Prayer

“The light we draw from the stars,

is from the past, for our present.

On and on we search along,

For the stars we lost in our past”

I was in the church with my mother. She was praying and I was pondering.

I had time to kill, so I resorted to looking around and observing people. It’s something I find myself doing whenever I’m in a gathering.

A father was trying to pacify his daughter by distracting her from the happenings of the church. The mother was deep into prayer. I somehow got the feeling that the father himself wanted to be distracted from the church. I could relate with him in that way.

My mom continued her prayers. The pastor continued his preaching. I continued my observations.

I noticed a kid who kind of stood out from the crowd. Well, there weren’t too many people there at that time of the day, but I noticed that she didn’t quite fit in the picture.

Maybe she didn’t fit in because she was by herself. Maybe more so because she was praying to god by cupping her hands like Muslims do to worship Allah.

Yeah, that was what stood out and caught my eye.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say this with prejudice. I take no pleasure in judging people. I was just curious to know what the deal was with this kid.

She stopped praying, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes. She remained silent, she had a calm expression on her face and simply looked straight ahead.

All of a sudden she turned towards me and caught me looking at her.

Sometimes I would unintentionally stare at some people for too long, curious about their behavior and they would look right back at me and catch me looking at them. I would have no choice but to look away immediately.

Awkward.

I know.

But I still do it.

I stared too long once again, she took notice of me and I looked away.

“Let’s go”, my mom said.

“Yeah okay”, I replied

I was glad to leave.