I saw my consciousness coming to me, at a random temporal juncture, as is often common when the mind tries to conjure up vivid dreams attempting to revisit the past during phases of paradoxical sleep. I remember walking on a path, a narrow little mud trail, flanked by thick grass of differing varieties, some harmless, other characterising a stinging appearance, on the ground, and thick foliage of bushes higher up, bushes indistinguishable to my untrained eyes probably due to my involuntary connate sense of botanical indifference, blending into the needle like leaves of the coniferous giants that arched over the trail, towering as high up as the eye could see, the sunlight piercing through the thick interspersed cover in places. This made for treacherous progress, avoiding the sting of the grass that covered the path in entirety at times against the bare unprotected skin. The horizon gave away very little, obscured by the said foliage, rendering no clarity as to where the path led, or why the subject was on the path.
There was an intuitive realisation that this path was on a precipice, an instinctive deduction backed by no cues, visual or otherwise, but then dreams tend to have dramatic dispositions. This realisation of the trail potentially being on the periphery of a precipice or a similar cliff like formation caused a prohibitory cautious reflex, making each step through the foliage palpably tense, for there was no guarantee of solid ground for the next step to conclude its movement. There was a peculiarity in this whole sequence, there were no sounds that broke through the eerie silence, no familiarity of the chirps of birds perched up high in the branches, or the sounds that the insects emanate that fill up the void in the silence of the jungles. Thus progress was strained, and tiring, more mentally than physically. As I continued, the path opened up at times, affording more to the eyes, the foliage thinning considerably in places. These were oasis of relative comfort, and sure footing, for oasis are not only characteristic of the desert, but symbolise subjective respite to the harshness of any terrain. Here, in these oasis, there were signs of other paths intersecting with mine cutting across at random angles, some worn, others newly tread on, and some newly paved ready to be traveled on much like my own path that was yet to be traveled on.
There was uniformity in the paths, in that they all moved towards to future, in the same direction, evident from the visible wear of the treads.
This sparked a curiosity and a perplexity, could there be more like me, other travellers? Were these paths of fiends or friends, of beasts or men or Gods? And the paths did intersect, but would also the journeys, or what was the protocol of such chance encounters? And during this reflection, the sanctity of my own path also waned slightly. Was choosing an easier looking path an option, a path that seemed to pass through easy terrain a clearer horizon, or was that a vain conjecture, an incomplete hypotheses, and in reality the easy looking path was actually a mirage of greener pastures, and a realisation of harsher actualities? And in corollary, the harsher looking paths easing onto serene trails just beyond the bend in the undergrowth? Or was sticking to one’s own path the best course of action?
As I continued on my own path still shrouded in contemplative uncertainty, assessing the intersecting paths and comparing them against my own, a few paths angled softly after cutting across my own, in time parallelising with my path, in view across a strew of thicket, dense in places, far away for physical proximity, and yet close enough to alleviate the sense of lone travel. And in time on these parallel paths, I could see reflections and shadows, much like my own, at times distinctly visible, a solid structure materialising. Some paths ran parallel and hence the co-travellers, as they now seemed, for only a few yards before diverging away at a tangent away from sight, seemingly on the outskirts of the oasis. Others stayed for longer, even after bouts of thick intersections of uncertain footing. There was a palpable amicability in travel with these longer co-travellers, and a yearning for the convergence of our individual paths, as is characteristic of long association - the hope of facing uncertainty and the future together.
And yet in time it was clear that the paths could only diverge, or run parallel, and there was no real evidence of convergence of paths on the ground, they could only intersect at angles that negated the possibility of merging with others.
And this profound recognition of individuality cleared the blanket of uncertainty in the mind, for there was only a single path to be traveled, your own, the one not yet treaded on, for you to explore, and not to be stepped on by another. The sharp stridulous rasp of the alarm unceremoniously pushed me back into the realm of reality , and I wondered how random and seemingly incomprehensible the dream was, but then me, I and myself like to entertain ourselves with life in the meta.
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