The morning was unsure of the season. The sun shone bright enough to evaporate the dew drops, but the light breeze blew cool air to ruffle up the leaves. Morning walkers paced down the road, carefully dodging the parked vehicles, stray dogs and other morning walkers. Some youngsters, very few of them woke up to walk early in the morning anyway, ran along choosing the blaring music on their ipods over the light twitter of early morning birds.
I observed this scene everyday. Some came regularly, some showed up one day and never again. But they all had their reasons.
Some strangers had become friends over the innumerable walks in the ‘walkers’ lane’. I loved following the gang of oldies that only increased each day. They had long stopped walking for exercise. Under the pretext of exercise, they came scavenging for a social life. Retired, lonely and bored at home, they found friends here. Each day, they scanned the newspapers, news channels to look for the topic of discussion for the next days’ ‘morning walk’.
They saw the world from their point of view, where the youngsters were rude, the politicians were corrupt and prices way too high… This sounds familiar, oh yes, I was visiting one of the neighbourhood homes, and there was some song playing that said something about Sunscreen. This gang had literally lived through some of those lyrics.
The totally opposite wonder of this gang was a young couple, who came dressed for the walk. Elaborate sport gear with tick marks all over, earphones plugged in and they walked to the rhythm of whatever it was that played on their iPods. Time to time they looked at each other and smiled.
They never spoke, they walked and they smiled. They never had the time to observe other walkers. They would be busy walking and smiling. They looked like a happy lot.
On the other hand, the lady with the jewellery never smiled. She walked alone, everyday for an hour. She, too saw the familiar faces. Unlike the couple, she observed them, but never did a smile escape her lips. If someone did smile, she would look away. In fact the over friendly woman, I’ll tell you more about her later, once made an attempt to befriend her and walk with her. But the lady cut her off and walked away.
The over-friendly woman walked everyday for more than an hour and a half. Her walking companions kept changing through the morning, but she had a jolly good time walking. You’d think she’d slow down to catch her breath, but some lungs she has. She walks and speaks at the same steady peace. She was always accompanied by an entourage of youngsters who seemed to enjoy her talks. They came to her with their agonies about love, career, money and many more. Being the older and the wiser one, she happily sorts things out for them. They love her company and make time to rise up for the morning walks.
Am I the only one getting bored with this whole routine? Like many other things, observing them all through the morning was very interesting in the beginning. But now, now I am bored. I know what I need to know, but I wonder what kind of a life they lead after their morning walks.
I am too weak to follow them along to their homes, many of them drive to the walkers’ road you see. But I want to know more. I know enough about the old men and women, they don’t excite me. The young couple who keeps smiling does. They drive to the walk everyday, I assume they live far away. She is pretty, she is slim, dusky complexion, expressive eyes. She is pretty. He is tall and well built, intense face, with eyes that rarely express. She is the one who drives when they come, but he drives away after the walk. They have struck a balance, or are they trying to strike a balance?
I wish I could follow their car. I wish I could get into their car, but not many people welcome stray dogs in their car…
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