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man in black crew neck t-shirt lying on bed

Laid off

All of a sudden, I felt a burst of creativity surge through me. I wanted to write, to pour my restless thoughts onto paper. Or maybe I could draw, sketch the chaos in my mind. The guitar in the corner, cloaked in dust, beckoned. Time to tune its strings and coax out a forgotten melody. I wondered if my fingers still knew the fretboard’s paths. It had been years since I’d had this much free time. Life was once a frantic raceleaping from bed, gulping breakfast, squeezing into crowded trains. Now, that rhythm was gone. I’d been laid off, cast aside by the company I’d given my heart and soul to for two decades. At forty-five, I faced the daunting task of job hunting. I stared at the ceiling, its peeling paint a mirror of my unraveling life. My phone read 5:00 a.m. Why was I awake? There was nowhere… Laid off

a group of palm trees with a foggy sky in the background

Light over the landscape

It was eleven at night, and the world lay cloaked in darkness. The moon, shy yet persistent, played hide-and-seek with the clouds, casting fleeting silvery light over the landscape. Around me, the tall coconut trees swayed gently in the breeze, their silhouettes a rhythmic dance against the endless expanse of paddy fields that stretched beyond my makeshift bed. This was my world for the nighta fold-able cot, with me draped in a sleeping bag and enclosed by a mosquito net. For the first time in my life, I was sleeping out in the open, nothing but thin mesh separating me from the stars. In the spaces where clouds hadn’t staked their claim, the sky revealed its glittering secrets, a cosmic reminder of how small and fleeting we are. But I wasn’t here for the stars. I was here for the land. This village was my birthplace, though I hadn’t seen… Light over the landscape