21
Winter evenings arrive quietly.
They do not announce themselves with
thunder or dramatic clouds. They simply begin stealing light from the roads,
from the rooftops, from the faces of strangers sitting inside buses. One moment
the world is visible in sharp detail, and the next moment it starts dissolving
into silhouettes and fading colours.
That evening, I was traveling in an
old state transport bus moving toward the northern side of the region. The
winter sun had already begun descending slowly behind fields wrapped in pale
fog. The glass window beside me carried a thin layer of dust and fingerprints
left by hundreds of forgotten passengers. Outside, mustard fields stretched
into the distance like pieces of yellow cloth spread under the sky. Smoke rose
lazily from village houses where people had already begun preparing tea and
dinner.
Inside the bus, life continued in
its ordinary rhythm.
A schoolboy in a blue sweater was
trying to finish his homework while balancing a notebook on his knees. Two
labourers discussed daily wages in tired voices. A middle-aged man repeatedly
checked his watch as if staring at time could somehow slow it down. Near the
front seat, an old woman kept counting prayer beads silently.
The conductor moved through the aisle
with the same expression I had seen on countless conductors before…neither
happy nor sad, simply surrendered to routine.
Winter journeys have a strange
silence hidden beneath their noise. Even
conversations sound softer in winter.
The engine growls. Passengers cough.
Someone unwraps peanuts. Coins fall. Mobile phones ring. Yet beneath all this,
there exists an invisible silence sitting beside everyone. Perhaps cold weather forces people inward. Or perhaps evenings remind human beings of
unfinished things.
The bus crossed a narrow bridge over
a canal. I looked outside at the water reflecting the orange sky. The sun was
no longer bright. It had become tired — like an old storyteller slowly lowering
his voice before the final lines. And
then something strange happened.
As darkness outside slowly
increased, the glass window stopped behaving like a window.
It became a mirror.
At first, I only noticed my forehead
faintly appearing on the glass. Then gradually my entire reflection emerged…my
eyes, my grey hair, my winter jacket, my tired face.
But the reflection was incomplete.
Behind my reflected face, the
outside world still continued moving. Trees
passed through my cheeks. Electric poles
crossed my forehead. Villages drifted
through my eyes.
For a few seconds, I could see both
worlds together…myself and the journey outside.
And suddenly I felt something difficult to explain.
Maybe every traveler eventually
reaches a moment where the road outside and the road inside begin meeting each
other.
I kept staring at the glass.
The strange thing about reflections
is that they never lie completely, yet they never reveal everything either.
Mirrors show faces. Journeys show truths.
The bus moved ahead through fading
daylight. A flock of birds crossed the orange sky in a hurried formation as if
even they feared being late for home.
Home.
What a mysterious word. Some people spend their whole lives trying to
return to a place. Others spend their
whole lives trying to escape one.
As I watched my reflection, I
realized how many different versions of myself had traveled through bus windows
over the years.
The young soldier traveling toward
duty with excitement hidden behind discipline.
The middle-aged university employee carrying files, responsibilities,
and silent exhaustion. The writer
searching for stories among ordinary passengers. And now this older traveler, sitting quietly
beside a winter window, watching his own reflection dissolve into sunset.
Time changes people so gradually
that they rarely notice it happening. But
reflections notice.
A child sitting across the aisle
suddenly looked toward me and smiled for no reason. I smiled back. Children
often smile at strangers because they have not yet learned suspicion. Adults first lose innocence. Then they lose spontaneity. Then slowly they lose wonder.
Perhaps growing up is simply the
slow replacement of wonder with worry.
The bus stopped briefly near a
roadside vendor selling roasted corn. Smoke drifted into the cold evening air.
Some passengers stepped down quickly to buy tea. Others remained seated,
wrapped tightly in shawls and thoughts.
I stayed near the window.
The sunset had deepened into darker
shades now. Orange had become copper. Copper had become ash. My reflection on the glass became clearer. Outside world weaker. Inside world stronger.
Maybe this is exactly what aging
feels like. When we are young, the outer
world appears sharp and important…ambitions, competitions, destinations,
recognition. But with time, the inner
world slowly grows louder. Regrets
speak. Memories return. Forgotten questions wake up. And one evening, while traveling beside a
dusty bus window, a man suddenly realizes he has spent years observing the
world without fully observing himself.
The bus started moving again.
An old song from the driver's cabin
floated faintly toward the passengers. It was one of those melodies that sound
more beautiful during winter evenings because sadness and cold weather have
always understood each other.
I watched electric wires cutting
across the darkening sky.
Human beings are strange creatures. We build roads everywhere but still struggle
to reach each other emotionally. We
construct houses but search endlessly for belonging. We spend youth chasing tomorrow, then spend
old age visiting yesterday.
Outside, farmers were returning home
on motorcycles wrapped in shawls against the cold wind. Small fires had begun
appearing near roadside shops. Dogs curled beside them for warmth.
Winter villages carry a kind of
honesty cities often lose. Nothing
pretends there. Smoke looks like smoke. Fatigue
looks like fatigue. Loneliness looks
like loneliness.
In cities, people hide emptiness
behind noise.
The boy with homework had now fallen
asleep over his notebook. His pencil remained trapped between pages. The old
woman with prayer beads continued whispering silently to herself. The labourers
stopped talking and stared blankly ahead.
Every passenger seemed lost
somewhere beyond the bus.
That is the strange thing about
public transport. Bodies travel
together. Minds travel separately.
I looked again at my reflection.
For a brief second, I remembered
another journey many years ago during my Army days. I had been sitting near a
similar window, younger and stronger, believing life could be controlled
through discipline and planning. At that
age, I thought destinations mattered most.
Now I know journeys matter more.
Destinations end stories. Journeys create them.
The bus entered a small town glowing
with evening lights. Shops displayed sweaters, tea kettles, and cheap winter
caps. Loudspeakers from a nearby marriage palace echoed faintly through the
streets. Somewhere, someone was beginning a new chapter of life while somewhere
else another person was silently ending one.
The world always moves in opposite
emotions simultaneously. One man laughs. Another mourns. One child is born. Another old man closes his eyes forever. Perhaps balance is hidden inside this
contradiction.
The window glass trembled slightly
as the bus crossed uneven roads. My reflection broke into fragments for a
moment and then rejoined itself again.
Human identity is similar. Life keeps breaking people into pieces. Responsibilities. Failures.
Losses. Time. Yet
somehow they continue gathering themselves again each morning.
An unsaid truth drifted through my
mind:
"Some people survive not
because they are strong, but because life leaves them no other choice."
Darkness thickened outside. Now the
window had almost fully transformed into a mirror. Only distant lights remained
visible beyond my reflection.
Suddenly I noticed my eyes. Tired, certainly. Older, yes.
But strangely peaceful. Not
because life had become easy. But
because acceptance slowly replaces resistance after a certain age.
Youth wants to conquer life. Age simply wants to understand it.
The conductor came near and asked
softly where I would get down. I told him the name of my stop. He nodded
absentmindedly and moved ahead.
How many thousands of faces must he
have seen over the years? Perhaps bus
conductors understand human impermanence better than philosophers do. Passengers enter. Passengers leave. Seats never remain empty for long.
Life itself resembles a moving bus
more than people realize.
No one stays forever. No one controls the route completely. And everyone carries invisible luggage.
The old song near the driver's seat
ended. For a few moments only the engine sound remained.
I leaned slightly closer to the
glass. My reflection looked back at me
calmly while the outside world continued sliding behind it. And then the central thought of the journey
finally revealed itself quietly inside me -
Maybe every journey is divided into
two travels. One through roads. One through the self. Most people notice only the first one. That is why they return from places without
truly returning changed.
Real journeys are not measured by
kilometres. They are measured by what
they awaken inside us. A man may travel
across countries and remain unchanged. Another
may sit silently beside a winter bus window for one evening and discover truths
he had ignored for years.
The bus finally left the town behind
and entered a darker highway. Only headlights now pierced the fog ahead. The
passengers had grown quieter than before. Even mobile phones had stopped
ringing.
Night was slowly taking ownership of
the road.
I rubbed the cold glass lightly with
my hand. My reflection blurred for a moment.
Perhaps this too was symbolic. No
human being ever sees himself completely clearly.
We understand ourselves in fragments…through
mistakes, through memories, through loneliness, through love, through loss. And maybe that incompleteness is necessary.
Perfect self-knowledge might destroy
mystery. And mystery is what keeps human
beings emotionally alive.
A final unsaid line settled softly
within me as the bus moved deeper into winter darkness:
"Sometimes the longest meeting
of life happens silently between a man and his own reflection."
Outside, the last colour of sunset
disappeared.
Inside the window glass, only my
reflection remained.
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