It was a breezy Sunday evening. After a long day of cleaning up and putting things in order, Savitha walked down to the community park located right next to her apartment. As expected, the park was filled with people, young and old, jogging or walking. There were children too, of many sizes and ages, laughing, running and jumping around without a care in the world. Savitha smiled to herself and scanning the length of the park, picked the bench at the farthest end; a spot that would draw least attention to itself and to the person seated on it. She brushed away the dry leaves and the dust that had settled on it before sitting down. For a few moments, Savitha reflected on how the bench and she were similar – they were both inconspicuous, isolated and ignored. She sat, looking at the setting sun, dipping gracefully behind a set of silver clouds, as its gentle rays played hide and seek with the ground from in between a thick foliage of trees. Savitha was sad. She was. For several reasons. Many things were not going in the right direction. At work. At home. And with people. The problems buzzed around in her head like restless spirits waiting for closure. If there was one thing that could ease things out, Savitha thought, it would be to open up to someone – someone close, someone trustworthy, someone understanding.
She sat, with her hands on her lap, her shoulders slouched a little and with her eyes closed. Who would I want to talk to now? Who would I want here with me, at this moment, sitting right next to me and listening to me? Who would I want to open up to now? Without fear? Without being judged? Without being ignored? Without being cast away? Soon, faces of people, supposedly a part of her close circle, ran in front of her like a film reel. Her parents, her brother, her friends from school and college, her colleagues, her ex-husband. Who could it be? Savitha thought hard. Shocked, she realised: none of them. None of them. She could not imagine having any of them sitting with her now and listening to her wholeheartedly. She also realised that even she didn’t feel the slightest urge to open up to any of them. All she felt was a yawning distance between her and these people. They had moved so far away from her that she could no longer conjure any sort of emotional connection with them. Alone. That is what she was. Alone in the truest sense of the word. The realisation hit her like a cruel stab in her heart. The void, this void in her relationships, stunned her, and as she fidgeted with the handle of her bag, like a child lost in the woods, a lump formed in her throat. Hot tears gushed down her face. On that breezy Sunday evening, as the world went about its business, a lonely woman sat at the farthest bench, sobbing, far away and all alone. And no one in that park filled with joy and laughter saw or heard her.