The Lonely City

The lights are never turned off in this city until the sun rises, vehicles never stop, people are always busy and they don't have time for each other. They don't even have time to stop even for a minute as every second matters. The restaurants are always crowded, cafeterias are noisy yet you will find the loneliest souls here in this city. Making money seems to be everyone's passion here. I moved here for that same reason, to make money for my family so that I can provide my family best of things which my dad had once promised. There is not a single day I don't remember my mother and my sibblings, they are the sole reason I choose to be in this city and earn for them. I rarely take off and purosely work two shifts, I work extra shifts on Sundays to keep myself busy, so that I don't feel empty. I refrain myself from having any sort of thought run in my head that would make me emotionally weak. Thus I was trying way too hard to get away with the humane side of mine and adopting to the mechanistic lifestyle of the city when I am currently working. Days are hectic I wake up early for work and reach home late and the timings to talk with my family rarely match up. I am Mehjebin from Qarshi, a small city of southern Uzbekistan. My dad was in armed forces and we've lost him during the bloody Tashkent bombings of 1999. He left a family of five and me being the eldest daughter of the family. My two brothers were in school back then and my youngest little sister was just 5 years old and my mother was completely shattered. I was broken too but I had to stay strong. She had to take care of her four kids without their dad. Mom was married when she was sixteen and she never stepped out of home. Our little home was her whole world and the only bread earner of our family was dad. Things were not easy at all and by the time things normalized I had to take some bold decisions. Moreover I had to retrospect my life's choices once again introspecting the current phase of life. Soon after the unfortunately disastrous incident it took quite a long time for all of us to be back to normacy.

It was the seventh day after dad had left. Everyone after having dinner had gone to bed. I couldn't sleep that night as numerous thoughts were rushing in my head and I didn't know how to stop my mind from thinking. I felt that I was probably in the worst situation of my life and this grief is forever. I felt that a walk on the terrace would help me fall asleep, so I opened the latch of the old wooden door of my room which connected the staircases towards the terrace, I walked up to the terrace making sure I didn't wake up anybody. The night was pobably the toughest and the longest one, I looked up at the sky because when I was a child my grandmother used to say that when we lose someone to heaven, he becomes a star and shine from above. There were no stars in the sky, it was cloudy and all I could see was the blurry moon behind the clouds. It looked as though the moon was struggling to come out of the dense clouds but the vicious clouds wanted to seize the moon concealing its lunimious radience. The Moon didn't gave up moving out of those clouds and the clouds chased the Moon, this was pleasantly intoxicating to watch. Staring up at the sky while leaning to the wall there appeared something bright and enchanting. I probably had never seen anything so charming before, it was something surreal and mystical. I was fascinated and asked "Who are you?"

"You can call me anything, the manner in which you mold me will give me a name" came from the other side.

This was something meddlesome and it appeared like a riddle and with uncertainty I aksed "How?"

I was reciprocated back as, "I am strong and fragile at the same time, I am a fighter and a loser at the same time, I am kind and cruel at the same time, I am a friend and a foe at the same time."

It further made me inquisitive and I said, "It was already a tough phase of my life where I had to live for my loved ones and survive in a cruel world where nobody cares. I am in a stage of self-doubt, fear and anxiety and how come some be two opposites?"

I again heard a voice saying, "That's my peculiarity. I can be opposites; when I am strong, I can move mountains and when I am weak I can reduce anyone to oblivion; I can create or destroy; and all depends on how you control and mold me. People call me Mind."

So I asked Mind, "I have already decided to move to the capital city and start working. I need to earn for my family. Will I be able to?"

Mind replied, "It's all up to you as I have said earlier. If you think you can, you will be able to and if you think you can't, you will never be able to."

I felt that I was caught in a 'do or die' situation and I had nothing to lose but many things to achieve. I asked Mind, "How do I mold my mind so that I get all I want?"

Mind replied, "You can mold me anytime you decide to do that. An imperfect molding of mind doen't mean you can't mold it again. The best thing is you can mold me anytime or any phase of life. If you choose to mold me positively and control me in a productive I can be powerful and I can do wonders."

Those were the last words of the magical Mind. It literally did wonders, it gave me the strength to decide what I wanted to do. I boldly moved to the new city, started working and helped my mom financially as well as emtionally during the hard times, and helped her in raising my sibblings. Today though I stay in a different city I can produly say that my mother is not less then a superhero. It's life and time, which I consider as two greatest teachers. Bad times make you tough and life teaches you the value of time. The lady whose home was her little world, today serves as a head of a NGO which take care of millions of kid who have lost their family members, who served the Uzbekistan Army. I have earned enough in the lonley city of bright lights, and decided to be back at home with my loved ones. And lastly, I have realised that you can achieve or do anything if you can once convince your mind, and if you make up your mind to achieve something, mind will always keep saying "Never Give Up!".