My forehead touches the glass. Rain dribbles down its surface…I watch rivulets join together, gain momentum as they prepare for the final tumble. I mirror them. The water I shed is feeble.

It has been overcast, with glum and dark clouds hanging low over the horizon, for the past few days. I am in the midst of a literary fallacy.

There is a hollow space inside in me. I am hollow. Emotions dribble down ineffectually. I am stunned.

Even this rain…even this has changed. Even Mother Nature has started whoring around. Nothing is the same. Nothing New Jersey spits out can be like Lahore.

I left, ok?

I couldn’t have foreseen the tug. How was I to know the cord hadn’t been cut-couldn’t be cut?

Continents away, Pakistan continues to feed me. And I find myself depending on it like never before.

Mnemosyne haunts me with phantasmal images of… home. In every tree, every mote of dust, I see a reflection of Lahore. Lahore is in my thoughts, my feelings, my tears…and I am in New Jersey.

And yet, it was I who left.

They told me it was important. That my education, my future, my dreams-depended on this. Who wouldn’t defend their dreams, their private treasures, their comforters?

It took another country to make me realize Pakistan was my dream.

Is.
Is my dream.
I smile.
Finally.
Pakistan…is alive. And so am I. One day I will return.

The sun breaks out from its captor clouds. Weak, watery egg yolk. But there. Nonetheless. Present. Warm…if not bright.

Warm.

At least.