A seven-mile walk is not easy in the rain.

This is story was authored in a span of jus 5 minutes....

A seven-mile walk is not easy in the rain. I realized this the next morning. Head throbbing and spinning, throat dry, trying to emerge from the hang over last night.

All seemed blurred. Vision marred. Walking like a zombie down the road. Having no sense of direction, you go on and on the never-ending path to horizon.

Drinking all night alone in loneliness, I finally drag myself outside for a gasp of fresh breath. I lit a cigarette and walk on.

Life was filled with loneliness. Only companion I had was my solitude and my cigarettes. Friends for lifetime. Walking out at night, I roam down the road and see this beautiful and petite lady standing alone smoking a cigarette. She seemed to be just another mirror image of myself, one who is standing all alone and smoking in tranquility and serenity.

It starts raining and pouring. I have no senses. People are running around for shelter. But let them. Should I ? Why should I? Nothing else matters. I have my friend like always. My friend is there through all times. Suddenly I look and see that this friend is no more. The rain has attacked and preyed on my friend, washing and drowning away its existence.

I see the last cigarette in my chest pocket. The last of my companions. I search for a match stick but I seem to have none. Desperation is gradually engulfing me as I see my friend looking up to me in anticipation and begging me to bring him to life. My friend is asking me for my companionship and I can’t refuse him. I look back at him reassuringly and try to search for a light.

I approach the lady. She smiles. I smile. With a sense of urgency to counter the loneliness, a few greetings are exchanged in the rain. She holds my hand and looks back reassuringly just the way I looked at my cigarette and starts to walk. She starts leading me down the road as if she has all the answers to my uncertainty. At a deserted stretch of road, she comes close to me. My head is still spinning and vision blurred but acknowledging whatever is happening. She pulls me towards herself and locks me in an embrace. Her warm breath so near me. For an instance this moment doesn’t seem to end and I’m in this frenzied psychedelic void from which I can’t emerge.

From nowhere emerge the ghosts. The ghost is after me like always and is coming towards me. A group of four goons are approaching me from one side. They are running towards trying to pull me down. The cops are coming from the other side. I try to analyze but I can’t. All I can do is panic. And so I do. Lightening crackles and the sky is ablaze for an instance and for that instance the realizations dawns upon me. I realize the mess I am in. Being heavily drunk, standing with a prostitute near Times House in the vicinity of a graveyard and surrounded by goons and cops from both side, I realize its time to run. I try to run but I don’t seem to be having any place.

All my life I have been running and so again I start running. I run for my life like an animal. He bile and booze coming up my throat, but senseless, feet numb, throat dry and vision blurred. I look back and nothing. I look ahead and nothing. Darkness and rain still behind me.

Somewhere I fall and I have no sense afterwards.

Next thing I know is someone is waking me up. I see this rickshaw charlie waking me up. It is dawn. The sun is about to rise. I see myself fallen on a milestone on the highway. I stand up but my legs refuse. I fall down back into the slush. I take the support of this small milestone and get up finally. It read 7 miles. I realized I had run all night for 7 miles. For what? For nothing? No this can’t be.

I see my friend still looking up in anticipation. I take him out, give him the honor of my lips and my hand reaches down to the pocket and I feel something solid. I stop momentarily running my hands down the length of this solid object. What is this?

A lighter. A lighter in my pocket and still I ran for 7 miles.

Nah! A seven mile walk in the rain is not easy but trust me, its worth the it for the ecstasy and satisfaction you get from the cigarette after the last drink.

I smile and walk away thinking of the Johnny walker ad Keep Walking and laugh out loudly on myself. Finally like always I was Me, Myself And My Milds.