So many minute events take place in a single day that we tend to disregard them and quickly forget them all. In each conversation so many words are blurred and turned into meaningless rumbling that serves as a background to a gist deriving more often than not from our perception of the world and the person with whom we have been talking. So many things happen everyday which were neither anticipated, nor dreaded that they fail to capture our attention. A stranger's smile. A boy's ogling stare (ooh! Don't pretend as though you don't enjoy it!). A mother's elated respond to her child's call. A fatherly advice. A gesture of affection. They all are swept in the subdued whirlpool of our expectations, daydreams and indomitable focus on the "important" goals. They are sacrificed in the name of the brighter future. We cease to be touched by children's laughter and tears of a heartbroken lover - they are all clichés. Love is blind belief. Children are a means of survival. What a coarse heart can utter or even give birth to such lethal thoughts? Only escapism exists.

I have been a denizen of that place for a couple of weeks, wandering between the realms of possibilities and plausible outcomes of the following year. Medicine, biochemistry, careers, impediments, life choices brewed my mind. I was blind to all the jubilee and mirth around me because I was alone, confined in my world of qualms and distress. I had plugged in my headphones, finding despair in every song even where there isn't any, and staring at my feet, I walked through life, ostracising everything and everybody. I was a poignant, poignant creature (and I'll again become one in time), torn up between its own beliefs and principles. I don't know how many events have occurred during my blackout. I don't know how many sacrifices of joy and sanguineness the universe has had to put up with because of my unfounded misery but it took two little girls to make me see the rainbow again.

I'd seen them playing in front of my block of flats a couple of times - the first one being when I was wearing high heels and going on a gala dinner in Sheraton Hotel. I had never actually spoken with them but as I love kids I would smile every time our eyes meet, or they fall while roller skating. Today I went out to help my mum carry the grocery upstairs. As I stepped out of the front door, I saw them racing up and down the street in their skates and trying to stop before they hit a lamp post. I gave them a grin as usual and laughed out loud when they were about to collide and were screaming at the top of their lungs. They beamed back and started skating after me, trying to come to an assent on how to strike up a conversation with me. I was as happy as a clam when one of the girls called after me: "Can I give you a hug?", and I replied: "Of course, cuttie!". Then we had a bit of a talk and I headed upstairs cause the bags were threatening to pull off my arms.
It's funny how among all these scarcely vital affairs that fill our days, a few turn out to be at the right place at the right time - not so insignificant after all. Some are thrilling and morose - calling us back to Mother Earth. Others are invigorating - gilding us with pixie dust and making us light enough to fly once again. They wake up the vague memory of Peter Pan and the endless play of make-believe night and day. They remind us that the secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes but in liking what one does, so we have to learn once again to perceive everything as an adventure and bask in its sudden twists and abrupt hurdles for not only dying, but living as well could be an awfully big adventure, and we couldn't miss out on it. I've been trying to delineate and plan everything exquisitely carefully, banning any chance of something going astray but where is the fun of that. Where is the surprise of the beautiful result? Where is the happiness of the imponderable success? Where is the adventure? Peter Pan blurts out the first thing that pops into his mind. He always acts impromptu. He is always in for a game, or a challenge. He may be cocky, flamboyant and appallingly full of himself (as every boy ever born, lost or not) but he is an encapsulation of all the good traits we let go of as we grow up and as we are thrust into the torrents and tumults of the hustle and bustle. And that's why Hook despises him so much cause he sees all he no longer can have; all that is lost to the grown-ups.

I am about to lose these virtues. My age and my situation are precarious. I'd better watch out! And these two girls reminded me that I have a lot to look forward to except papers and exams. I have a library full of eager learners their age who esteem me and love me! I can be happy doing what I have to do!