Aarti

And, for the first time, the boy lit the flame.

***

His mother had always told him the river had eyes that could speak. So every year they made the journey to the river, amidst the bustling crowds, to send their plate down the current. His father always would set the flowers, the fan, the water, and the candle on the plate with a rare meticulousness. For 364 days his father's hands would quake, but for this one day every year his hands appeared blessed by the divine. 

The plates floating along the river, with their flames dancing, calmed the evening sky. Every year the boy looked at the flames that longed for the sky, for a love it could not reach. So in a blend of reverence, sorrow, and joy the flames cascaded rhythmically so that the sky could see its dance and inhale its sweet-scented smoke. The performance would calm the sky's frustrations of not being able to reach down to touch its lover, and the black clouds would be soothed across a palate of purples and blues. 

And then his father would begin the ritual, enliven sacred motions and utter ancient words as he held the plated flame in his hands. The mother would then sing, staring into the river. Once the father had placed the plate on the river, the mother would smile at the boy and take him in her warm embrace. She would speak of the vastness and simplicity we all share in existence, in the eternal divine. She spoke of the eyes of the river and together they would stare into the water, into the eyes, into what felt like infinity. Everything that was, that was to become, and everything that is flowed through the boy. He would feel his place and feel minuscule amongst the current of time. But then as he stared into his mothers eyes and back into the river, even time felt like it was an illusion. The current of existence was not split between the then, the now, and the forthcoming. Like the river, existence flowed into itself. The boy would always forget this grand realization the next day, but for the moment in which he was absorbed in the eternal and his mother's embrace, he felt as if he had touched the divine. And he would stare into his father's eyes, reflecting the holiness that encapsulated the river. His father would turn to meet his gaze, and his cheeks would be uplifted with a smile warmer than the flames dotting the river. 

But the boy's forever was shattered by time. The boy and his father sat by the river now, without the mother. Without the embrace. Time, that very real illusion, had taken her so that the sky knew her better now. The father's hands, usually nimble and brisk for this auspicious day, were now failing him with uncontrollable jitters and quakes. It seemed he failed to find the divine, and with a subtle fury dropped the plate, the flowers, the fan, the water, and the candle and clenched his fists against his face. And the boy began to cry, and it felt like he could not stop crying, as if he could fill the river with his tears. The river. The eyes. The boy remembered what his mother had always told him, about the vastness and simplicity of existence. The boy stared into the river for a moment, and then he turned to his father and took the plate and assembled it as his father would have. He then offered it to his father to light the flame as always, but his father failed to lift his head from his heavy sorrow. The boy stood there, shocked, not knowing what to do. He began to feel weak and uncertain, lost like his father. He turned to face the river again. He saw the other flames, dancing for the sky until they fizzled out. Dancing for the lover they could not reach. The boy felt inspired by their effort. And then, for the first time, the boy lit the flame and he set the plate down the river. But there were no sacred movements, no ancient utterings, only an emptiness.

And the boy remembered what his mother had always said about the vastness, the simplicity, the infinity of existence. That existence was a monotonous flow, one cycle enveloped in itself, and that all one had to do was embrace it, embrace the eternal divine and feel their place and their flow among the current. And the boy, after feeling lingering trepidation and agony, felt the comfort his mother had always given him. The boy turned to his father, and took him in his small arms. And the two were absorbed in stillness. Then the boy felt his father's arms reach around him and his cheek touch his, and he felt the tinge of his father's tears against his face, and moments later he would feel his fathers cheeks lift up as they always had, with a smile as warm as it always was. 

And together they would embrace their place in the eternal and all its comforts, for all the world around them to take part in, for the river, the sky, the flames, and the mother.