“Oh, souls of youth they sail

In the twinkle of the eyes,

Or in the joyful notes in laughter.

Oh, souls of youth they sail

From dawn to dusk,

Across the ocean across the land.

Oh, souls of youth they sail

Towards the setting sun,

To the end of the time span.”

The feeling of wanting to go out is quite peculiar. It started out as a mere tickle, like a lighted splint which is used to test for hydrogen in Chemistry, giving off occasional warmth of longing. Then as time slipped away and the confirmed cases of Covid-19 mounted, the urge turned into a dread that I would never be able to go out at all during the spring break (March 14 – 22).

And I grew anxious.

Though I tried to convince myself that this feeling is just a passing infatuation, and that I would get over it in no time, but my despondence grew.

And I wasn’t the only one.

The idea of going to The West Coast Park came out quite randomly at the lunch table. A second’s silence barely registered at the table before the six of us burst into delightful chatters at the same instant. The thought of going out to somewhere other than the TV room downstairs, which by the way smells like feet, once projected, is prodigious. So, the plan was final: girls night out, back before curfew, and have a memorable time of our lives.

To the West Coast Park, we went. Though quite near, a pilgrimage to unbounded youth anyhow. We marched with the high way on our left and a canvas of clear blue sky with patches of white clouds on our right. As we walked further to the west, the scenario was replaced with something quieter but not at all insipid. In fact, I think the excitement we endured along the way due to the novelty we had for the natural environment after staying in the dorm for two months was no less than that when we actually reached our destination.

The sky was in a blaze of golden orange, the kind that tended to leave your mind wondering about things that you thought you’ve long forgotten. I thought about how Peeta told Katniss on their way to the seventy-fifth Hunger Games that his favorite color is orange, like the sunset, and how this little sentence stayed in Katniss’s mind after all those years of chaos. I thought about how I used to walk home from school, during this ten-minutes’ trip, the fading light of dusk would drag my shadow behind me like a lonely flinging cape.

Without realizing it, we have reached our destination. Everyone was immediately engulfed in a sense of tranquility which might be projected by the rhythmic sound of the waves splashing the shore, breaking into millions of water droplets. Or simply because we were stunned to silence by the breathtaking picture in front of us. The sky was a blend of purple and gold, with their edges clear cut. Clouds shaped like mountains of the north with sharp angles sauntered across the sky. Boats and ferries rested at the harbor, looking almost cordial. And as the sea wind blew my hair in all directions, carrying the faint scent of seashells and fish, I felt, the first time in many months, truly alive and awaken.

My senses were heightened, my mood was lifted and no matter how hard I tried, I could not fight the grin off my face. Darkness stirred and soon, the lone streetlight shone almost gaudily on, illustrating the blurry lines of occasional silhouettes. We sat in a row on the stony bay which was still warm from the heat of the day and stared into the distance. In front of us, a masterpiece combining both the strokes of nature and humanity mixed into perfect scenery. The sky was in a deep shade of violet and the outlines of the boats were no longer clear. I spent quite a while trying to decipher the ocean from the sky while listening to some foreign broadcast which was played in one of the radios on an unknown boat.

And then it suddenly hit me, we were just nobodies in this grand piece of art. People wouldn’t focus on our stories, our lives and yet at the same time, other people were just backgrounds to our own stories. A thousand people, a thousand stories, a thousand backgrounds and none of them seemed to matter to one another. My trivialness, my unimportance stuck me hard and woke me from my daze. I was surrounded by my dearest friends, who at the current moment, shared the same fate with me. We were young, we were passionate and we are in this unfamiliar foreign country far away from home. And under all those grand scenarios and circumstances, we are bound to each other. They say that some roads are best taken alone, but it is this togetherness that has brought warmth into my heart and given me the sense of security I have long lacked.

I couldn’t quite make out the shape of their eyes or the curve of their lips when a string of laughter was let lost. But I knew that they were all right there beside me. As I relaxed against the stony surface, I decided that that was quite enough for now.