other day I tried to break the chains.

I remember Zafar*, one of the only friends I had that time, say to me that he is tired of everything. I sympathised. Though I didn't actually understand 'tired of everything'.

And I didn't mean to even give it a mere thought. I had so many other things to do; play trumps and card games, keep breaking, repairing, and again breaking my personal computer - personal after my sister was admitted in a residential school to pursue her higher secondary education.

What bothered me was the mere thought of going out of those doors and walk out in freedom, and wander. Life was ahead. Some courage, some steps, and some permissions ahead.

At some point in life, that I cannot clearly recall, I moved out of those doors; I wandered. I remember wandering didn't turn out to be what I had thought of its being as a child. I had many thoughts, thoughts of death being the end that has to come, but seldom would I have ever thought of life and its course. Its course.

Wandering and freedom.

Today, I have been wandering and free for the 7th year. In a strange city, for some strange reasons and like a stranger.
I remember what Zafar used to say. I can now understand what Zafar was tired of and why Zafar was 'tired of everything'.
It took some time to understand. And it took some time to get tired.

And it took some time to reach back, this time wanting to self-lock myself, and stay inside the doors of my home. There's freedom of which I am a slave. There's wandering - I dont understand.

You understand. There's a night so dark. I believe there'll be a day so bright. That this spring is the first and the last that would ever have to accompany hankering and paining.

But there's this freedom of which I am a slave. That's hoping to be free again. In its own way. A day when I will wake up in the morning and be so energetic and fresh that I can again pull the strings of heart.

And this silence that haunts me. And this hollowness in the center of my chest - that keeps expanding and vaccuming me of everything.

Where do I go? There where the sun rises.

- Syed Rehan

*Name changed.