The Cosmic Trio

All around, spring was in full bloom but nothing would ever happen in Myra’s life. She used to work at Cocquiro’s, a Mexican boutique restaurant that many would vied to work. The following year Myra was to get promoted to be the manager and the year after she planned to start her own business. That’s when her life would truly begin. That’s what she would think to herself and dream about becoming a Sous chef 🧑‍🍳 one day. But fate had written a different story for her. Of lately she started noticing a strange phenomena. She would drop things unexpectedly here and there. Upon retrieving things from the floor—coincidentally, her eyes would meet a particular customer sitting at the table nearby. This happened one two many times. Is it an entropy? thought Myra, momentarily. But somehow, the day’s work would get Myra very busy and she totally brushed aside all those fleeting thoughts.

At the restaurant, Myra often met this customer who visited the place every fortnight. And strangely she always ended up dropping things in his presence.

Days were slowly passing into months and Myra found herself moving day after day with her routine.

Weekends at the restaurant were jam-packed and for quite a while she didn’t recollect when she had last seen that “special customer.” Right next to the restaurant window spring was in full bloom and nothing called for more “doorsy feel ,” than that particular weather.

As solmenity in the Nature bespoke there was something strange emerging in the air. Myra felt compelled to step outdoors.

There were dreamy flutter flies taking their winged flight through the mid-air. They were playing peekaboos so mysteriously out there.

In those moments, a silence crept in and Myra found herself slipping outdoors to take a momentary pause.

Everyday, Myra had a strict routine; a schedule to adhere and abide by at the restaurant. She would unlock the restaurant door, clean and collect the trash, water the plants and have a quick round up meeting with her colleagues to discuss about the day’s proceedings.

Sometime she would assist with the garden center and do the much needed work out there. But today was different.

Myra thought that she wouldn’t be able to handle all work by herself. All her life she had been passionate about her work —dependable as her seniors would say. She was planning on continuing to work diligently and progress towards betterment but life had its own way of challenging her. Her way of living and doing was about to abruptly change.

That morning Myra found herself struggling to finish her everyday tasks.

All of the day she found herself sparingly hiding, suddenly moving as though in vain with nothingness of no-show cares.

“O! Why so, O! Why am I feeling so, “ those were the words boomeranging Myra’s brain . There were dreamy flutter flies 🦋 in the garden and yet, her soul was drifting away elsewhere. A melancholy was casting in the middle of nowhere.

Appearing herein were accents —a garden chair, fresh flowers studding the ground with birds chirping in the vicinity. Surroundings were quiet and a gentle breeze was skimping— equally sharing its mild aroma through the air.

Yet pluming unseen o'er the edgy banks of the lake nearby was a mysterious person taking a look deep into the surroundings. At first Myra didn’t notice his presence and continued with her everyday operations. But then she watched the person suddenly collapse. The man fell to the ground with a loud thudded sound. That pretty much caught her attention and she immediately moved towards the man to rescue him. As a matter of due care and quick response she called out for an ambulance immediately as she headed towards the man.

In fractions she got closer to the man lying limpless on the ground and then realized that he was heavily drugged.

That was a state in which all his glories seemed completely gone distant. It was, as though, all hope had left a sort of blankness in his mind. Myra recognized the man. He was the same customer she would see at the restaurant every fortnight.

Then, a strange kind of sadness enveloped her. She immediately found herself thinking about the man and recollecting his stance from the recent past. She thought to herself: “Why would a happy go lucky man loiter so bleakly in the bayou and so starkly, land up there. “

The scepter yielded a lightly fringed; a dare in Myra to find out more about this mystery man and she decided to accompany the cops to the police station.

At the police station, the authorities traced his whereabouts and identification. The man’s name was Kai and it appeared that he was long lost to have roused such intense reactions.

He had lost his job and nobody knew him in particular. He was an immigrant. But Myra had no clue. She just wanted to be of aid.

And like, knowing not how to care he was being teased into favors thrown away as extra spares in terms of money. That explained why Myra didn’t see him quite often at the restaurant. But today’s timed terrors had sent him at her door, sprinkling forthwith extra mysterious in the air.

Quite surreptitiously, here and there, hazy sun had casted a strange shadow over the man’s face and by the metro-HPD officer 👮 got to him, the man had collapsed completely. He was picked by the police in such an unconscious state.

Haunted, by those sightings, and her own uncheered hope leading the way, Myra, beamed out duly, to help the man. She took the day off and moved with the flow. As the day unfolded the man got admitted into a hospital.

For now, between her mind and her breathed sigh —so lay a mystery about the man. Who was he? And why was he in such a state. Not needing any further explanation she followed the officer to the police station.

And to many straight of stately, and with everything molded deceivingly in terms of the law enforcement, things had started unfolding weirdly in the man’s life. The man turned out to be drug peddler on an illegal visa. A border crosser, who was trading drugs for sustenance. It was trap. All his past life joys had duly slipped into shuttering glances and now he was part of the vagary world. Kai had left his homeland ( rebelling his gangster life,) in search of a better living. But herein he was lain austere, leaning into another mysterious world of state-driven mafia lords. Everything about moving abroad was highly tempestuous, as though all was camouflaged in heavenly gear.

For quite sometime the man had ran around ,here and there, for basic sustenance and ultimately got trapped as much into meagerly living. Helpless took him back to drug dealers and he circled back into vicious living out of desperation. Now, his life was more of a vigil casted over strange kind of optimism, and as in those vaulted stairs nothing was left intact. The cosmopolitan city had totally engulfed him.

That —when perused was a tragedy beyond compare.

And here, for now, Myra’s life was at a strange standstill point as well. She found herself soul searching through her own thoughts and living.

With ennui stuck upon her face, she was moving on with her own life.

Where, she didn't know, and Why, she wondered ?!

But pouncing upon fragments of ruins, she was witnessing a life floating in an alchemy of shattered uncertainties. She felt long held over conceptual order, only to be lost and found in such a manner. She was now helping a drug peddler at a rehabilitation center of a hospital.

In any case life was changing drastically for Myra. Her own identity was getting transformed.

The time that her journey had taken to arrive at that point seemed way too long,

And yes, the way of it was all unbound! Previously, she had experienced a strange kind of flimsiness, striking unexpectedly during her everyday activities. She was clumsily dropping things around but she overlooked it. Her dexterity had started waning.

And for the most closest course—ever nearest to be dexterous was to open door 🚪successfully. She was at that strange point in life when she was withdrawing from most of the restaurant activities.

Destiny was playing an adroit farce and it was played out mercilessly in every aspect of Myra’s life. She was born different and she had no idea about it. Somehow she faced extreme opposites in whatever she approached and aspired for in life. Also, her exceptionality had always played out rampantly into giving her unexpected challenges. Such so, and progressing somehow along those lines, Myra abhorred the senselessness behind those vagaries hopscotching as some evildoers pun. Sometimes she found herself on pathways that weighed her down. It was like every move of hers landed her into a strange predicament, turning life into redundancy.

So much so , unforeseen, and with all the world’s extended neglect, she had started feeling comfortable in it. The discomfort of not knowing what ,where and how to deal with inevitability has become a normative form of her life.

In actuality,Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS,) a degenerative disease was lurking in her genes and she had no clue about it. Tests, scans, hope and confusion followed. For some reason Myra found herself trembling within and her body started to fail.First it was her arms, then her gait, and finally it came down to losing voice. The essence of her being was changing completely.

Previously, all that she had discovered was that she was dropping things and slowly losing control over her limbs. She would brush it aside and move about doing things with renewed focus and attention. But things were suddenly appearing and disappearing.

So not being able to fit into any mould with any particular fixity she somehow managed to move with flow of life. Moment by moment, she was getting drawn towards Kai and fate had brought them closer before her deterioration began. She just followed her heart, going beyond all the fixities of notions about living. There was no absolute certainty in it anyways and somehow change was to return in unexpected ways. But this time change was headed towards her at a faster pace (than usual.) In her case

But thro’ all that —the impermeable stuff, was inviting her. A strange ushering as in a mirage was extending her life over unending grounds.

Now everything seemed like veil over her eyes and to keep her company, (all about, all around ,) was this mysterious man suddenly appearing in her life.

Within no time Myra and Kai started navigating through their disabilities. Kai's chronic addictive disorder and Myra’s progressive condition brought them closer. At first, they bond over shared frustration. But as things unraveled they hit a wall. The pain's just didn’t leave. Rather it was unfixable.

In a dimly lit room, surrounded by useless ennui they had abandoned their dreams.

They were facing crisis.

“What’s left when control vanishes?” Myra mourned heavily thro’ her pain.

The silence was heavy and oppressive. They found no answers, no escape.

Then, in the stillness, something shifted. They stopped"dealing" with each other and remained to be together just as it is. The nothingness became a space too empty to look for any togetherness in it. No words, no solutions – just a mechanical presence.

In that void, the cycle of life was seemingly completing itself . They realized: life was not about overcoming; it was about being in it for each other. The ennui transformed into a weird, heavenly feel. A strange kind of peace reigned.

Then one night something unimaginable happened.

Alex a non-speaking artist 🧑‍🎨 ,communicating through paintings, entered their dull drab life. Drawn to Kai and the Myra’s intensity, Alex would draw illustrations during the therapy sessions. Alex’s paintings started to reflect unique visuals; reflecting the emotions and intensity of Kai's words, alongside the Myra’s hands.

Together, they crafted a myriad of multisensory images with a blend of varied sight, sound, textures and colors. It was chaotic at first but a beautiful ascension process was underway. They were transcending elemental forms. The "symphony" was becoming a way to embrace the inevitable—life's frugality casted in fragility.

They all found a new meaning in that togetherness woven around a connection that was making them interdependent in that “in- between,” realm of life.

But the ultimate inevitability struck one day. Myra’s health took a sudden dip. In a quiet moment, the three were together, holding the weight of it all.

Kai and Alex realized that there was no more fixing left in life. Quietly they sat next to Myra holding hands with her. Their symphony started fading into silence and in the space left, they were all left staring into... nothingness.

First, it was Myra who crossed over😌 to the expanded openness. And then as though in timed precision, Kai and Alex also took their last breath while holding hands with Myra. Both Kai and Alex had connected with Myra on a different level. They were like cosmic strings tied together in the torn fabric of life and yet they were interwoven together.

The void of “in-between,” spaces and the strength of their interdependence had bridged a unique shared landscape.

Now they were one ☝️—in soul and spirit !