The World Was Still There.
(A long read)
(A long read)
She was lying on her bed, her laptop propped up in front of her, playing a video call she had been connected to for a while. She wore a wavy red satin kaftan that fell loosely around her body, its fabric catching the faint light that slipped through the curtains. Her hair, half loosened from whatever effort she had made to keep it in place earlier, cascaded untidily over her shoulders. She lay on her stomach, her chin resting on a pillow, her feet occasionally swaying in the air behind her.
On the other side of the screen, the world was moving. There were winding roads, enormous mountains wearing veils of mist, rivers that shimmered beneath the afternoon sun, and stretches of green that seemed to go on forever. The camera moved, sometimes blurry because of the uneven network, sometimes pausing long enough to let the scenery breathe.
She watched it all with the quiet attention. She had always loved travelling. There had been a time when the mere thought of an unfamiliar road could make her restless with excitement. She loved the idea of going somewhere without knowing precisely what awaited her there. She loved the smell of rain on strange soil, the wind messing up her hair, the feeling of standing somewhere so beautiful that, for a moment, every thought inside her became wonderfully insignificant.
But somewhere along the way, life had become a little too heavy. Her mind, once a place full of possibilities, had turned into a room she could not find her way out of. Days passed into weeks, and weeks quietly became months. She kept postponing things she loved, promising herself that she would feel better soon, that she would go out when her mind was kinder to her, that she would begin living again when she finally felt ready. And so she stayed.
The world continued outside her window, while she watched it from a distance. Until that afternoon.
"Wow." The word escaped her before she could think of anything more articulate.
A river appeared on the screen, cutting through a valley with the sort of effortless grace that made her wonder why human beings spent so much of their lives fighting against the natural course of things. The mountains stood on either side, immense and unbothered. She lifted her head from the pillow.
"Oh, my God. Look at that!" He turned the camera slightly, giving her a better view.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
"Pretty?" She laughed softly, almost offended by the inadequacy of the word. "That's not pretty. That's...."
She stopped, searching for something that could hold the feeling. "That's unfairly beautiful."
He laughed. "Unfairly?"
"Yes. How can something exist like that, and I'm here looking at the same four walls every day?"
He smiled at her through the screen. He watched her eyes move across the scenery, watched her face change with every new stretch of landscape, and for a moment, he seemed more interested in her reaction than in the place he was travelling through.
"Why can't you come here?" he asked. "Come and see it once with your own eyes."
She smiled.
It was such a simple question, spoken so casually, but it touched a tender place inside her. As though there were still places waiting for her, even after all the time she had spent away from them. She looked at the screen again.
The road curved around a mountain. Trees stood in clusters along the slopes, their leaves moving in the wind. Somewhere beyond them, a river ran beside, its surface breaking into little silver fragments wherever the sunlight touched it.
She could almost feel the wind against her face. Almost hear the leaves whispering to one another. She closed her eyes for a moment.
She missed this.
She missed this.
She missed this.
She missed the version of herself who would have looked at that landscape and immediately wanted to pack a bag. The girl who did not need a reason to go somewhere, who could be happy with a long road, a little music, and the promise of something unfamiliar. Most of all, she missed feeling free.
"You're quiet," he said. She opened her eyes. "I'm looking."
"At the scenery?"
"At everything."
"Everything is quite a lot to look at."
"I know." She smiled, her voice softening. "I think I've forgotten how."
He did not immediately ask what she meant. He simply turned the camera again, allowing the mountains to fill the screen. For a while, neither of them said anything. The connection flickered once, blurring the mountains into patches of green and grey before the picture cleared again.
She found herself smiling at the smallest things. A little house standing alone on a hillside. A cluster of trees leaning towards the road. A bend in the river that disappeared behind a mountain, only to reappear a little farther away.
"Wait, wait!" she exclaimed when the camera moved too quickly. "Go back!"
He laughed. "Go back where? I'm not the driver."
"I wasn't done looking."
"You had three whole seconds."
"Three seconds is nothing when something is beautiful."
"Then perhaps you should learn to look faster."
She gave him an exaggeratedly offended expression.
"That's the worst advice anyone has ever given me."
"You're welcome."
She laughed, and the sound surprised her. It had been a while since laughter had come to her so easily, without being followed by the exhausting need to explain why she was laughing or whether she was truly happy. He seemed to notice.
"There," he said.
"What?"
"That smile."
She blinked at him.
"What about it?"
"Nothing. I just hadn't seen you smile like that in a while."
Her expression softened. She looked down at the pillow beneath her chin, tracing a small fold in the fabric with her finger.
"I haven't had much to smile about lately."
"I know."
There was no pity in his voice, and she was grateful for that. Pity had a way of making her feel like a fragile thing someone was afraid to touch.
Then, after a moment, he asked, "When did you last go out?"
She considered the question seriously.
"Out where?"
"Anywhere. Somewhere other than your room."
She pursed her lips, thinking.
"Does going downstairs count?"
"No."
"Then I'm afraid I don't have an answer."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Really?"
She shook her head, a little embarrassed.
"To the nature, I mean? To somewhere like this?" She glanced at the screen. "It's been months."
The admission settled between them.
She had not realised how long it had been until she heard herself say it aloud. Months of waking up with the same thoughts, watching the same ceiling. She turned her face towards the laptop again.
"I miss it," she whispered. "I miss being free."
He was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, "You know, the funny thing about travelling is that people think the best part is reaching somewhere."
"Isn't it?"
"Sometimes. But I think the best part is what happens to you on the way."
She watched him. "What happens to you?"
"You stop thinking about everything else for a while. You have to look at the road. You notice the weather. You wonder where that little path leads. You get hungry at inconvenient times. You take the wrong turn and find somewhere you wouldn't have found otherwise." He paused. "For a little while, your life becomes smaller in the nicest possible way. It's just you and whatever is happening in front of you."
She considered that.
"Maybe that's why I want to travel," she said. "Because I want to stop seeing everything else."
He looked at her through the screen."Maybe."
She pulled the pillow closer and rested her cheek against it. "Do you think people can forget how to live?" The question came out quietly.
"I think people can get tired of living the way they've been living," he answered. "And sometimes, when they're tired for long enough, they start believing that's all life has left for them."
She stared at him. "So what do they do?"
"Perhaps they begin again. Not all at once. Maybe they begin by looking at a river for a few minutes."
She smiled faintly. "That sounds suspiciously like advice."
"It is. I'm very wise when I'm surrounded by mountains."
She laughed again. "And when you're not?"
"Then I'm mostly hungry."
"At least you're honest."
"One of my finest qualities."
The camera moved past a stretch of open land. The sky had begun to change colour, the blue growing softer towards the horizon. Clouds gathered above the hills.
"Can you turn the camera again?" she asked.
He turned the camera. "There you go."
She leaned closer to the laptop, her hair falling across one side of her face.."Look at it," she whispered.
"I am looking at it."
"No, really look at it."
He smiled. "I am."
"It's moving so peacefully. Imagine being a river. You don't have to know where every turn is going to take you. You just keep moving."
"Until you fall off a waterfall."
She gasped.
"Must you ruin everything?"
"I'm adding realism to your philosophy."
"Well, your realism is unwelcome."
He laughed, and she shook her head, smiling. Then she became quiet again.
"I think I've spent so much time trying to figure out how to get better that I've forgotten there might still be beautiful things to experience while I'm getting better."
His smile faded into something gentler. "That happens."
"I keep waiting to feel like myself again before I do the things I love. But what if doing the things I love is how I find myself again?"
He took a moment before answering.
"Then maybe you don't have to wait until you're better to begin living again."
She looked at him for a long time. Nothing inside her suddenly became easy. The room remained the same room. The months behind her remained the months behind her. Whatever had been troubling her did not dissolve simply because she had watched a river on a laptop.
For the first time in a long while, she had imagined a future that contained something other than the effort of getting through the day.
She imagined herself standing beside that river. She imagined the wind lifting her hair, the cold air touching her cheeks, she imagined looking up at a mountain and feeling small without feeling insignificant.
Not the happiness she remembered from years ago. Not a perfect return to the person she used to be. Something new and quieter.
Something that could make room for the person she had become.
"Promise me something," he said.
She looked up. "What?"
"Next time you get the chance to go somewhere beautiful, don't talk yourself out of it."
She smiled sadly.
"What if I don't feel ready?"
"Go somewhere small, then."
"What if I don't have the energy?"
"Go somewhere nearby."
"What if I change my mind?"
"Come home."
She blinked.
He shrugged, as if the answer were obvious.
"You don't have to turn every little thing into a test you must pass. You can go out for ten minutes and come home after five. You can stand by a tree and decide you don't like the weather. You can try again another day."
She looked at him with an expression he could not quite decipher. "You're making it sound so easy."
"No," he said softly. "I'm making it sound like you don't have to do it perfectly."
For a moment, she could not find anything to say. There were people who tried to rescue others by pulling them towards the light, impatient for them to leave their darkness behind. And then there were people who simply opened a window, let the sunlight enter, and stayed long enough for the other person to notice it.
He had not asked her to explain every difficult thing she had been through. He had not demanded that she be cheerful, or strong, or hopeful on command. He had simply shown her a road.
And when she had wanted to look at the river a little longer, he had let her. She wondered whether he understood what that meant to her. Maybe he did not.
To him, it might be only a video call during an ordinary journey, a conversation between two people who happened to have some time to spare. Maybe he would forget the exact words they had exchanged before the day was over.
But she would remember the way the mountains appeared on her screen. The way the river caught the sunlight. The way her own voice had sounded when she said, I miss being free. And she would remember that someone had listened without trying to make the feeling smaller.
As the afternoon wore on, the scenery changed. The road narrowed between two hills, and the sky turned a deeper shade of blue. The mountains that had seemed distant earlier now stood closer, their outlines darkening against the evening light.
He started speaking again, "All right. You have to promise me something."
"What ?"
"One day, when you finally come here, you have to tell me whether it looks as beautiful in real life."
She smiled, her eyes brightening again."Of course it will."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'll be there."
He went quiet for a moment. Then he smiled, and she smiled back.
Eventually, the connection began to falter. His voice broke into little fragments, and the picture froze on a stretch of road lined with trees.
"Can you hear me?" he asked.
"Yes. Can you hear me?"
"You're breaking up."
"That's unfortunate. I was about to say something incredibly profound." She laughed.
"Please don't. I don't think the internet can handle it." He shook his head, grinning.
"All right. I'll tell you later."
"You'd better."
The screen flickered again. For a second, she could see him clearly: the softness in his expression, the faint tiredness around his eyes, the way he was smiling as though the conversation had made his journey a little more pleasant, too. Then the call ended.
The screen went dark. And just like that, the mountains disappeared. The room returned to its familiar silence. Her laptop reflected a faint image of her face, and the curtains remained still beside the window. The same bed. The same walls. The same life waiting for her beyond the screen.
She lay there for another minute, looking at the dark laptop, and then slowly turned onto her back. A small smile found its way to her lips. She was grateful.
Grateful for the mountains she had never touched, for the river she had never heard with her own ears, for the roads that had travelled across a screen and found their way into a room where the days had begun to feel indistinguishable from one another.
And grateful to him, most of all, for having unknowingly given her something she had not realised she needed. A little journey. A little laughter. A little time A little reminder that the world was still beautiful, even when she could not find the strength to meet it.
She reached for her phone, opened her notes, and typed a single sentence:
Perhaps freedom does not always begin with opening the door; sometimes, it begins with remembering that there is a world beyond it.
She read it once, then smiled and put her phone aside. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the evening was unfolding. The sky was changing colour. Trees were stirring in the wind. Rivers were carrying the last light of the day towards places she could not yet imagine.
And, one day soon, she would go out and meet it. Because she was still here, and that was reason enough to begin. She closed her eyes, the little smile lingering on her face. For once, she did not make a promise to change her life by tomorrow. She did not ask herself to become stronger, happier, or better before the next sunrise. She simply let herself feel grateful.
Some people gave flowers. Some gave gifts. Some made grand promises about all the places they would take you. And sometimes, without even knowing it, someone turned a camera towards a mountain, waited while you admired a river, and gave you back a small piece of the world you had been missing.
He had travelled that road for himself. But somewhere along the way, he had taken her with him.
And when the call ended, she discovered that a part of her had returned, too. Not all at once. Not completely. Just enough to make her look towards the window and wonder what the world might feel like against her skin.
And for that evening, that was enough. She fell asleep with the quiet warmth of the journey still resting in her heart, carrying no grand answers, no miraculous cure, and no certainty about what would come next. Only a river moving beneath the mountains. A road winding towards somewhere beautiful.
And the gentle, growing belief that she, too, was allowed to find her way back to life, one little journey at a time.
©Jaanu
Note : to whoever read this whole, thank you for your time.
