Memoirs of a Red Rose

The occasional hiccup notwithstanding, things were beginning to look up, I had taken the car in the morning for a drive, the streets were empty and stark, it was cold but no fog and I stopped by at a 24x7 for a bite and a cup of coffee.  My mind had been running while I had been driving the car, thoughts were clear though and one particular item that joggled my memory was about mental independence.  As I was served coffee, I started to mix the sugar with it, the bright lights outside the cafe caught my attention, one particular street lamp on the street was glowing bright and there were light moths crowding around its facade.  What did the moth see in the lamp, did it see brightness in the endless darkness of the night and so crowded around it till the break of dawn.

I saw the street lamp was synonymous with a giant woman, she had a head that glowed bright and the moths wanted to get into the lamp, "open the lamp cover," they called out, for we seek the nectar of light that the lamp emanates and the lamp had it not been for the cover over the bulb would have been sucked into the vortex of desire.  

"Your breakfast sir," she said as she served me, the name tag on her shirt said Angel, and I immediately decided that she was one.

"Could I get some salt and pepper, they seem to be missing here."
"Yeah sure, you are up early ?"

"Couldn't sleep," I said taking her cue and striking a conversation.

"I do night duties around here and never get to sleep during the night any hows."

"But the job keeps me busy," she said smiling.

"Your personal life must be havoc, what with the night job, do you have a boyfriend," I asked her directly.

"Yeah, Shivir does night duty too, so its fine."

"Things around here in the night get lonely, so I work up the coffee machine and clean up the counters, I also try my hand at some mental arithmetic.  There is pleasure in numbers, I count and recount the money, do the accounts and that keeps me from falling asleep," Angel said with the same smile on her face, she was busy while she arranged my breakfast for me.

The thing about mental independence is that we all seek refuge from the thoughts that fly to our head and these are probably a result of exposure to the world, exposure that with it brings new thoughts and changes to our behaviour.  People who are mentally independent see the world with their own eyes and do not seek to challenge the authority of others who are on a different path.  Angel kept busy with numbers because that is the way she could maintain her balance during the idle time at work, a simple calculation would pep up her mind and she could relate the numbers in her memory to the times in college that she had simple calculations.  Memories of her friends came back to her and she would be transported into a different world.

More important than independence is a term called by many as interdependence, people depend on each other for tasks and activities in professional life and in personal life we depend on each other for emotional well being.  Interdependence has much deeper meaning and is often mistaken by people as being weak and open to outside influences, but it is this very fact that brings rejuvenation to the mind, food for soul is found is found in our love for others and our ability to build relationships during tough times.

"Was the breakfast good sir," Angel had a schedule to keep and she was back to clean the table.

"It was fantastic, this is the best breakfast I have had in days," I replied back.

"What about those flowers, do you get them fresh everyday," I was curious.

"They get delivered here."

"They look absolutely fresh and in the Sun they can look real nice, I have a thing for flowers, I like growing them and talking to them.  They bring out the best in life, I really like that Chrysanthemums you have got there," I said still talking.

"I like flowers in my hair, Shivir likes it too," she said coyly. People are a little hesitant about talking about their personal life to strangers and she opened up now.

"You planning to get married," I asked her.

"I hope to," she said.

"These days when I think of relationships I think about them as flowers, with pretty petals to look at and thorns to cut.  The most deadliest of all relations are the hard thorned rose, they have a combination of pleasure and pain."

She had started to listen raptly and I knew I would come to this place more often.

Never Give Up Hope and Keep Working Hard.