Dead end cowards!

There is something about a hand that is waiting for a death just around the corner. It doesn't require explanation of the tests of human relationships against a dying life.

A cold night, a young girl with dreams in her head stands before an aged 'profess-or' awaiting his approval of a signature on a govt.stamped paper. A signature that would formally ensure that in the event of her discontinuing a course, all monetary benefits of a scholarship would be refunded. The professor obviously saw before him both a young mind fairly intelligent  and perhaps a dying dad. He dangled his writing  pen and played on it with fingertips of hesitation between being a professor of education and a human coward of what was yet to be. The girl didn't require further explanation for she had got used to seeing cowards die many times for fear of her dying dad. She had watched many a coward that had sought a dad's counsel when alive and living shake from fear of further association when he became  a dad dying and dead.

That cold night when she walked back home with a cold wave across her heart, she realised a man is seldom defined by qualifications or position. Back home she didn't have to explain to a dying hand what she had faced. The dying hand just knew it too well the way her fingers tightened across his with the strength of  a determination that would defy destiny.  All he said was , "Be Bold. You will not just complete it, you will complete it brilliant!" His words did come true but he was nowhere around anymore to see her finish the race the way he dreamt it for her.

Across a well lit stage peopled with 'learned' men and women, the victory lay not in the shallowness of a system sanctioned rank but in the shame and hapless guilt in the eyes of a culture famished profess-or who hung his head when young footsteps paused a second before it walked across the stage. A second's pause that matched the hesitant fingers of human cowardice, a cold night ago.