Published on 07:50 PM, March 31, 2024

Azure 

Illustration: Faisal Bin Iqbal

The sky is the most obscure portion of Earth which can be read with utmost ease. When an inattentive daydreamer like me abandons her pressurising studies for five minutes to gaze out through the glass window dazzling in the noon's shimmering light, she will be stuck observing how the vast stretch of the cerulean sky holds testament to the day's events and emotions within the dusty city below. 

I often like to drown in the multi-pitched honks of the traffic and the conspicuous vehicles revving by the bustling street shops, longing to escape into the heart of Dhaka. I want to wander off to somewhere nobody wants to explore intentionally or out of curiosity. 

There lies a different embodiment of land well hidden as a ravishing mystery among those endless clouds. Perhaps Cloud Nine really exists. If you care to let your sixth sense guide you, you might succeed in finding the laws of the blue. The daytimes are so deceiving. The morning sun blazes brighter than ever, usually during the sweaty summers, as golden as the honey in my tea, spreading ichor-like aura throughout the polluted world. It ends up looking like there's nothing called negative. I stare directly at the sun and despite the sharp burn in my eyes, feel that I'm the happiest person alive. Like there's no grief, no trepidation, nothing. All around me, the pale neighbouring buildings, the sickly money plant twisting down to my veranda from the fifth floor, and the sunshine-lit shabby rooftops, each seems to be nurtured with purity. Even the gloom in my bedroom is overshadowed by the entity of pureness, a strange presence killing my recent foreboding. 

But it doesn't take long to realise what a sham all this is. The sun knows the corruption and the fraud. It knows the thieves and assassins lurking in the nooks of ghastly alleyways and is aware of all the vices tainting the place. This, the sun attempts to cover any ounce of darkness fuelling nefariousness, shining on and on. The shower of rays could suppress them at least partially.

The writer is an O level student at Mastermind School.