Alone

As we drove through the chilly winds of Mahableshwar, me, my griflriend and two other friends, i didnt imagine a better place to be in.
The proverbial wind in my hair and my girlfriend beside me, it was the best place to be.
We were enjoying the cool breeze and listening cheesy songs.
And as we rounded a turn, i saw him.

He was squatting on a rock on the very edge of the cliff.
He was facing the road and his ragged, tattered clothes fluttered in the ever-growing wind.
His darkened unclean skin suffering the worst of the sun.
His face covered in a thick beard and his dirty discoloured long hair loose on his shoulders.

But what struck me most was the expression on his face.
An expression of apathy.
of sadness.
of fear.
of an impending doom.

An expression with no hope whatsoever.
An expression of complete and total loneliness.

He had no one.
He knew no one and no one knew him.
No one cared about him or for him.

Right there, as i held my girlfriend's hand feeling the greatest feeling a man could ever feel, that man had no one.
At that very spot where i felt most content, he felt bitter, sad, discontent and hopelessness.

He had lost all hope.
A man can deal with finite disappointment.
But infinite.
He was dealing with infinite and unending.
He was completely alone.

It was the most terrifying sight of my life.

"A lonely person was just about the most terrifying spectacle in the world"
- Fromm Reichmann