The gentle breeze blows softly across her pale face and through her ebony hair. Her blood red lips are slightly parted, like she wants to say something... but the pain that runs like fury in her veins is too strong. Her heart won’t beat anymore, her heartbeat is lost, and can’t be found. You may wait and wait for the tears to fall but they won’t. She’s frozen. The pain she feels is beyond all the emotion in the world. She’s lost everything she ever owned, everything she ever wanted, everything she ever needed.
The searing pain that shoots through my bloodied veins pales in comparison to the pain of hearing my heart shatter. The silence echoes my horrified shriek which is soon lost in the clutter of the voices in the house. The streetlamp throws a soft eerie glow on his handsome face and my hand aches to trace the beautiful contours of the face that are forever etched in my mind. Memories of us keep resurfacing in my vacant mind and my breath catches in my throat with each memory hitting me harder and stronger.
His blood slowly trickles down my hands as small droplets begin to form an indelible imprint on my white gown. The world around me is thrown into darkness as his smouldering blue eyes pierce mine with an eerie precision. His teeth shine under the intense scrutiny of the light and his skin glows like the snow he lies in. Even in death, his beauty mesmerizes me... I can see his soul, so pure, so clean, white, pale, beautiful.
The blood flows steadily from his wounded heart towards me, like a little rivulet amidst the white snow. I wish to move, to save the last vestiges of him from destruction, to save my beautiful white wedding dress which he bought for me, but I can’t. I don’t see a reason to move. I could stay here all night, my bare feet freezing in the bloodied snow, and yet, I don’t want to lose sight of him. His arms are wide open, beckoning me to go closer. And I move, I move towards the man who I love, unable to bear the separation for so long. The veil hangs precariously over my unsteady head. I sit down next to him, his body still warm from having breathed thirty minutes ago. I lay my head on his bloody chest and lose myself to the memories of him. I will lay in the snow till dawn, till I am once again united with him... this time, forever.
The sirens ring loudly, announcing their arrival. She is oblivious to the policeman rapidly shaking her body, trying to elucidate a response from her. She is oblivious to the nurse who tries to unclasp her hand from his to check her pulse. She is oblivious to her mother kneeling beside her and pleading her to let go. She refuses to let go of him, to lose contact with him again. She had almost succumbed to the claws of the biting cold, she could feel herself suspended somewhere between life and death. And this time, she didn’t want to let go, she was nearly there, with him. She knew she could make it, she wanted to.
It isn’t cold anymore. In fact, it’s unbearably warm. It’s like hell. I hear no more sirens, I hear no more voices, I can’t hear the cacophonous voices crying and screaming at the injustice of it. Maybe it is over indeed.
I struggle to open my eyes against the harsh glare of the light. Suddenly, it’s falling into place. It’s not over yet, I’m alive, in the hospital, here, without him. I open my mouth to call out to someone but there’s a horrendous tube emerging from my throat that disallows me from talking. My throat feels parched and my mind spins into a vortex. The machine beeps erratically and I close my eyes. I can’t look anymore, I can’t imagine a world without him and his lingering presence. My diamond ring is gone and so is my beautiful wedding dress. I am left with nothing that was ours. All of it is gone... except for the memories.
She looks beautiful when she is lost in her reveries. Her hazel eyes stare vacantly at the flowers that have engulfed the room. Her hands lay lifeless by her sides. And yet, there is an ephemeral beauty when a faint glimmer of a smile lights her face up... no doubt, at the thought of him. She has been here for almost 5 days but time is something that isn’t important to her anymore. She can spend days in one place, thinking of their past, and the future that could never be.
I can feel my mother rest her hand on my cold forehead. I open my eyes, just a little to see tears escaping her eyes. The strongest person in my little world is crumbling and there is nothing left in me to stop her. I feel hollow inside, like a part of me was snatched away cruelly... the most integral part of me. My heart is beating, but it has no reason to beat. I keep breathing, but each breath augments the pain. My mind keeps racing back to the blood, the snow, his cold eyes, his chest throwing out copious amounts of blood, the blood, the blood, the blood.
The sight of his body convulsing with terror, his eyes bulging with pain and his lips trembling with fear haunt every waking moment. I wish to run away from those gruesome images of his death, of the happy memories I made with him... but they chase me like my shadow. My shadow. Yes, these memories will now be my only shadow, my sole companion, the closest I can be to him.
My head reverberates with his vows of love, of eternal togetherness and fidelity. Broken, just like my heart. The IV drips noiselessly by my side, a consistent and pervasive drip-drip-drip. An inexplicable rage grows inside me at an alarming rate. I’m overcome with an overwhelming desire to smash all that I behold in my vision. I struggle to get up, my feet feeling strangely numb despite the warm atmosphere. My hand gropes around fruitlessly for a support and I stumble around blindly as my vision slowly fades in and out. I lean onto a wall, and slide down... and down.
She’s unconscious once more. Her hair a veritable mess around her frail shoulders. The hospital gown hangs like a coat on her rapidly disappearing frame. The IV has been vilely pulled out of her vein and the blood flows through the small incision in her hand. Her face loses the slightest hint of colour and her heart slows down to an erratic and rapidly fading thump-thump-thump. The nurse walks into the room, a disinterested air surrounds her as she walks towards the tray to assimilate the drugs for the injection. She looks around... something seems to be amiss. This is when she notices the patient’s body slumped in the corner of the room, a pool of blood having soaked her clothes.
It’s been 30 dreadful days since I lost my reason to live. I walk around my home aimlessly, like a ghost. I frantically look for the last remnants of my beloved in every room, in every conceivable place and yet, it is a futile search. My mother did a fairly effective job of trying to clean my life up for me. All the photo frames are gone and are replaced with happy pictures of dogs and cats... inane things which will supposedly make the day seem brighter.
The clothes lay in heaps around me. I haven’t eaten in days. Suddenly, the idea of death seems futile. My cob-webbed mind suddenly unravels and I decide to get a grip on myself. He wouldn’t want me to be like this. He wouldn’t want me to wear his dirty grey flannel pyjamas and mope around the house. I will fulfil his last wish, the last words that escaped his beautiful lips before he succumbed to death. “Remain happy, no matter what. For me, just for me.”
The sun slowly highlights her now gaunt face yet indomitable as she steps out of her little house. Her beautiful diamond ring sparkles in the mesmerising sunlight. Her jaw is set with determination, she wishes to overcome the loss of her love. He was always hers, and she will always be his. But she wants to live, he made her promise she would. She will make it, she will make it till the very end... until she is united with him again... forever.
Shadows
Sometimes, tomorrow never comes.
It's difficult to imagine what ran through 14 year old Ojas Mehta's mind as he looked head on into the jaws of death. The unpredictability of it all might have engulfed him at that very moment. Death has always been the only constant in this constantly changing race called life. Morbid as it may seem, death is our ultimate destination. It is difficult to foresee the future, to map every coming minute of your life. Sometimes, you curse the unpredictability of life. But a minute away from death, you'd wish that you had had a prior warning, a hint maybe to say a final goodbye to all your loved ones.
I wouldn't want to say so much and sound like an ignorant fool by saying that I can pretend to feel the tumult of tremendous emotions that flit through the mind of a person so close to his imminent doom, but I can only assume what it feels like to be on the brink of darkness, slowing slipping into an ever-lasting unconsciousness called death.
I see people crumble in front of me, wanting Ojas to come back, just once. "Just once" they say. It's hard to fathom the emotional turbulence that they undergo, but I have felt it too. Death is said to liberate the good souls from this hell called earth. But no one deserves to let go of someone so dear that their heart wants to bleed. Did this so-called entity called God ever bother asking Ojas if he wanted his soul to be liberated from the shackles of human pain? I'm sure not, Ojas would never have said yes.
A death so close suddenly puts everything into a new perspective. Suddenly, I make a concentrated effort to tell mom and dad goodbye before I leave for school. Suddenly, I don't allow my best friends forget that I love them, even for a minute. Suddenly, I want Amogh to know that I love him dearly and will never leave him. Suddenly, I want my favourite teacher to know how much he means to me. Suddenly, I want to make my parents proud of me and I sit and study Psychology for 4 hours because I have a test the next day. And yet, I know, it's a strong intuition built on routine, that I will slip back into the careless me again, soon enough. I don't want to, and subconsciously, I'm hating myself for lapsing into the old routine.
He was 14 years old. 3 years younger than me. I can only imagine the agony that his parents went through during his 6 hours spent in the ICU. I don't want that happening to my parents. I can only imagine what the sweet little girl who secretly likes him felt like when she heard that he would not be breathing again. I don't want to be that girl. I can only imagine how his best friend felt when they had just fought the day before. I don't want to be that best friend.
Incidents like these make me want to be a better human, and I can only try. And hope that my end is not as tragic.
Rest In Peace, Ojas.