‘And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation’
--KHALIL GIBRAN (The Prophet)
The aura of sadness dawned in once again with the rays of the descending scarlet sun, invading the room through the front window at once in a stroke. The sun, once again shifting its imploding face to illuminate the other hemisphere, rendering us hopeless yet again, adding to her listlessness. The lambent rays on her forlorn face would not comfort her in the least, instead it appeared as if her face was glowing to incinerate with the gleam of the setting sun, as she inertly lay in her bed.
Sitting next to her bed on a swivel chair, I could spot her watery eyes, suggestive of the itchiness caused by the direct exposure to the shaft of light. Standing up from my seat I walked to the window, drawing the curtains over in order to block the entry of light, wishing earnestly that could it not be possible to block death in a similar way, with the shifting light could I not shift the appointed time.
Taking my seat I looked at her troubled face, her infuriating eyes, debilitated body exuding warmth beneath the fluffy duvet, exhausted of floundering from one hospital to the other for over a couple of years now, battling death, she allowed her excruciating mental distress to physically impair her, dominating her physical well-being and now the doctors too had given up all hope, declaring her terminally ill.
Just a few days before on her repeated importunity we had to shift her back from the hospital to her apartment where she had willed to spend her final moments, after all this was a place she could proudly call her own. This maisonette, that she had with utmost care adorned intricately over the years with the hangings of memories , wind-chimes of laughter, panoramic joviality embellishing the vibrant walls, now only this was her prime consolation for her retiring soul ; moreover the doctors did not find expediency in keeping a ward of the hospital occupied for such a conjectural indefinite time period only for a ‘hopeless’ and ‘irremediable’ case, precisely apt veritable locution to delineate her existing predicament, for how could any drug, pills or herb, no matter how efficacious be of any avail to cure her when she herself did not wish to live! For what appeared as a ray of hope to us, seemed to only ignite her yearning for death, as if enraptured by the tryst she itched over the chase. And now she was on her death-bed, waiting with alacrity for the final moments that would lead the steps for the ethereal transition into some arcane world that would ease her off the acute pain and relentless suffering of this world that she had been accustomed to, after that cursed night of estrangement that had rendered her wretched and harshly dejected.
As all the doors shut on us, one after the other, the only sensible thing left for us to do was to allow her depart in peace, and thus we also appointed a nurse to look after her needs. Her bedroom metamorphosing into more of an ‘ICU’ (Intensive care unit), had been equipped with contraptions and machines to monitor her cardiac activity, pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature and respiration rate. On her side-tables lay scattered piles of medicines, syringes, nostrums, analgesics and certain anti-pyretics. Next to the upper corner of her bed, stood a long iron stand for clamping the drip-feed that was being administered directly into her blood, as she had refused ingesting any solid foods.
All day she would snuggle in the bed, muffling up the fuzzy duvet around her body. She would recurrently alternate her glances between me and the door, perhaps this was the only movement she made, that would suffice to divulge her last wish in her beseeching eyes for me to read.
Burning from high fever since a couple of days, her cerise body enervated in a way yet her heart had reconciled with her inevitable fate, her sublime soul wanting to set free from the ravages of temporal transience. As I caress her rubicund cheeks, I am amazed at the intensity of heat exuded, perchance the heart has engrossed a vast desert of passion and suffering, annihilating within, that prompts me to recall that peculiar, eerie night when I was sleeping on a couch in the ward in which she had been admitted. And breaking the covenant with her slumber, she suddenly got up in the middle of the night, hysterically uttering something abstruse for my mind to comprehend. She then went on to narrate the apparition she had that night, about her nearing end, all the while perpetuating an idiosyncratic grin with a hint of mystifying exultation, flickering deep in her eyes, which of course was disturbing that for an instance my blustering rationality had been fuddled and I was cold for some minutes. But regaining my composure somehow, I lulled her back to sleep, undermining her premonition for some bad dream.
But that night a part of me was convinced that she did not long to live or as I put it: she did not have a purpose to live.
But who could make her senile parents to discern that their beloved daughter was going to forsake them soon. Her parents had emptied their bank balance on travels to many counselors, doctors and priests and now after such an arduous venture that yielded no result ,they preferred to sit penitently in the adjacent room, refraining from seeing the pitiable sight of their only daughter, suffering from such torturous tribulation. Her mother snivelled day and night, while her father consoled her with false hope but somewhere both realized that they would soon lose their ‘Apple of the eye’ in a matter of days or may be hours, promptly accepted or not, was hardly any clause of stipulation in the divine ordinance, given the helpless yet self-assuring nature of humans.
Not that I did not want to save her but she is too good a human to bear this ordeal that is destined to slowly steal away her breaths. She always deserved a life of honour and dignity- yes, she could have started fresh all over again, if only she would have listened to me once- just once!
Now as I reminisce her life, how exuberant and contented she looked with him. Both were extremely devoted towards each other, cheerfully radiating the warmth and tenderness of their strong bond. His adorable face glimmered in her ochre eyes and her laughing timbre resounded in his speech; both looked perfect but together! Then one fateful day, he walked away form her, distancing himself from her…. forever and everything changed; the world turned upside-down for her and since then she has never been in fine fettle; the estrangement shattered her to the core, forcing her into abysmal trauma and she never recovered.
The vehement passion of wilderness enfeebled her that even today as we count on the seconds, all that engraved on her heart is his memories and she is vulnerable to nothing but to his requiting love, for she has been too much used to this separation now, more than that, the requiting acclaim from him that she hopes for in her silent reverence, merely a self-delusion to avert from despondency, to this day passively consumes her from within.
With such endearing love even the cruelest heart will melt like wax, but he did not. Thus despising her burning fervour, she longed for death believing it for a better choice than that of scrambling with a life void of him.
Being half absorbed in these thoughts, my self cogitation was ruffled at what appeared to be a fretful sight when I looked at her face. Her forehead had just started to glisten with sweat bead seeping out and in a matter of seconds she was sweating profusely. Anticipating my apprehensions of the presage, I immediately called out to the nurse who scurried in the next minute. My raucous screech was enough to hassle her parents, who dashed in the room before the nurse. The nurse perusing the screen that monitored her cardiac activity nodded in disapprobation, clicking her tongue, she sighed.
In the next blink her breathing grew heavier adding to our anxiety; amid all the bedlam as I was set motionless, I noticed a drop of tear slip out of her distended eyes, smoothly trickling down her face, perhaps finally a comfort for her smouldering cheeks, manifest from the peaceful, mystifying and everlasting smile that concomitantly prevailed on her lips, indicative of some last wish that had been just fulfilled finally as she unremittingly stared at the door, her eyes fixed, did not blink. It felt as if time protracted to eternity and some cherubic, placid air filled in the room bewildering my senses to stupor. Naturally following the direction of her gaze, my head turned towards the door. As I shifted my gaze towards the door, my mouth fell ajar and my body froze, entirely benumbed by what I saw rather whom I saw.
Yes- it was him! He stood at the door as I let out a wistful sigh, glancing at his complacent face; in the backdrop, I could hear the repetitive beeps of the monitor and the nurse conversing something with her parents. But in harmony with her focus, my attention too was fixed at his face. The fraught insurgency soon abated his complacency and the next second tears trickled down his face- possibly her fire had been watered and doused now. But on his face too that mystifying, placid, gratifying smile, gently blossomed like her. I again turned my face towards her, and she smiled…. she was still smiling at peace, her one hand in her mother’s hands, her father standing besides her, stroking her disheveled hair, their eyes moist.
The inexplicable blend of emotions was confounding us.
I firmly held her other hand, she was cold now. Apprehensive of the appointed time I glanced at the monitor and the nurse’s words resonated in my ears, “She is sinking!”
Tears streamed down her parents’ face in a surge.
“The blood pressure is dropping”, said the nurse.
The ephemeral speediness at which everything was happening made it difficult for anyone to move. I rubbed her hand in a vain attempt, at the same time on tenterhooks I alternated my fleeting looks between him and her; he had not moved an inch inwards, standing still at the door with moist eyes but the same enigmatic smile persisted on his lips like her; yet his tense face was the answer to her prayers and requital of her patience.
The uninterrupted beep of the monitor grasped my attention the next moment, as I saw the green wavy lines dwindle and subside into a green flat line.
“She is gone!” the nurse vociferated as if we did not fathom the moment.
A distinctive ambience of silence pervaded in the room where just before a minute she was gasping for breaths.
He fell onto his knees, as a clamorous wail ensnared the room. I looked at her cadaverous, pallid face, relieved off the agony and pain, as tears rolled down my wan face and she at peace- still smiled!
Uss aakhri nazar mai ajab dard tha Munír
Jaaney ka uskey ranjj mujhe ummr bhar raha
—Munír Niyazi
“That inexplicable melancholy flickering deep in that final gaze
The poignancy of that valediction so ensnared me for life!”
-SANA SHAH
