The Lone Woman and her Son

Her head rested on the on a make-shift pillow of a bag of clothes. Her eyes silently stared out, watching helplessly, knowing that right now, she has done all she could. Her son silently lay on the hospital bed. A needle protruded from his vein and an IV drip was connected to it. For the time being, he was asleep. A large plastic bag hung from the bed railing with a pipe connected to his body. She would have to call the hospital workers to empty it soon. 

Taking care of her adult son made her realise how old she was. The grey strands of hair were pulled back on her head and always felt like they were just there, but all this worry, all this hassle seemed to be taking a toll on her age. Gautam, that was the name she gave her poor fool. Once, what seemed ages ago, he had plenty of friends. Then, in time, from an occasional alcoholic to a constant one, he pushed people away from him and now only she remained. 

His liver was weak, crushed by the constant alcohol. Every night, she lay in a room that was dominated by men. The patients were men and the ones who stayed overnight were men. My husband would have never allowed me to do this. A memory of handsome man came to her mind.  He would be disappointed in his son, maybe in her too for the way things turned out. Then, she recollect, ‘the sins of our children are not our own, it is theirs alone’. Was it that man from AA who told her that? She failed to remember. 

Gautam was her son and she was all he had. No one would come to help up, but she would always be there, she promised herself. 

“Aaaaa...”, he began softly moaning as his eyes flicked out from his sleep. The pain was back. Her feet swung off the bench she lay on and she stepped towards him. Her thumb jabbed down the button, calling a nurse, but she knew that was useless. Until the dialysis was done, her son would be in pain.  

As both of them waited, the mother opened her mouth and softly began humming a tune. Perhaps a tune will reach out to him and ease his sufferings. 

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The old man in the Hospital

The needle was stuck in his arm for three days and through it drugs and medication was pumped in. Even now a pipe was stuck in the needle and liquid poured forth, pushing inside his vein and entering his blood stream.  Just like blood thickens to stop the bleeding of an open wound, so did the same thing happen and now the old man could not move his wrist without pain shooting through his arm. The doctors came and went, barely speaking to him. Always their stethoscope  hung around their neck and like some ritual they learnt in school, all of them would do the same thing.

The cold metal would press against his chest and back, and then they would ask him to breath. They would mutter a few words, speak to the nurse and vanish. 

Being bedridden the whole day was, without a doubt, a waste of time, a waste of a week. The fields back home awaited him and that’s where he deserved to be; labouring with the sickle, digging the mud, planting the seeds and chopping of the weeds. 

Yet, for no reason at all, he was tied here, drugs being pumped into his body. 

The food that is the worst part of a hospital, the moment he lifted that gruel to his mouth, he just knew it. Nutrition is the most important to getting better, but how can one get better if the food is tasteless, saltless and just plain unappetising. The hospital food was just plain horrible. Sometimes, for the old man, it was just so bad that his stomach rejected it and threatened to vomit it out. 

Imagine, eating the same dal four days in a row, day and night, that was the hospital food. 

The drip was almost over. His fingers crawled to the switch near his head and pressed it. From the open door, his ears picked up the blaring of the alarm at the nurse’s station. Soon enough, one of them entered the room, turned a knob on the pipe and pulled it out. 

The nurses here were the only ones who were worth a damn, but even they did not always respond promptly to the ring. They too were at times over burdened with the number of patients in the hospital. 

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Mother at the Counter

She was a single parent on at the ticket counter. One child tugged at her hand, while the small one hugged her shoulder as her hand wrapped around him for support. Her youngest child sucked his thumb while staring out at the strange world around him. The elder son who stood on his two feet was tired of waiting here and continuously tugged and pulled his mother’s arm, but his attempts only seemed to annoy the mother. She sharply looked at him, try to communicate a message across, a message to stop tugging and one of patience. He glance at her and stopped his tugging for a moment. 

The line moved forward and the family moved with it. The mother dragged the large trolley bag which was taller than her eldest son. Passengers and the general public starred glancing at her. All of them probably asking themselves the same questions – Where was the husband? Why wasn’t the husband here? 

However, if the mother hassled by such looks, she did not show it, she just hugged onto her child. The mother’s eldest son threatened to run off and she wanted to let him, but her fingers grabbed him arm. Without another pair of eyes she would rather not risk him running around a station full of strangers. 

Now, he was the one glaring at her with his small eyes. He tried to jerk his hand free of his mother’s grip, but she did not let go and neither did she offer her son any explanation for her action.  

The line moved forward and from the purse that hung around her shoulder, the mother extracted some notes. She paid the ticket counter and got the tickets. 


She began tugging the big trolley bag as the crowd parted in front of her, making way. The eldest child was swiftly stepping ahead and then stopping, waiting for his mother to keep up. Then for the mother, came the dreaded stairs which she had to struggle down with the humongous bag. 

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The Doorway: Part II

She was dead, her body floated through. The last few flashes of her life had been the most painful. The ganging up, the violation and then her ultimate demise. Her phantom floated there in the darkness with no heartbeat, just a spirit.

Her body was milky transparent white and she hovered in darkness. Then, a large doorway appeared, it shone bright for a moment before the shine vanished. The, she could see the door clearly. It was carved of stone in a semi-circular manner. There were intricate designs on it.

Aware of her body float, she began to wade her hand through the darkness and swim to the door. It cracked open. A line appeared in the middle of the door and slowly, the door parted open. What she saw in there horrified her.

A black mound of matter engulfed the insides of the door. There were black, dark shadow hands that started extending from the door. First, there five, then ten, twenty, thirty, forty and then she lost count. Her feet kicked and struggled to push herself behind away from the mass of hands. Her efforts were fruitless. They latched onto her, spreading their black fingers onto her body and they pulled her to the door.

There was nothing she could grab onto to stop them. Gently she was tugged into the black mass. However, her horror was far from over. Eyes, millions of eyes seemed to open in this black mass.

“She has been hurt”, a mouth suddenly appeared.

“Yes, she has been gravely injured”, another mouth appeared.

Then a hundred of mouth appeared on the black mass. “We do not deserve her”, they said in unison and her body was pushed away. The doors closed slowly faded away into the darkness.

Instead, another door appeared behind her. A single simple rectangle door which swung open and bright light poured forth as some unseen force pulled her in.

***

Anita had lived a full life, aged and then died. Her milky body floated in the darkness. The large doorway appeared and as it opened up, a growing swell of dark hands stretched out and grabbed her. Her legs kicked the darkness trying to fight against the pull, but it was of no use.

The million of eyes stared at her. Then a mouth appeared. “She has done no wrong”.

“Yet, she called and supported for the death of many”, spoke another mouth.

“She has not raised a hand on anybody”, spoke another mouth.

“She called for the death of many”, the same mouth repeated.

“She had done no wrong”, spoke the mouths in union, all expect one.

The hands let her go and she floated back into the darkness as the door faded away.

***

The executioner floated in the darkness. His time on earth was up and his frail body gave way. The doors appeared in the darkness and the hands grabbed him. He did not resist, he did not fight against the hands. The millions of eyes stared at him and he did not shy away from the look, instead he dully stared back.

“This one has killed”, spoke a mouth.

“Not once, but many, many time”, another mouth appeared from the black mass.

“But he did not kill of his own accord, sometimes a nation demanded it, sometimes it was an order passed from above”, a mouth pointed out.

“Aye, judgment made by others which he executes”, one mouth explained.

“It is no matter, his soul is damaged. He belongs to us”.


Like slippery liquid, the hands enveloped the executioner’s body, bringing him closer and before he could realise it, his pale milky translucent body was absorbed by the black mass.  

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The Doorway: Part I

The mob cried for blood with their platcards and their screams, and you can’t forget their anger. “Death to the murderer, death to the killer, death to the rapist”, they chanted out. It was a large crowd which could almost as large as the city itself, except for the few thousand more of citizens who did not bother with the protests. “We demand death for his crimes”, cried one of the protestors to a journalist’s camera.

Woosh

The gushing of water sounded out forcefully, slamming into the protestors who were put the city to a standstill. A police force as large, as the protestors, charged into them with their batons and shields. A police force ordered to charge on peaceful, angry protestors by incompetent leaders.

A child raped and murdered that’s what got the crowd gathered here. The anger and frustration piled up against people who thought they could get away because the lazy system allowed them to get away.

“We must have justice”, cried the television channels. However, while the city radiated of anger, the rest of the country slept, trying to work their through life, like they always do.

***

Anita stood among these protestors, banner in hand, her mouth wide open and her vocal scream out her cause, her ideals. She was here to say enough was enough, enough for those cat calls, enough of being taken advantage off, enough of being harassed and enough of a repressive culture. And with her calls, came the demand for the death of murderer. Her platcard boldly read, ‘An eye of an eye’.

***

Rahul walked tirelessly for the past few hours on the hospital corridor, trying to sooth his worry while his ears were alert for the slightest sound of footsteps, of news on what happened to his child. His wife sat on the metal bench, her body gently arching back and forth, her way of dealing of the wait.

Walking, waiting for the news, it was killing him. He wanted to do something.. like... like... running back to his house and pulling out his service revolver. He did not deserve this, his child did not deserve this. Yet, right now, she was knocking on heaven’s door.

Through his mind, the most violent images flashed through. Images of hammering down a brick wall, strangling the life out of a blurred face, his hands swing down, clutching the hammer and the sickening sound of crunch.


This would not be the first time he killed, it changed him, he could take the damage to his soul.

[No, I'm not done, I still have a point to make, please read The Doorway Part II here]

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Pulling the Lever

My fingers pulled the black mask over his face. If he was afraid, he did not show it in his expression, but I recognized the stench of fear. It was in his eyes, it was always in their eyes. My fingers felt his skin shiver under the mask as the coarse rope was put over his neck.  It drooped around his neck exactly like I wanted. The loop was perfectly calibrated for his size and would give him a clean death. There was a small group of people, unusually sitting in silence. A few people sobbed quietly and a handkerchief constantly wiped the trickles of tears off their cheek. They were not crying for his loss, I knew that, they were crying because of what he took from them. Only the very brave, or a mother came to shed a tear for him. 

Sometimes, they are rapists, child fuckers, serial psychopaths, gangsters, but they all had one thing in common, they were murderers. My hand tightened around the lever. A judgement in a court was made and now this man’s final judgement would be made by me. Even so, many don’t realise it, but it is truly a host of judgments that start long before the court’s mallet smashes down. It’s the media, it’s the mob, it’s his victims, it’s the politician all there, and then I make the final judgement... no, not the final judgement, the second last judgement. The final judgement will be made by God. 

The usual ritual was carried out. He was asked to give his last words. He grunted, a last attempt to have the last laugh. Even in that I could smell his fear of the unknown, yet the fury in everyone’s faces showed they saw it as defiance. Some scream out for mercy to live, some would softly beg for the victim’s forgiveness, but all of them had the same fear of the unknown of death. 

The Prison Guard nodded his head. In my mind I said a small prayer for him, my lungs pulled in a deep breath, my chest feel the immense weight press on it and my hand tugged the lever. The flap of the wooden platform swung open. His body began falling through it, until the rope gave a jerk, his neck snapped and the murderer was dead. 

There his body stood swinging silently like a pendulum of a clock. Some howled, some looked hollowly on and some could not even look at what once was a living being. 

Killing a person changes you, it changed me and with every life I take I fall deeper into an abyss. 

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The Funeral Band

A drummer, a trumpeter and a jazz player make up the band. Being a musician is not a full time job for them. It is something that they do part time, but when time calls, they drop everything and band together for their job. They have a dressed code for this job, a white shirt and black pants, always a white shirt and black pants, never changing, always constant. For what they do, is play soothing music to help those bid farewells to their loved ones. From the house to the church, they blow their trumpet and beat their drum, proclaiming to the whole world, the death of someone’s loved one.

The trumpet blows in a long drone, while the drum beats every two seconds. It is only when coffin in lifted into the grave that the beat picks up, trying to remind people, not to moan, but to celebrate for their loved one has passed onto the next life.

Just as death comes on unexpectedly, with no warning, they too are expected to drop everything and join in the moaning of the family. The service they offer is inexpensive, but it is not for the money that they do it. It is because, someone has to play music to bid adieu to the dead with solemn, beautiful music.   

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