by Tamanna Malik

Date: 26th November 2006

Its been exactly twenty-three days eight hours forty-one minutes and eight seconds now. I’m sitting on the same bench in the same corridor outside the same room with a white door reading the same letters – ICU. Mom is in there, on one of those lined up beds with people lined up to die. She has spent quite a lot of time in the hospitals and I’ve spent exactly the same and eaten more hospital food than her but this time, it’s different. Doctors say that she’s fighting but I know, she’s dying. All of those tubes are sucking everything out of her, the life, the love, the warmth of her being. I wonder, if it’s painful, I’m sure it is, I don’t know about death but dying isn’t easy.

Sometimes, I wonder, why her? Because I am the one smoking her lungs black and dad’s the one drinking his liver to death then why mom? And I wonder, if it would’ve been easier if it came suddenly and all at once than like this, now, she’s dying every day and the thought of losing her is killing my soul, with each passing second I’m not the same I used to be but all I can do is sit here and see cancer take over my mom’s life. (but I want to run far far away from this hospital, this town, this life)

More people visit us here now than before and they don’t know what to say, some just bring dying flowers and say nothing, some say, it’s better that you know so you can prepare yourself, but really? prepare? for my mom’s death? to see her dying every second while being able to do nothing? it isn’t easy or better or anything. It hurts, but what hurts more is all those happy memories with her, they’re like nightmares now and this pain, it’s easier to be with. These white coloured walls, that scream the whole day and cry the whole night are easier to be with. Walls, I like walls you know they have stories to tell, these white ones in the hospital tell stories about dead people, stories of their painful journeys to death, stories that no one wants to hear but they scream, loud enough to make you go deaf. But, these white walls feel more homelike than my house back in town which now is nothing but just four walls with no roof and those walls don’t tell any stories, they used to weep before but now they’re just silent. I look at those walls and I feel like I’m dying or probably I’m dead, so I’ve stopped looking. I am never gonna be the same, never like before. Nothing is the same. Nothing ever would be. Home is dead and mom is dying.

Rebecca.

About the Author:

Tamanna Malik is currently pursuing her Bachelors of Arts Honours degree in English Literature from Gargi College, University of Delhi. She writes poems, articles, and pretty much everything in between. She has published a few articles and poems.