Everything should come to passe.....

I was sitting in the notoriousily crawling Doha traffic, on one of my afternoon runs, to pick up my children from the school. The English Modern school in Bin Omran area is roughly 15 minutes drive from my work which is at the heart of the Doha city. Of all the 6 or 7 months being here I have become more used to the endless delays, the seemingly uncivlized and rude drivers on the road and the problematic roundabouts that are the main cause of traffic clogs day in day out.

It was one of the days where I had nothing else to do other than crawl inch by inch towards the next roundabout so that I can negotiate my way to the left of the road to continue my journey. I looked at my watch, which is at the stroke of 1pm, the radio started playing the music prior to the French news from QBS. I can't understand anything, but a few words, of the French transmission. So, I muted the volume and stared out. The only thing audible was the deafening silence inside the airtight cockpit of the car, which was making me uncomfortable as the seconds ticked by....Gazing outside I can see the youngish looking guy yakking away on his cell phone to, probably, his girlfriend. To the back of my car there is a big overpowering white four wheel drive driven by some extremely rich Arab who is threateningly close to the boot of my car. I have no choice but to glance nervously over my rearview mirror to ensure that the big four wheel drive is not nudging my car. The Arab guy might be talking away on his cell phone and my little 4 door sedan may not be in his view. To the left of me I could see a middle aged, attractive lady checking on her lipstic or make up on the mirror of the sunvisor. I could see the policeman on duty at the roundabout frantically gesticulating to the oncoming traffic to pass. I am not very far from the roundabout but it might take another good 5 minutes before I can cruise freely...

My thoughts started wandering as I gazed back to my watch, rather impatiently, I could not help but stare at the seconds hand rythmically ticking away. The movements of the minutes hand and the hour hand are not obvious to the naked eye like a seconds hand, I quipped. Suddenly, the thought of time ticking away came to me...Wow!! The time that ticks away is not going to come back. The thought of passing time started growing on in my mind as the seconds ticked by. We are all rushing like the seconds hand of my watch, never knowing when our time runs out. It's a mad rush from dawn to dusk, we wake up, get ready, make ourselves up, go through our 9-5 jobs or whatever our day jobs, thinking that it is going to be the same till the end of time. One day this mad rush is going to come to a grinding halt, the time will come when the curtains go down on me and the guy next to me, the woman next to that guy, the arab guy behind me....The clock will tick on, what all I see around me will come to passe one day, that's the only certain thing in front of me right now, right at this moment. The sun will exhaust it's seemingly vast amounts of resources and will become blackhole eventually, we all will become fossils, I will be dead and gone, so are my wife, my kids and my grandkids and so on.....Everything that's around me should come to passe....including me...The realisation hit me hard..I looked my left hand resting on the steering wheel...oh...all of these will disappear, turn in to elements one day...the time will tick away and everything must come to passe....

Honk....Honk....the Arab in the four wheel drive behind me woke me up from my momentary wanderings, the traffic has started moving again, it could have been a second when I wandered off...but that moment too has come to passe. I pressed on the accelarator to catch up with the rest of the traffic....Yeah, everything in life should come to passe!!