Life always brings opportunities, but saddest are those who can's make to the end. Such an amorous tale it is that met an unhappy ending.
Sudha, in her early sixties, was lying shrivelled and still like a withered leaf; her breast heaving up and down with the rhythm of weakened breathing. She was aided with mask, pipe and oxygen cylinder.
Javed wiped his crinkled and tearful eyes with a handkerchief as he gently pushed the door that yielded with the sound of creaking hinges. Her hospital room, charged with a strong medicinal smell, was wrapped in dusky light sieving through the white curtain draping the overhead window.
It was the only window in the hospital room.
Gathering cheerfulness, which was then alien to his disposition, Javed tiptoed into the room to surprise her. Sudha was counting her last breaths, and every single moment, hour, and passing day, the inevitable truth was that this was hauling her to her cold and dark grave.
Reaching her bed, Javed felt a pain welling up in him. As he put his warm fingers on her forehead, fondling her salt-and-pepper hair, she became conscious of his pleasant presence. She stressed to open her feeble eyes that were sunk deeply under dark brows. As she managed a nebulous view of his stooping figure, a conquering smile crept over her lips that gradually spread over her eyes and face.
“Don’t get excited, Sudha, I am here”, Javed assured her, patting her head mildly.
She removed the mask from her face to give ease to their conversation.
“When did you come?” Sudha whispered as if she extracted the words from some fathomless abyss.
“Just now. How are you feeling?”
“So peaceful. Look they have taken out the cardiac monitor to relieve me from that continuous beeping sound, which always reminded me that my heart is going to stop.” She tried to smile to lighten the gravity of her words.
She was exhausted from having such an exciting conversation, and so took a deep breath to abate her pounding heart.
Javed smiled and kept looking at her pale face.
“My dear, what do you see when you stare so intently?”
Javed softly said, “You have grown more beautiful in these years, Sudha.”
Unwittingly, her cracked cheeks blushed, and eyes fluttered like wings of a butterfly.
“I am not of the age to be flattered, Mr. Javed. You are still like the fighter that you used...