They laid him on the stretcher and wheeled it. His eyes were closed and he was being dripped on his left side. There were people on both sides of the stretcher. She also ran after them disregarding everything around her and only with her eyes riveted on him. She was as white as a sheet due to a fear besieging her that her eyes spoke of. She tried to keep pace with the people ahead of her only to be by him but the door at a particular point was mercilessly closed on her face when she wanted to barge in. The elderly nurse in a stern voice said, “Madam, you cannot force yourself in. Please hold your seat outside. We are going to do our part and the rest is in the hands of God. So better pray to God instead of crying and showing all your emotions”.

            Through the glass windows of the corridor, she saw the range of mountains.  The heavy mountains seemed to be in deep meditation offering praises to God with a grey sky overhead at nightfall. Gradually, the dusk gave way to the darkness of the night to grip the whole world and the moon to mount the sky with her case of faint light. She was sitting there on the cold bench of the corridor and felt a turmoil reaching its full height within her.  She tried to say her prayers but she could not because the other part of her mind pulled her away from that lashing her continuously with the accusation that she was responsible for whatever befell him. The sense of guilt that put its heavy hands upon her chest became more cumbersome with her feeling forlorn at that moment. There was no one by her with a touch of compassion to console her at her distress except some unknown faces casting their silent inquisitions upon her there on the corridor. She wanted to be close to God to drive away her loneliness but she was deprived of that blessing at that moment.

            She missed her husband terribly at that moment who was on his official duty at a place quite distant from theirs’ since a few days back. She told to herself, “It all happened due to the inspection day in the school”.  Her home ran short of its essentials as she could not manage to procure that due to work load in the school as only a week was left for the inspection day. She had to manage the food at home ordering it from outside. Being docile by nature, he also ate whatever she ordered whereas his health demanded homemade less spicy food for him.  She could not cook for him as she had to clear the junk of others’ neglected duties at school suspending her all other commitments at home.

            On that terrible day, she sat with a stack of attendance registers to set right in them the dereliction of others’ duties. Time flowed on very fast as she was engrossed in her work.  She was suddenly pulled out of her work with some retching sound from the washroom of her house. There, she saw her son trying to vomit with froth coming out of his mouth. His stomach reacted to the spicy food that they ate all those days ordering it from outside and to the irregularity taken in serving him the meals.  He was bent down with his hands on his stomach crushed with pain. She felt the terrible mistake that she had committed. Her face turned pale and the earth she felt slipped from beneath her feet. 

            He was put under several tests and it was declared that he should be operated without delay. She also earned the ire of the medical team for postponing the date of his operation because the sizes of the stones in his gall bladder were quite big. But that she did only to finish the massive work that she was assigned with unscrupulously for the inspection day in the school.

             She was suddenly jerked out of the whirlpool of turmoil within her in which she was caught by a moaning sound. Her heart broke to see a young girl breaking down on her father’s still body. The pitiable sight sprouted the other fear in her mind. She felt herself annihilated at the thought of a world without her son. He was the light that illuminated her darkened life. It was after seven years of her marriage that he was born when the doctors after administering her several treatments gave up the hope that she could conceive a child. When she was utterly dejected being deprived of the blessings of motherhood, God dispelled all her worries giving him miraculously into her womb. Thereafter he became an inseparable part of her life. Thinking that she burst out into tears and said, “I can never forgive myself for whatever happened to my son”. She shed tears copiously and felt the sorrow that froze in her mind melted down. She could lift her hands to God and prayed, “Oh God, do not snatch away my son. Replace every material benefit in my life with a lengthy life for my son. Let the operation be successful at any cost”.  She shed more tears and implored God with the same prayer continually; she felt her severed tie with God was restored. 

            As she was immersed in her prayer, she felt somebody touched her shoulder softly. It was the elderly nurse who stood by her and said very gently without her earlier harshness, “You won’t have to worry, your son is operated successfully and we will call you very soon to see him”. In an instant, she felt God’s mercy lighted her darkened world once again.  She stood on her feet and pledged with a fresh boldness running through her veins, “I promise to overthrow the yoke of servitude that binds me unjustly to others. I committed the sin of being voiceless and let others evade their duties and exploit me in turn and my son paid the price for the wrong that I did”. The promise was kept and she was infused with a strength to ward any abuse off that she faced henceforth.

……….Dr. Fathema Begum