affection

"Beautiful!", She said, as dawn cracked. A thick sheet of clouds hid the ground beneath, and it had tears from the rising jagged hills waking up to their morning elegance. "Just look at the colors, you! It's like someone has thrown random hues at the sky, and they all mix in a specific way and present themselves to us such that all of it makes sense. Like there is some hidden order in all this chaos, a greater purpose. Isn't it overwhelming?", She asked innocently.

I could only smile. To me, She, with all her charm, looked more beautiful than nature's art collection on display in front of us. She caught me smiling mischievously.

"What now, mister?", She asked.

"Haha, yes, yes. Of course. It is really beautiful. I am only slightly amused at the deep affection with which you were describing it.", I said.

"Affection? What does that mean?", She said, with a quizzical look on her face.

"You know, affection. Like, love. Gentle, tender, warm, fuzzy. Or, any other adjective that you may prefer."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, mister. I have deep affection for the rising sun. More than I have for you, perhaps. Deal with it."

"I never really got how people use that word, you know. I have been thinking about it."

"Which word? Affection?"

"Uhuh."

"What is there to think about it? Like you said, it is like love."

"Well, yes. Maybe not the word affection, then. But the word that follows it in standard use - 'for'."

"For?! Now for what do you have a problem with for, now?"

The sun was up now, the morning brighter. It seemed like everything around us was getting off their beds, with ruffled hair, rubbing their eyes, in order to get ready to jump into action for a long, eventful day ahead. I took a deep breath, the fresh morning air acting like a stimulant.

"See", I began, with a demeanor of being about to say something really profound, "I think the word 'affection' is derived from 'to affect'. With that assumption, saying that one has affection for something, or someone, becomes grammatically incorrect. Because the effect of the affect is really on the self."

She turned to look away from me trying to hide her smile's genesis, into the far-away hills, which looked like they were getting all dressed up to leave for work.

I continued, "Whether I have affection for you or not, is really for you to decide. All I can know on my own really is whether I have affection from you, or, to put it reversely, whether you have affection for me. It works the other way round. So yes, when someone says that they have affection for someone, or something, they really mean that they have affection from them. You know, for that matter, every person I have met in my life, and each of my experiences with them has contributed to what I am at this moment, in however small, little way. All of that has led me to now. I have affection from all of them, really. There is no denying that."

She turned to look at me, smiling. After an extended pause, she said, "For once, you make some sense, mister."

"Haha, err, thank you?", I said casually.

"I think I understand now what you meant earlier."

I smiled. "I read a story some time ago. I want to recite a few lines from it which I really loved -

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

It got me thinking. We have everyone's affection, afterall. Without us, or them, knowing it all the time. There is so much love in the world, and we fail to acknowledge it."

The clouds had started to thin, and everything around us was wide awake, ready, raring to go.

She grinned, now. "I will acknowledge it for you, mister. I have deep affection from you."

I laughed.

We turned around to go back home.