Red Or Green?

The light turned red giving me time to stop and look out through my window. I chuckled about the impervious luxury I enjoyed within my glass windows. The temperature inside was a cool 24 degrees on this May evening and my favourite tracks were lined up on the playlist – I really had nothing to complain about. I saw anguished, tired even fatigued and frustrated faces struggling to get their respective fair’s worth of foot-space with alert eyes scanning the slightest movement made by a comfortably seated co-passenger. They were all waiting impatiently – either to get off the god damned over crowded bus or to get the next available seat – whichever would come sooner. Horns blared around suddenly breaking my thoughts. I delicately released the clutch and I eased ahead. The sight of the bus in my rear view mirror and the thought of the people on it were almost instantly pushed back into oblivion. Two cars had already crossed over and as I passed the signal, it finally turned green.

The red lights put me to a halt once more. This time it was a huge glass building I saw to my left. The ten storied structure looked so alive; more so because each of its very well illuminated floors, with people’s fast-paced trots on each of them, were so clearly visible even from a distance. It stood out flamboyantly against lackluster backdrop of the dusk; so much so that it was almost wickedly inviting. I have always been intrigued by the sheer charm and beauty these modern-day architectural innovation, so to speak, possess. I feel that they unashamedly and yet very convincingly deceive an innocent curious onlooker. It’s a mere facade for the innumerable faceless people coming into that building day in and day out .The poor onlooker might never know that there’s more to it all than meets the eyes until he too gets to step into one of those flashy buildings. I knew what those fast-paced feet were running towards – either to get onto one of those buses or to get in the driving seats of their cars. And I chuckled again, this time for having raced past the bus and the two cars that had got ahead of me and also for the good fortune that at least for that day I wasn’t stuck in one of those glass buildings while the rest of the world seemed to be having a merry time heading home. The signal turned green again and I pushed off.

Just as I was about to change gears, I had to slow down and scornfully put the car to rest again at the red. The same bus lined up next to me as did the two cars I had raced past. This time I chuckled with a little resentment at the dawn of this tiny little realization. That unknown person in that glass building, the people aboard the bus along with its driver, the two cars that I noticed and the many others that I didn’t – we were all just dodging the red light to get past the next green one! The string puller above was probably mockingly laughing at this nonsensical race that we’d got ourselves into – inadvertently or out of choice.

Did I hit the red next or the green? Oh! What the Heck?! Does it really matter now?

“Where are you headed, by the way?”