8 views
The book keeper's odyssey
I’ve kept rewriting my own eulogy since 1756.
It always started off as a punishing politeness. No accolades, just unfulfilled potential. For a man whose only companion is time, it had only bequeath me with apathy and shrewd curiosity for death. But alas, no grave markers bear my name nor history books tell my tales. I am barely a whisper in the cacophony of life. And yet, I am the unassuming witness to its many intricacies.
Do memories play faulty as sand castles dissolve and go back to the sea? Or does it become more accurate in colour for recurring dreams?
Sunsets are more reliable and constant. They persuade you to sigh the remnants of another day ending as it opens up again by the morn. No humanistic tendencies, just nature skinning itself anew. No matter the date or angle of the watch’s hand that ticks, I blink and everything ends but..
(sigh)
Oh, to remember.
“Would you like another refill, love?”
I politely nod as another filmstrip comes to a halt in my mind. As I ensconced myself in the hallowed confines of this coffeehouse, which used to be just a patch of dirt I used to walk on, I am pulled to observe the peculiar harmony of patrons ensnared to the siren call of their devices, the staccato of hurried keystrokes along with the syncopated rhythm of their murmuring conversations awaiting impatiently for another cup, another excuse, another day.
A barista delicately adorn intricate patterns upon the canvas of lattes, a peculiar artistry that baffled and marooned me into the novelty of this era. I take a sip upon my porcelain cup, its liquid warmth seemed to mock me of distant recollection of silver chalices and porcelain cups. Many faces in my memories would have laughed at my now penchant for caffeine instead of the strong tea that I once favoured. I looked on by absent-mindedly by the tall windows overlooking the city. Towering monoliths of steel and glass piercing the heavens with their cold indifferent glare of artificial stars. A thriving organism of ceaseless movement and of excess.
And as the wheels of years continued to roll on, a dirge echoing through the corridors of my perpetual solitude, I look at the metamorphormic industrial carnage disguised as innovation around me. Gone were the cobblestone streets, turned into steel lacquered crowded metropolis. The once gas lamps that illuminated my many walks, replaced by the harsh metal centipedes of traffic, dust and electric lights. Through every century that had passed, its acrid scent of apathy and progress lingered upon the clothes I hid in. Time truly is a relentless tormentor, both callous and indifferent.
But all that remains in the sand were once footprints I paved, and all I harbour to the next are just knowledge and memories. On some nights, both coalesce in harmony and in others, it allowed grief to grow when despair seems to tarnish anything hopeful.
It always started off as a punishing politeness. No accolades, just unfulfilled potential. For a man whose only companion is time, it had only bequeath me with apathy and shrewd curiosity for death. But alas, no grave markers bear my name nor history books tell my tales. I am barely a whisper in the cacophony of life. And yet, I am the unassuming witness to its many intricacies.
Do memories play faulty as sand castles dissolve and go back to the sea? Or does it become more accurate in colour for recurring dreams?
Sunsets are more reliable and constant. They persuade you to sigh the remnants of another day ending as it opens up again by the morn. No humanistic tendencies, just nature skinning itself anew. No matter the date or angle of the watch’s hand that ticks, I blink and everything ends but..
(sigh)
Oh, to remember.
“Would you like another refill, love?”
I politely nod as another filmstrip comes to a halt in my mind. As I ensconced myself in the hallowed confines of this coffeehouse, which used to be just a patch of dirt I used to walk on, I am pulled to observe the peculiar harmony of patrons ensnared to the siren call of their devices, the staccato of hurried keystrokes along with the syncopated rhythm of their murmuring conversations awaiting impatiently for another cup, another excuse, another day.
A barista delicately adorn intricate patterns upon the canvas of lattes, a peculiar artistry that baffled and marooned me into the novelty of this era. I take a sip upon my porcelain cup, its liquid warmth seemed to mock me of distant recollection of silver chalices and porcelain cups. Many faces in my memories would have laughed at my now penchant for caffeine instead of the strong tea that I once favoured. I looked on by absent-mindedly by the tall windows overlooking the city. Towering monoliths of steel and glass piercing the heavens with their cold indifferent glare of artificial stars. A thriving organism of ceaseless movement and of excess.
And as the wheels of years continued to roll on, a dirge echoing through the corridors of my perpetual solitude, I look at the metamorphormic industrial carnage disguised as innovation around me. Gone were the cobblestone streets, turned into steel lacquered crowded metropolis. The once gas lamps that illuminated my many walks, replaced by the harsh metal centipedes of traffic, dust and electric lights. Through every century that had passed, its acrid scent of apathy and progress lingered upon the clothes I hid in. Time truly is a relentless tormentor, both callous and indifferent.
But all that remains in the sand were once footprints I paved, and all I harbour to the next are just knowledge and memories. On some nights, both coalesce in harmony and in others, it allowed grief to grow when despair seems to tarnish anything hopeful.
Related Stories
