The music starts to play again,
this time for the crowd to step onto the floor.
I step aside, to make way for the ones
who don't carry four pens, two pencils, three types of rulers and pro-circles to a mock test.
The ones who don't quicken their pace while walking by a mirror,
the ones who don't wear a full coverage track pant for a sprint...
Soon I find myself glaring at a slide-show;
the memories of the passing out class of the year, all lined up.
I use zero to count the number of pictures I was in.
Well, that wasn't a surprise.
I pace around an emotional void, at the sight of sobbing teenagers.
None cry for me and I cry for none.
I guess a person with no evidence of their existence could use a breath of fresh air.
I stride outwards with the mania of feeling things;
my hair flows with the breeze in fits and starts,
only until Google Photos decides to take me seriously.
I land upon a picture of a little girl in an oversized faded blue uniform.
The girl who carried four pens, two pencils, three types of rulers and pro-circles to a mock test.
The girl who tried, and tried again to fit in,
but they stared at her.
Perhaps the same way natural numbers stare at zero.
I reduce to tears,
for the girl I lost somewhere between the loud giggles targeted right at her and lack of claps after her arrival.
I try to bring her back, if only for a little while,
even though a pale emulation of the true conscience.
We laugh, and cry and feast upon a series of flashbacks as the winds start to play along.
I feel her in my veins, filling up the emptiness with a sense of belonging.
I make my way through the bumpy road we willingly chose; not daring to give up on the dreams we fantasized together in our neck of the woods.
My hair flows with the breeze in fits and starts.
Oh mighty winds, while you are travelling the hemispheres, accompanying the clouds,
assisting the leaves and clapping the rocks till they become tender,
grant me a tiny little favour.
If you ever encounter the girl in the picture,
all grown up,
staring into emptiness with strong cups of coffee and dim lights,
flow through her hair in fits and starts, and tell her that I believe in her.