Midnight musings

It is always in the witching hours that the ghosts of the past assemble, crowding around me as regrets to torment my sleepless mind.

- K.C. VERMA

I recall the roads not taken, the sights not seen, the words left unspoken and the hills not climbed. I agonise over what might have been. The regrets surge in a sudden flood, banishing any trace of drowsiness. And suddenly I am fully awake, wondering what it was that rudely jolted me to the present from my wanderings in the past.

So, I lie in bed, uneasy in liminal wakefulness, still poised between insistent 'what ifs' and some half-remembered dream. A question mark hangs over what could have nudged me to wakefulness.

It must have been some sound. It returns—closer now, insistent. Without warning, it swells into a deep, throaty roar. Even though muffled by the double glazing of the windows and the balcony door, it seems to be the deep growl of a motorcycle. I silently curse the unseen rider and others who tear along the straight stretch near my building, shattering the night's fragile peace.

Motorcycles—that is another regret! When I was young, so very long ago, I had the great ambition to ride a bike that could roar like that! A Harley-Davidson, perhaps, or an Indian Chief. Even a Royal Enfield Bullet would have sufficed; but none of my friends owned even that.