Life's like this

Life trundles along the gray plateaus of the daily, avoiding the dark and sunken valleys of despair and missing the tall shimmering hillocks of happiness. There is a path that it follows amidst these, on this endless gray sea of slate. The path which for the most part is by itself, is intersected every once in a while by other paths and more often than not, takes sharp turns into the aforementioned valleys. Life has to be careful, for there are never any signposts put up in advance, to warn it of such things. "Conniving sod!" it says, its irritation directed towards the one who designed all of this. Surprises almost seem to be built in - a feature, instead of a bug.

And every once in a rare while, along the dusty path, are glimpses of what-may-be's. Having stopped now, at one of these, it pauses to look upon the what-may-be. And a moment later it ambles on, wondering about mirages.