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Yogesh had a habit of pausing mid-step, as if the world had said something puzzling and he was waiting for it to explain itself.

On a grey morning, standing at a crowded crossing, he watched people surge past him, faces tight, eyes elsewhere, shoulders angled like shields. A man shoved another for brushing his coat. A cyclist shouted at a pedestrian. Two strangers argued over something neither would remember by evening.

Yogesh didn’t move when the light turned green.

Instead, he thought: This is supposed to be civilisation.

The word felt heavy, overused, like a promise repeated so often that it had worn thin.

He had grown up hearing about love, compassion, understanding. These weren’t obscure ideas; they were everywhere, in speeches, books, prayers, ceremonies. They were written into the rules people proudly built around themselves. Codes of conduct. Laws. Ethics.

And yet, as Yogesh saw it, those same people bent those rules whenever it suited them. They spoke of fairness but guarded their own advantage. They praised kindness but practised convenience. Even generosity sometimes felt like a performance, carefully observed and quietly calculated.

He stepped off the pavement at last, walking slowly as the crowd flowed around him like water around a stone.

At home, the contradictions grew sharper.

He had seen relatives stop speaking over small disputes, inheritance, pride, words said too quickly and held onto for too long. He had seen apologies withheld like treasure, as though giving one away meant losing something vital.

“Respect,” they would say.

“Principle,” they would insist.

But to Yogesh, it often looked like ego dressed in better language.

The wider world offered no relief. News reports spoke of nations clashing, over borders, over beliefs, over histories that stretched back further than memory itself. Leaders stood before cameras and spoke of honour, of justice, of necessity. Meanwhile, ordinary people, people who might have shared meals, stories, laughter under different circumstances, were taught to see each other as enemies.

Yogesh found it difficult to understand.

If suffering is the same everywhere, he wondered, why is compassion not the same too?

It was during one of these thoughts that someone once called him an atheist.

The word had been said lightly at first, almost teasingly. But it stuck.

“You question everything,” they told him. “You don’t believe.”

Yogesh had tried to explain.

“I’m not rejecting belief,” he said. “I’m asking what it means.”

Because what troubled him most was not the existence of faith, it was how it was used. He had seen people argue in the name of God, divide themselves in the name of religion, and even harm others while claiming righteousness.

How, he wondered, could something meant to bring people closer end up pushing them further apart?

Yet despite everything, Yogesh couldn’t call himself an atheist. There was something in him, quiet but persistent, that resisted that label. Not certainty, not even faith in the traditional sense, but a kind of openness. A feeling that there might be something deeper, something true, buried beneath the noise people created.

One evening, as the sun dipped low and the sky softened into amber, Yogesh sat alone on a bench in a small, overlooked park. It wasn’t a remarkable place. The grass was uneven, the paint on the benches chipped. But it was quiet.

A child nearby stumbled while running, scraping their knee. For a moment, there was silence, and then tears.

Before Yogesh could react, another child, no older, walked over, knelt down, and offered a hand.

“It’s okay,” the child said simply.

No speeches. No rules. No expectations.

Just a small, instinctive act of kindness.

The crying stopped. The two children sat together, talking about something trivial, the moment already passing.

Yogesh watched them for a long time.

The world still seemed strange to him. The contradictions hadn’t vanished. People would continue to argue, to divide, to protect their egos behind carefully chosen words.

But as he sat there, he realised something that hadn’t quite formed before:

Maybe compassion wasn’t absent.

Maybe it was just… quieter.

Not found in grand declarations or rigid systems, but in small, unguarded moments, easily overlooked, easily dismissed, but undeniably real.

Yogesh leaned back against the bench, the weight in his chest easing just slightly.

He still had questions. He still struggled with what he saw around him. And others might still misunderstand him, still call him an atheist, still think he had lost something.

But perhaps, he thought, the search itself mattered.

Not for perfect answers, but for honest ones.

And maybe, just maybe, the world wasn’t entirely devoid of what it claimed to value.

Perhaps it simply required people willing to notice it, and, when they could, to choose it.

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Vocabulary Notes

Surge (verb/noun)
Meaning: To move suddenly and powerfully in a forward direction, often used to describe crowds or strong emotions.
Example: “Yogesh watched people surge past him, faces tight, eyes elsewhere…”
Similar words: rush, flood, swell, stream
Extra example: A wave of excitement surged through the audience as the performer stepped onto the stage.

Contradiction (noun)
Meaning: A situation in which two ideas, statements, or actions oppose or conflict with each other.
Example: “At home, the contradictions grew sharper.”
Similar words: inconsistency, conflict, paradox, clash, mismatch
Extra example: There is a clear contradiction between what he says about honesty and how he behaves.

Withheld (verb)
Meaning: To deliberately keep something back or refuse to give it, such as information, emotion, or an apology.
Example: “He had seen apologies withheld like treasure…”
Similar words: held back, restrained, suppressed, kept, denied
Extra example: She withheld her opinion during the meeting, choosing to listen instead.

Righteousness (noun)
Meaning: The belief that one’s actions or views are morally right, sometimes leading to a sense of moral superiority.
Example: “…harm others while claiming righteousness.”
Similar words: virtue, moral correctness, integrity, self-righteousness, justice
Extra example: His sense of righteousness made it difficult for him to accept that he might be wrong.

Instinctive (adjective)
Meaning: Done naturally and automatically, without conscious thought or reasoning.
Example: “Just a small, instinctive act of kindness.”
Similar words: natural, automatic, intuitive, innate, spontaneous
Extra example: Her instinctive reaction was to help the injured animal without hesitation.

Story written by SteveUK & ChatGPT.

Image created by ChatGPT.

CC Music: Drifting at 432 Hz – Unicorn Heads.

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