The humid air on July 20th was heavy and suffocating, just as it always was after a July rain. At 6:30 PM, the sun was about to set as she walked the familiar road back home. The sky was a breathtaking canvas of three shades: misty orange, blue, and peach.

But her mind was suffocating too, filled with familiar thoughts: the regret of a past she couldn’t change and the fear of a future she couldn’t control. Walking always soothed her soul, though not her mind.

Every day, she passed the same old tree, its roots planted outside the residence of an 18th-century legend. The house stood stark white against the busy road, but nobody offered it a glance in their hurried lives. The sky’s soothing colors offered a temporary escape. As usual, two or three rickshaws—chingchis—slowed down, their drivers asking if she needed a ride. She said no, but they insisted, lingering just to stare—like so many men in this society. Then, a biker pulled up, asked a vulgar question, and sped off. She walked faster, a sense of urgency propelling her forward.

Suddenly, her thoughts turned to an old woman struggling to cross the busy road. For a moment, the woman was the center of her attention—a tiny, fragile figure battling the traffic. Then, she reached the other side and disappeared. In that instant, a realization struck Sanober:

This is the present.
A moment that vanishes in an instant.
No one bothers with another’s present because everyone is consumed by their own.

She saw a man washing a car, silently wishing for a day off. She thought of a granddaughter visiting a sacred place for the first time with her grandmother—the granddaughter knowing nothing of the place, and the grandmother knowing nothing of the routes. Both were lost in their own worries but had faith in each other. The present is a different moment for everyone. People are so lost in their own moments that they don’t have time to notice anyone else’s.

She passed the marquee where her friend had been married just a few months ago. Her friend had since moved away, and now, another couple was inside, awaiting their own wedding ceremony. This, too, was the present. No one here cared about the people who celebrated their wedding yesterday—or months ago—or how their lives were unfolding now.

She thought about how she had walked this same road four years ago, on her way to her academy. But nobody remembered. Nobody cared. They had their own moments. Why, then, did she let the past, present, and future consume her? Who truly cared what she had done for the last 30 years, or what she would do in the next? Who cared how her present moments looked to others?

She looked up at the new moon, which always appeared just after Maghrib prayers. The moon had witnessed everything: the night of Imam Hussain in Karbala, the night Hazrat Ibrahim saw his dream, the night the Holy Prophet spent his first night after the death of Hazrat Khadija, and the night her own grandmother died. The moon had seen it all and would continue to see everything.

So, she decided to stop thinking—just like the road and the moon. They had witnessed incredible moments in history, both joyous and devastating, but they didn’t hold on to a single one.

And she?
She would be gone. She would leave the earth and the endless cycle of time—past, present, and future.
So, it’s better to live in the moment’s eternity.