LIFE IS A SHIPWRECK BUT ONE MUST NOT FORGET TO SING IN THE LIFEBOATS

LIFE IS A SHIPWRECK BUT ONE MUST NOT FORGET TO SING IN THE LIFEBOATS

By: Injila Bilal

Joey was a young boy, a smart, pretty, curious young boy. People used to amuse him. ‘Humans are the smartest creatures on Earth’, his grade one science teacher told him everyday, but he failed to understand how these very people could be so unpredictable and dangerous at times. That is exactly why Joey didn’t want to be like people. Joey wanted to be like Mo. Joey loved Mo.

All the day, Joey would hear people complaining, about the weather being too dry, their coffee being served too cold, getting a B instead of an A, red being better than blue. He often heard people saying that they wanted to die because fate wasn’t treating them really well, Joey didn’t know what dying meant, but he knew it was something sad.

Everyone around him talked about being happy, but no one seemed to know what happy was. Dad said it was about being big, Aunt Martha had a big house, she wasn’t happy, Dad’s friend had lots of big cars, he wasn’t happy, Uncle Tom had big bags of money, he wasn’t happy, Cousin Arthur was working at a pizza company, hard to believe but he didn’t look very happy, Uncle John had a big tummy, he didn’t seem very happy either. On the other hand Mo? Mo was joyful, you would see him jumping around the muddy puddles while everyone cursed the rain, someone would give him two pieces of bread and he would grin like the world was his, he would greet every passersby with a smile, he would play with broken toys, he would try to make new friends every day, he didn’t mind not having a comfy bed either. Mo was a happy person; he was the happiest person you’d ever meet.

Joey’s mom, however, didn’t like Mo. She told him not to play around him because he was ‘a dirty street boy’, but Joey would sneak out and visit Mo in the afternoon everyday, he would even take some candies for him. Soon they became friends, they would talk and play for endless hours before Joey’s parents got back home, and each morning Mo would wave to his friend, his eyes following his school bus till it turned around the corner of the street. Years passed by, while Joey and Mo spent endless hours together, talking to each other, sharing stories, running around giggling at their silly talks. They would pick up special stones across the street, plant a few watermelon seeds, wave to all the cars passing by and create memories of their own. Sometimes, Mo would teach his friend, a letter or two in the sand, a new nursery rhyme to sing to, and oh boy, Mo would enjoy it to his best. They seemed to be inseparable, but a time came when Joey had made new friends at school. He would talk about them often to Mo, talk about how awesome they are and what cool stuff they have. He started going out with them a lot, played with them a lot, a lot to the extent that he now had less time for Mo. Afternoons turned into hours, which turned into about fifteen minutes. But Mo would always wait for those fifteen minutes, he would love to meet his best friend and hear about him each day. Soon enough, as expected, Joey stopped caring. He told Mo that he didn’t have time for his games as he had ‘cooler’ stuff to do. He became so busy that he didn’t notice how sick Mo was getting each day. He would hurriedly spend those fifteen minutes talking about how he, like his other friends, wanted to be big. He wanted people to talk about him and he wanted to be the best. Mo told him that he was already the best in his eyes, but Joey waved him away saying that he talked nonsense.

One day, Joey had a fight with a friend of his at school over a test. The friend blamed him for cheating just because he scored a higher grade than him. That afternoon, Joey talked to Mo for an hour, he noticed that he was getting weak; his hair was thinning and he had dark circles under his eyes. When he asked him what was wrong, he said it was nothing and offered to talk about something else instead. When Joey asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, Mo said he wanted to be happy, and that being happy was to see other people smile. Having a father would also make him happy but mother said that it wasn’t possible. He also said that life was too short to worry about big things; he said that happiness lay within the smallest of moments. Joey thought that his idea was very stupid but never said so aloud. As time passed, Joey became busier and would hardly visit Mo, but Mo would always leave a note near his window, a small candy or just wave him goodbye in the morning. He would respond to it sometimes, and sometimes pretend like he never noticed. But it’s not because he wanted to, Joey really didn’t have time, he didn’t have to sit and have dinner with his parents, he didn’t have time to have to laugh around with his friends, he hardly had time for himself. Mo would try his best to keep up with his old friend, take some soup during the winters to share out of the small broken bowl, ask him to read a torn book he found in the dustbin that morning, show him a new pebble he found on the street, or just listen about Joey’s day, but somehow he would always make an excuse and get away.

Then one day, Mo’s mother tapped on his window, she said that Mo was calling for him. He hurried to the small cottage across the street only to find his old friend on bed. He looked really sick, as thin as a stick, hardly any hair left on his head. He couldn’t speak due to the constant fits of cough. He just asked Joey to sit next to him and hold his hand. It was a tough decision for Joey. He had to go to a party, a birthday party of his rich friend at a posh hotel, with grand lighting and glamorous decorations. He gave Mo fifty bucks and told him that he had to leave urgent. Mo’s eye filled with tears as he threw the note back at his old friend and asked him if he could just stay. Joey just sat for five minutes and then left, he had different priorities.

All during the party, Joey thought that he hadn’t been a good friend, he kept thinking about Mo and the times they had spent when they were young. He thought about how happy he felt around him, all the times they never got bored of talking, the times they wouldn’t get tired playing. He realized he had been wrong and left the party early, hurrying towards Mo’s small place only to find his bed empty. He wasn’t there. Joey looked really hard and shouted his name a couple of times too, but it only led to disappointment. He waited right there for a couple of hours, his face buried in his hands, until he heard Mo’s mother entering the room, sobbing. He knew what was coming next but he was not ready to hear it. He could not believe the look on her face as she told him that Mo had died, died because of a monster called cancer. Joey was disheartened and devastated by this news; he shut himself up in his room and cried all night. He went through all his unread notes he had and cried even more. He now knew why dying was such a sad word. He hoped that he had spent more time with his friend, but life had to take him away too soon. He regretted every second he spent at the party while all the time he should have been there next to his friend. Nonetheless, Mo was a sweetheart and everyone in the neighborhood knew him for that. People pretended to be sad as they got to know about Mo but Joey would visit his grave everyday and leave a few candies for him, candies which no one ever ate. But a few days passed and people forgot. They forgot about Mo, they forgot about Joey’s best friend. They forgot because they were too busy being big. They forgot because Mo was just another homeless street child who had no good for the world. But Joey will always remember that Mo was the happiest person he had ever met. And he promised himself that he would grow up to be like him.

                                                                                          ………..

Life. It might be a simple word for us, but it is unexplainable how these mere four letters can sum up the entirety of a world of emotions. All of us, including me sadly, talk about being big. For us, life is all about setting up records, getting a heavy paycheck and enjoying all the luxuries that life has to offer. But is that enough? Well, it is quite obvious how man is and will always be completely unsatisfied. One way or another there is something that will be bothering us, something that we would want to change. That is because there is no as such fixed definition of being ‘in a state of happiness’. It is all the little things that make us smile, which give us a reason to live.

Of course, we all have our issues, times when the world may not seem right, times when we want to run away from everyone; there are things you wish you’d never done, secrets you wish you’d never heard, truth you wish you’d never seen, but with every reality, you grow. You are here for a reason, every step you take, every word you speak and everything you do has a meaning. Yes, you are going to mess up, it’s a universal fact, but then you get to clean up that mess too. You can either cry about it and curse your life or turn that very moment into an opportunity. We should remember that in life, there are small moments that make it worth living. Learn to cherish them, celebrate them. A mother would give a lot to relive the first steps of her child, an orphan would do a lot to see his parents’ faces, a homeless man would do a lot to sleep on soft ground, a person would give a lot to see the people around him smile and Joey would do anything just to spend those last minutes with his dying friend.

Come to think of it, we all have a life. But how many of us are actually living it? It is wisely said that expectations lead to disappointments, I mean exactly how much better could it get? We all die in the end. But make sure that when you look back at your life from above, look back at the time you’ve spent, the people around you, the steps you’ve taken; you can smile  and pat yourself on the back and say ‘good job buddy!’. Voltaire very truly said, ‘Life is a shipwreck, but we must remember to sing in the lifeboats’. This means that no matter how hard it gets, we have it our way, we celebrate in a way that life envies us.

We must take chances while we can, all life is, is a chance! Dream, dance, sing, play, enjoy. Live a little, talk a long walk along the beach, find shapes among the constellations, smile, dance with your friends, listen to your grandparents tell you stories from their past, smile again, give your parents a goodnight kiss, tell your best friend you love them, act like a retard around your loved ones, spend time with the people who care about you, smile a bit more, cuddle your blanket, let the wind mess up your hair, play with all the pets you see, fool around a little, kick some leaves, play hide and seek, smile some more, and have chocolates. Have lots of chocolates.