Notes

The moment she stepped into the small airplane, she realized her fate was sealed. In between the multitude of sounds and emotions, all Jamie could think about is falling. Like a water droplet into the sea. She was terrified. Yet again, there was a sense of excitement in her. The idea of falling into the void, "l'appel du vide", as the French say, scared yet fascinated her. She sat there and waited in fear and terror. Until, she heard a sound; and the door of the airplane opened. She realized it was the first time in her life she was on an airplane with the freaking door open. Looking down into the void, there was a feeling of insignificance all over her face. She approached the edge of the plane and all of sudden she was flying. Not plunging to her death. Flying. It was the most blissful experience of her life. As she was falling down from 14,000 feet, she wasn't scared. In fact, she started wondering why she had been scared the entire time. There was no danger, she was on the airplane, perfectly safe yet terrified. Then she was falling from the sky and she was not scared at all. The point of maximum danger was the point of minimum fear.

The Carnaval starts in 20 minutes. You are standing right there in the middle of the most chaotic urban setting you could possibly imagine. The crowds of people are already there and cheering. The smells, the sounds, the atmosphere everything is extremely festive. All of sudden, there was a loud "bang". A "bang" louder than all of the other sounds combined. You look to your feet but you can't see it clearly. Is it there anyway? Where else would your feet be? I mean they are your feet anyway, wherever you go they do too.
You start trying to contemplate what exactly is happening to you. But suddenly you wake up only to realize your feet still isn't there. What would have been a dream vacation has just turned into a holiday nightmare. The carnival of Rio has been bombed and you are just right in the middle of it. At least, half of you.

They were running tirelessly through the forest, trying to get to the very edge of the cliff. They did their best to avoid the multitude of trees and bushes along the way. They even cheered and congratulated each other every now and then. Of course, they had their shortcomings and made mistakes. A stumble here and there and occasionally a fall. But they were again back on their way delicately avoiding the trees of the heavily wooded forest.
Life is like a heavily wooded forest. It has many obstacles along the way. But you don't just cut it just like you don't cut down the entire forest to get through it. Yet people are thinking in a different way. It never crossed their mind what happens once they reach the edge of that cliff. Do they jump? Or do they sit there and gaze? They think of life as a journey, a pilgrimage that has a serious purpose at the end and the thing is to get to that end, success or maybe heaven after they are dead. But, they missed the point the whole way down the line. It was a musical thing and they were supposed to sing and dance while the music was being played.