When You Wish Upon A Lantern

Disclaimer-----I wrote this really long ago, it was supposed to be an uni essay(I changed my mind, too creative this is).

In an alternate universe, I'd want to own a lantern shop. 

I'd want my shop to have a blue wooden door, a bench right in the middle on the inside, and aisles and aisles of lanterns of all shapes and sizes surrounding it, and my lanterns a material that feels like a soft hug when held. The air must smell faintly of red sandalwood, with hints of jasmine, and the space is to be solely illuminated by a grand chandelier. I'd want vines and creepers to be the exterior of my store, maintaining a perfect balance. I'd like my store to be in the heart of New York City.

The city of dreams, they call it. I'd want my store to be the quiet in a city that never sleeps. The three seconds of peace and quiet that we all who chase dreams need.

I'd have a lantern for a visitor of every kind, a lonely traveller, a kid chasing fireflies, a seventeen-year-old who feels out of place for loving tangled, and a tired tourist.

I'd give a yellow lantern to the lonely traveller, along with a fistful of fortune cookies that I pick out. A blue lantern to a boy chasing fireflies, because some dreams only glow when you’re young enough to believe in them. A pale purple lantern for the teen, and a promise I'll see her on the boat under a sky illuminated by floating lights. And a sage lantern to a tired tourist, and tell him I hope to see him again.

And maybe, just maybe, they'd know why they walked to this side of the city again.  

But in my universe, I live about 13,600 kilometres away from my alternate reality, in the ever-congested streets of Hyderabad. I don't have a lantern shop, but I do have my own kind of a lantern, my blog, read at bus stops and on beach vacations, and a restless mind that peeks at every crack in the system. I play UNO like my life depends on it, I kickbox like I'm training to be the next Muhammad Ali, and I built a clothing business for ones like me who've been told they're too short for the clothes on every rack. But the truth is, I don't care much for lanterns, but more for what they do--- shove light into your life.

 This life is like that; if I can't be everyone's sun, I might as well be someone's lantern.

When I write, box, or when I'm just me, I am that shopkeeper selling lanterns. I give people yellow lanterns in the form of blog posts, hand out sage lanterns under the cover as sarcastic advice, and slide a blue lantern into a conversation every chance I get when someone’s eyes light up about their own dreams. 

Maybe I’ll never own that lantern shop in New York. But in this possible reality where I walk into a new day, I’ll bring the lantern shop I rave about: a blue door that says welcome, walls with warmth and lanterns of every shape and size, and the kind presence you feel long after leaving the room. If New York is the city of dreams, then my life so far has been a preparation, where I've learned to build myself, messy, unique, and full of little tears on my lanterns I’ve had to mend.

I always assumed I'd have a lantern shop where I ignite the concept of hope, selling lanterns, but maybe now I'll have a lantern shop where one can build a lantern. In any shape, size and colour as they wish, tailor it to do what they deem perfect. Because hope can't be sold, only created. And because when you wish upon a lantern, it's not only the lantern that flies, it's you.

Until then, I’ll keep building my own shop, brick after brick — even if it’s made of metaphors for light instead of concrete, and even if the door is only blue in my alternate reality.