(7 pm - sad news)
A soul departed.
And I could not be but incredulous that how so natural a quietus was to be met, when one would most deny it.

(8 pm)
An inch closer to reality.
Or else this Death, would've been as devoid of taste and essence as a heart that but stalks the fleeting pleasures of an unworthy world.

(9 pm)
I pitied him. And myself (rather selfishly).
He lost a mother.
Oh he lost a mother, and I have one to lose!

I wonder, with what subtlety have my heart and mind deceived my  sense of sympathy, because
I remember vaguely whether my tears were in realization of the misery of an ever-rejoicing friend,
Or in mere anticipation of what was written in heavens, for my mother.

I never really admired the man he (my friend) was.
And I never really appreciated his general lack of concern and the apparent absence of mindful demeanor.
But when I came to know the person he really was,
I cried that night.
And I cried that night talking of him with other friends.
He had found his breezy spring here, seven hours away from the silent autumn that was meant to strike his home.

And now I knew him,
Whose patient smile, kissing the perpetuity of bright harmonies,
Denied bowing down to the contours of a winter twilight.

Oh, now I knew him,
Whose eyes had shone like a thousand summer sun, even
When night's crawling terrors lay unhidden;
Despite the profundity of darkness that showed no mercy.

He lost a mother, oh he lost a mother.
And I have one to lose.

(12:30 am - 7:30 am - the travel)
A visit.
To the autumn, seven hours away.
In the middle of nowhere.
Where he had lost a mother,
While the white desert mourned
And the clouds hung low in melancholy.

There, ah, there in the ivory clouds I saw a cleft.
It must have been the door to heaven!
It must have been opened for his mother.
It must have been opened for her.

(8 am)
I met my friend.
He looked alive, not brilliantly though,
In submission to God's unquestionable will.
Had I looked deeper, I would have found vivacity stone-dead,
I would have found unfathomable grief,
And I would have found life,
Trying to hide from the terrors of its own self.

(2 pm - the funeral)

(Condolences)

(3:30 pm - Return)
The tough terrain that we traversed on our way here was smoother now,
And the mimosas had reappeared, and the desert seemed less dull.
I wonder why we forget too easily, the matters of "the bourn from where no traveler returns".
I wonder why we fall too easily for the winter even though we know what freezings it would bring.
But then it's only so human to forget.
So human to forget.