The Boy who Mastered Storms

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.”
-JOHN DONNE

No matter how hard the wind blew, the boy harnessed it well. He was always an exuberant child of his parents; they never had a time to sneak away their eyes from him for he always had a story to narrate, be it a mischievous one or the one about his passion of living a life with music. He was blooming amidst the wilderness of his age; nothing could stop him from achieving what he wanted. Despite the fact that his grade card was not a healthy one, but it didn’t bother him much. As his dreams started taking its first flight, the wings of his dreams were ripped off, the wind no more caressed him and it went enforcing all its power against him. The boy didn’t know that sometimes the calm wind could shift into the untamed storm, ravaging the beauty and the beast.

A beautiful dream was destructed on that very day when the boy met with a road accident; his corporeal body didn’t know how tough it was going to be, how every little thing that once bloomed would seem to him as being withered from a long time. As his body laid there on the road, his dreams still kept flying to an unknown destination because they forgot their route. So, like the metaphysical poet John Donne, he too mumbled through his mental lips, “DEATH BE NOT PROUD!” and then he eventually took his journey back to life. After he met with that catastrophic storm, he had to spend one year of his precious life on bed, embracing his left paralyzed leg. His friends came to rescue, saved fifty percent of his life through making conversations with him; they gave him a normal life to lead amidst all abnormality.

He was wild and free and no net could ensnare him; lying on the bed for whole day long he didn’t limit himself to the pillow or the bed sheet, sometimes he just fulfilled his little desire like straightening his hair and then dyeing them with a different color, even though black was the color of fancy. He used to laugh hard on some trivial jokes, though his heart cried loud; he used to cheer his face up when all he wanted was to speak what he actually felt. It was very hard to decode his feelings from his exterior expressions; he never uttered a single word of vengeance or failure, albeit he had so much to inhale from life. When he saw his friends moving out and enjoying their summer days, somewhere, that little blue bird wept inside his heart for it was caged for a long time. But, one fine day he thought of letting that blue bird to fly, to fly with its broken wings, to bring those dreams back to its course.

At first it was not that easy, maybe it was more than tough; he had to urge his left leg to move and to make the slightest movements. At times when his left leg didn’t want to move the littlest, he used to be angry, sad and mad, but he didn’t lose his faith and his hope and he kept reminding himself that he still had a life to live, to feel great affection for those unseen, unfelt, unheard moments of his life. The boy knew that he had to be the master of his own life; he knew life was not like the tiny dust particles, held in the fold of the palms of his hands, to renounce so easily. As he groaned out of pain, it felt like the demon inside him wanted to come out and breakthrough; maybe he wept silently, but the story of those unseen tears remained in the dark; it never got narrated to anyone. Little by little, he kept growing, he started racing up with his life and his left leg started to accompany him back again and then the boy restored his unfulfilled dreams back to track.

The catastrophic storm that had hit his life was eventually declined into a calm wind, but it was not over though. The storm didn’t leave him that easily, but when it did, it gave him some life lessons too. As the boy started grooming himself up for his second flight, with his dreams, he was hit by another road accident. And before he could understand much about life, his left leg started giving him a hint that it would no more accompany him again, back in his journey of life. The boy cursed his life; he was in no mood to settle down his dreams back to its appropriate destination; he felt desolate and bereft. This time he kept silent, but this silence could speak more than those moving lips did; he gave himself up to his pillow and bed sheet and then when the blue bird cried, he allowed it to weep its heart out, not thinking for a moment to let it fly away. But, one fine day he was knocked down by his dreams as they were flying ruthlessly without any destination.

The boy thought of harnessing the storm this time and so he initiated his dreams, fondled and started nurturing them. He stood in front of the storm and started confronting every obstacles that stood between him and his dreams, be it his crooked leg or his inability to walk back normal again; everything seemed so effortless, as if he could conquer all. He stood like the Beowulf, like the Aethelbeorn, and slaughtered all the demons; he sang the songs of victory and danced to the rhythm of life and kept on saying, “DEATH BE NOT PROUD!” He didn’t allow any trespasser to enter in his estate of dreams, and to pluck any of those bloomed blossoms. It didn’t matter what others would speak of him, of his crooked leg or how they would react to it; all that he cared about was the wilderness and freedom from slavery of death. He was a free bird now, a bird with broken wings but not with shattered dreams; he understood life beyond the philosophy of living, surviving and giving up ;…………………………………………………………….the boy continued harnessing the untamed storm and then turning it into a serene wind.

~ lilac