OPEN ARMS

It was seventeen years ago when I saw my father sit helplessly in front of the steering wheel. I must’ve been five, and he a man of wealth and happy life. The thought of that day hits me hard now. When I asked him why he was crying, that day he told me I was too young to understand. His hands slipped away from my tiny arms, and I never knew why.

I always hear people tell me I observe everything with the eye of a hawk. Is that why a scene that took place that long ago registered my mind with such perfection? My old man is sitting next to me, sipping his coffee and watching a lonely bird build a nest. They both had the same sense of emotions in their eyes, as though they felt a connection.

“Dad,” I tried to capture his attention from bird watching. “What happened to you seventeen years ago?”

He looked at me, and in my eyes he saw a ghost. His expression said otherwise.

“Hmm...’ He mumbled. “Why do you ask, Kenny?”

“I remember when you sat on the driver’s seat crying, and that just popped into my mind today.”

“Do you remember where we were?” he asked. I said I remembered a hospital sigh. “You remember a bit too much Kenny, your mother did too.”

My mother. I haven’t seen her for a long time, and all I knew about her was very little, and I never asked what happened.

“You were five years old, weren’t you?” he asked, and I nodded. “That day, I lost something that was precious to me and to you; your mother.” He sat silent for a moment, giving me some time to register the thought.

“What happened?” I asked, curious again.

“She took the wrong medicine, her heart rate dropped, and she bid us a farewell, only we were late to the party before she parted.”

“So you broke down and told me that I was too young to understand anything,” I replied.

“No, that wasn’t it. I didn’t shed a drop of tear. Not even a teardrop from heaven. I stood still, I looked petrified; and she, your mother, had the most peaceful smile. I didn’t cry because I knew she wouldn’t want that.

“Then what happened?”

“The doctors were too concerned about my reaction that they sent me to a therapist. I asked you to wait in the lobby of the hospital with a nurse.”

I had a souvenir from that day, a doctor’s mask they kept in a box at the end of the reception.

“I was hard to break, harder than a diamond. The doctor began his session, and his words were: ‘you will never see her again, Issac.’ I remained calm, and he continued: ‘no more slow dance under the fireworks, no more long drives with your son...’ I stopped him right there and asked him what he wanted. He wanted my reaction, and so I gave him mine: ‘The brain works for seven minutes after death. All the synapses finally go to sleep, and that’s when the person sees the things they want to see at last. I’m sure she had seen me smiling with my son when he was born, and that is enough for me. If she had lived to see my death, she would’ve been a mess with no one to comfort her but our son, and he would’ve been a mess too. Now? I can live peacefully knowing that the woman who loved me more than anyone did will never have to bear the pain of my funeral. That is fine by me, that is all I need to know for me to keep my emotions together.’ I shook his arms and left the room. But his words were alcohol. It took me some time to register what he said, and that broke me down and I cried.”

My dad smiled. He got up and left the chair, all while moving an inch closer to the window where the bird had began to build a nest. The bird and my father shared something, he and I knew it well.

After all the rise and fall in his life, he raised a son who wished to conquer the world, and he set me a world to conquer with nothing but love. I was made of the better half of my mother and my father; and I, a son, gained the courage to face anything with head held up high. He lived a world without a love he craved for. He lived after all odds. He lived, and so will I.  

It began with 'DEAR DIARY' followed by 'LAST WORDS'. Here is the end 'TO LIVE'. This can be considered as a short story trilogy. Enjoy.

DEAR DIARY:https://fearlesssinister.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=d7BONlQBAAA.FfwWBqcyy2tnwPNr7BnMiPlBNwQQlAxFY7PGolHZV8YZPE9ek7Jmb4tJTFKblealOgtY2vHzEsSjQv5TrhFL7A.YmdFDavcckez-vtKaW91hg&postId=4737329634189959473&type=POST

LAST WORDS: https://fearlesssinister.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=yeZQNlQBAAA.FfwWBqcyy2tnwPNr7BnMiPlBNwQQlAxFY7PGolHZV8ZrLcIUKUDTiZAHq5ZLQh1TCqOgQGM0ybtZDXZycqaSTw.24jx_EI9d77FZInfTCYf5A&postId=3560762637702979831&type=POST

TO LIVE.

It was the first thought that came to her as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in whose eastern corner it sat, and the tiny garden outside with its gnarled old red hibiscus and the half-grown mango tree they had planted together, all those would be gone as well. It was the strangest feeling ever. She had penned down those words in her diary she has been writing since day one of the year she thought at the night of new year’s that she would never forget. She never thought it would be so through such a memory.

She could hear his laughter now, though it had happened a few months ago. His half broken cricket bat sits by the corner of his wardrobe, where he hid it every evening after coming home late so that his Dad would never find out. Last day she had spotted him sitting there and holding it, reminiscing on all those days he was so angry he could beat his son with it; and now all he can do is laugh for the very thought and that angered him a bit in his heart. They hadn’t gone out of the house for a month now, and their dog Augie had been silence since his master’s departure. The weather has been treating them well, and they chose to ignore. ‘No more walks in the beach and swim in the pool without my son,’ she had made a note to herself. But hearing Augie whimper for the first time since he had been brought home broke the pact she made herself. It was time they all went out to greet the sun and wish the world a good day through their bad times.

“Vijay,” she mumbled, afraid of her husband’s reaction. “I think we should go out.”

“Without Ishan? I hope you don’t have a memory loss Daya. He is dead. Our son is dead.” He replied. “My son.”

“He was mine too,” she finally spoke up. “He was Augie’s master, and now he is whimpering and not eating well. I think he needs a day out, and believe me or not I am going even if you choose to stay within these four wretched walls.”

“These four wretched walls could’ve kept out son alive!” he broke down, letting all the pain he had held in all those days. “He would’ve been safe under our arms!”

“We couldn’t have chained him to this house and we definitely aren’t dumb to spoon feed him!”

“If we had been a little dumb then he would’ve been here now! I was dumb enough to marry you!” he yelled, though in the end he wished he hadn’t said that. Her stone cold stare sent a chill to his spine.

“Come on Augie,” she called out to the dog. As she turned to the door, she could feel someone embrace her from the behind. An embrace she had felt a million times, a tight one at the engagement party dance, a playful one with a tickle on the road trips when he would drive and she would guide, and a soft one at the night in hospital. She didn’t know where to categorise this.

“I miss him,” he spoke softly.

“I miss him too. Let’s go somewhere. Away from this house,” she pleaded. His hug grew tighter, and she took it as a yes.

20^th April, 2016

Dear Diary,

It has been a month since I’ve felt the pages in this book. It makes me shiver to touch the last page I wrote, for I get carried away to the night where Ishan realised his Mom never lied. As a young boy, maybe at an age of five, he used to ask me where heaven is. I told him it was some place where people that have done many good deeds over bad deeds go, so that they can see the people they love in happiness. “Is it scary there Ma?” he had asked. “No son, you see right here,” I had told him, touching at his heart. “Mommy and Daddy are right here wherever you go. And do you know what else is right there? Your good deeds. So whenever you feel alone, you’ll know we will be always here.”

I can imagine my son there looking at us, and for him I smile today. After a month or so, we went out of the house and to the beach, where Ishan loved to play his music. He always had a group of friends who played with him and had his back. As we walked on the sand with our bare feet, with Augie on a leash, we could imagine Ish playing his somewhere, and suddenly I heard some guitar strums. Was it me hallucinating under the sun? No. It was a group of boys, playing the song he wrote on the beach. It was always five boys with Ish at the middle. And today, I saw that spot still there, the boys leaving a little space for him. My flawed genes played a good trick on me for the first time, making me see Ish standing right there smiling at us. At that moment I knew, it was just another day of the year, and he was still here, not on the ground or the beach but in our heart. Whatever I made up for my son when he was five made me stand strong for a moment. It is funny how life treats us one moment and changes the next. My only wish is to make this moment last longer than any other.

Less of a poem and more of a song, for in the holidays it is to the groove of songs my heart beats for.


DEAR DEPARTED

The silence is nowhere
As a train departs now
Will you wait for me by the sidewalk, 
Where our breath hangs. 

The ride leaves now
With the sound of my heart beat
Promise, after years of laughter and tears
You'll wait for the dance of our dreams

I can see from where I am
A scene of tomorrow by the meadow
Us, singing to our beautiful song
As we dance for the days past us

I stand where we left
With a bundle of rose and rhythm of love
Your dream in the hand of a man
A man of treacherous smile

Promises made, couldn't keep pace
The grass on meadow crumble 'neath my soul
Yet, I smile for the hours of yesterday
For a word I kept, and a hope that lived. 

FLAWLESS FLAWS. 

It’s funny how our brain remembers the tiniest of the detail of everything we have experienced. One may think that there are no memories of an event when one wants to think about it, but in an unlikeliest event or time, there you are, sitting and laughing about a memory that happened what it feels like a millennium ago. Our instincts grow from experience which thrives on memories. Once you encounter an accident while crossing a road, you learn to look both ways before taking a step, because you know what will happen if you don’t and that remains forever a memory.

Scary memories scar us for life. The loss of a loved one in front on one’s eyes, a terrible event occurring at an unlikely time; this all adds up to it. Time can heal, and time can tell. You may think that memory is not there anymore, when in the next second it comes back to you and all you want is to hide somewhere. In those moments, all you can do is wait. This too shall pass.

Music helps to an extend to keep us up to pace with everything around us. A person must have experienced a rush of adrenaline when listening to the strum of a guitar of a favorite song, or the pang of words to the consciousness when they understand what they mean for them. A sight of a bird helps, the view of a photo, the sound of a person. Every tiny bit of detail helps, for our brain works in a weird way than we do. We spend hours and days trying to perfect something, but what we do not see is the flawless flaws hidden somewhere, that we encounter only at the last second, when it is already in the limelight.

 We can try to do everything well and perfect, but there is always something that go wrong somewhere. It doesn’t mean we have to stop trying, it just means we have to either work hard or make peace with it. We are the creations of someone, and we are the perfect example of imperfectness. It would be strange for us to see everything perfectly, when the being itself is long way from it. We are meant to be what we are, and only when we make peace with it will be peaceful after all.