The Crossroads

The Crossroads

We are at a crossroads, and everyone has to choose their own path. I've heard this so many times. It is a bit of a cliché. Every time I heard this, I used to understand what the person saying or writing that was thinking, but I always felt it was a sort of a very operational metaphor - something that was used to get a feeling across.

And then I reached the crossroads.

It's so funny, because you rarely ever reach the cross roads by yourself. You get there not with the people who you thought you couldn't stand to lose, but those whom you had never even thought would have to leave. We had taken them for granted for so long, that they were buried deep down with us. That's why it hurts more when they are pulled out.

You don't understand until it happens. Until one day, you are sitting by yourself and suddenly understand that the one you want to share this particular moment with (usually something so small, a song you hear, or something moderately funny you see) the one who would so have understood this particular reference, the one who would have been the only one who understood this joke, is not here anymore.

Its not like they have gone away from your life, its just that you aren't on the same road anymore. Its the difference between hanging out and hanging out after having planned it. It's when you have decided to hang out - you realise you'll have to plan your moments of fun for the rest of your life.

The worst cases are when they are in the same room as you, living in the same house, maybe. But its not the same. It is not the same as it once had bee

It's not the same because you had reached a crossroad. 

And you chose different roads.

The Tomcat

The Tomcat

I have owned a number of cats since my childhood (secretly and otherwise) and have cared for them for the entire time they chose to live with me. Some lived in my house, some stopped by from time to time to say hi, or for a scrap of food (usually the latter).

Throughout the years, there was this Tomcat - ugly little sucker. Fat, dirty, flat face, scars... And the yellowest eyes I've seen on a cat.
He was bad tempered and untrusting. I remember I tried to be kind to him, gave him food. He didn't touch it, and spat at me when I went close.

I would have let him be, but he would constantly attack my cats. Every one of them was terrified by this gunda of a tomcat. I even blame him for the death of one of our house cats, though I could never prove it.

Today, after all these years, I saw him sitting by our door when I came home. We looked at each other, but something was different.

He didn't run off when I approached him. He didn't move when I sat next to him and clicked a picture. I saw he was shivering slightly.

He had grown old and weak, I realised. He might even be sick. I felt sorry for him and laid some cake down for him. He approached it warily : finally accepting a human's help must have been shameful for he who had always hunted house cats.

As I watched him eat, I tried to pat him, but he was on his guard - he wasn't used to someone being kind to him.

He accepted my patting. Later, he slowly stretched, and walked away.

I don't know why I felt sad. I must have cursed him a thousand times, shooed him away, even thrown a stone at him to keep my cats safe.

It's how we feel after watching a villain die. We hated him, but we had had a history.

I don't know if I will see him alive again. In J.K. Rowling's words : what do you say to each other after a lifetime of hatred?