Gusts of wind, like a string of bullets sizzled through the window. The night was at full bloom and his room was all aflood with silver moonbeams. The shadow, in his eyes, appeared like a freshly blossomed rose. Like a desperate child he tried to get up and touch the shadow but the eyes of the woman, who sat at his head, revealed that he had no more the strength to get up.
It hurt him that his eyes were still alit but the fountain of his life had almost dried out. The wind was still tearing through the window. The woman rose to her feet to close the window but he screamed. The woman froze in her track. “True I could not get up but let me see these vistas; true I cannot touch that shadow but let me feel it.” His crippled tongue poured out his anguished tale before the woman. He was well aware that he was caught in the dark abyss of nothingness. All he could do was to see and feel. He could not touch anything.
The wind had stopped blowing; rather it appeared to have drifted off to sleep. The windowpanes were silently looking at each other. It seemed they were mocking the wind that once felt it was beyond death. It could not shatter us; rather it collapsed itself. The wind now lay dead. The fog that once enveloped the moon was all but gone. All these scenes appeared like an exquisite image of his bygone youth. His right arm was resting against the wall. He opened the window of his eyes and cast an eager glance at his wife. The woman knew what he meant. So she stood up and dragged his bed towards the window. He felt himself drowned in the depth of that scene. Yet the shadow of the moon was still out of his reach. For a moment he thought to ask his wife to go and bring the shadow of the moon in
her lap, for he wanted to caress and kiss it.
It hurt him that his eyes were still alit but the fountain of his life had almost dried out. The wind was still tearing through the window. The woman rose to her feet to close the window but he screamed. The woman froze in her track
Before he could say this to his wife, she smiled and averted her face. He recalled the last days of his old and frail father when he helped him to move whenever he felt he had a call of nature. During those days he discovered that a man would become a child twice but old once in his life his life.
Today like a child he yearned to touch and kiss the moon. He trailed his face towards his wife
and said:
“You have never complained about anything; you have never asked me why I was late; only once you asked me not to stay out late in the night. But I did not comply and you did not look dismayed either. An inner impulse had urged me to stay out at night. During that season I saw the m from very close; I witnessed the earth and heaven overlapped each other; I caressed and kissed each and every scene but I never felt the urge to touch the moon to discover if it was hot or cold. As today I found myself in the confinement of nothingness, I feel sorry for why did I not touch the moon? My soul mate! I will never be able to touch that shadow but I plead you not to close the window. Just looking outside brings me relief.”
Tears welled up in his eyes. The woman bent over him and covered his face with her hair to not to reveal it to the moon that once a brave soldier of his time had now surrendered like a coward. Moon on the very
moment went down into the ocean of darkness and they too slipped into each other’s frame and became a single being.
The writer is a lecturer at the Government Atta Shad Degree College and can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, October 24th 2017.