The Last Sunday Of The Year

It is 12.15 on a Friday afternoon. I am sitting in the library behind a desk that is covered on two sides, serving as a shield from the prying eyes. It is December end and winters are yet to arrive in this part of the country. Winters here never arrive actually. As I sit, I cannot help but envision the contrasting scene in my hometown at this very moment, where people desperately seek sunlight as if it were the only source of solace in the midst of biting cold. The sunlight becomes a coveted treasure, and each passing moment of its gentle embrace is cherished, a brief respite from the pervasive winter chill that envelops the landscape. Imagining the drop in temperature and gusty winds there, I picture the elderly, the young, plants and animals basking in the sun. Perhaps, inside someone’s home, the aroma of a cooking lunch wafts through the air, tantalising the senses and subtly signalling the approach of mealtime.

My gaze drifts to the window, where the iron grill casts shadows on the white cemented windowsill. The trees outside smudge the block patterns of the grill by the agency of their own shadows. The outside world is in flux, and sunlight fluctuates like a light bulb in some old building. The clouds are restless. They play with the sun. They gobble it up at one moment and relinquish it at another. The dance of light mirrors the ebb and flow of life with its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, dreams and awakenings. Like the constant ticking of a clock, the fluctuating sunlight is a reminder of the ephemerality of time. It is a reminder of how fast the year has passed. Soon, Friday and Saturday will be gone in the blink of an eye, and it will be Sunday, the last Sunday of the year, standing between two years. 

There is a sudden coolness outside, the sun has disappeared. A cool breeze has filled the space. Nostalgia creeps in, much like the clouds outside, leading me down memory lane. I visualise the pages of a calendar flipping and the dates travelling back in time. Soon, the dates disappear, and only days remain. The calendar now slows down and finally stops at a Sunday ― the ethereal day of the week sandwiched between the hectic hustle of the week and the impending chaos of the Monday. Which Sunday? I do not know, but it is a Sunday from my school days. 

I hated Sundays when I was a schoolboy. Especially the Sunday evenings, which were the harbingers of the approaching Monday. The dreaded Monday. Sunday evenings filled my heart with gloom. Until evening, when the sun was bright and shining, I had no memory of the next day, but as soon as the oil of the hanging lamp in the sky began to exhaust and emit light that was neither bright nor dull, much like the delicate balance between life and death, my heart sank. The anticipation of Monday and the notion of school infused a hint of melancholy into the atmosphere. But it has been umpteen Sundays since then, and with time, the memory of the Sunday evenings has taken respite in the recesses of the brain. 

Yet the coming Sunday feels different. There is something different about this particular Sunday. It is not just the end of a week; it marks the conclusion of an entire year ― 2023. It is a moment to acknowledge the fragility of time. 

I recall a quote from the internet, “What happens on Sundays? I think we sink. I don’t know why. Sundays are so thin. You can almost always see the past.” True. Sundays are the bridges between the immediate present and the accumulated yesterdays. Sundays are transitory. And the significance of this year’s last Sunday is heightened by the symbolic closure that comes with the end of a year. Like a page of a diary, it presents to us a time for reflection, a moment to sift through the sands of time and ponder the journey that has brought us all here. 

The 24 hours of this year’s Sunday will, by 11:59 at night, seem like 24 seconds. As soon as the clock ticks towards midnight, the last Sunday extends an invitation to gaze ahead. What aspirations and dreams will accompany us into the New Year? The symbolic transition from one year to the next is a reminder that with every ending comes the potential for new beginnings, and Sundays have always carried a unique resonance, serving as a transitional pause between the rigours of the week and the promise of a new beginning. It is not merely the ticking of the clock but a collective sigh of a world in unison, exhaling the yesterdays and inhaling the possibilities of tomorrow. They are days when the past and the present converge, inviting us to navigate the thinness of Sundays and find profound insights into the seemingly ordinary moments that make up our lives. This Sunday makes us think about how stories and time connect, like in a complicated novel. 

The sun has come up again. The shadows have come alive. The dance has resumed. The show is a reminder of the connections between different parts of our lives, like a woven fabric of experiences and dreams. The shadows outside, now elongated and stretching towards infinity, seem to whisper the impermanence of things. 

As the sun sets and the last Sunday of the year gracefully steps aside, it leaves behind a trail of reflections etched in the fabric of time, reminding us that every ending is a prelude to a new beginning.

(Views expressed are personal)