A sequel to Lives.
Sean did not visit Andy at the hospital.
Sweat beads decorated Sean’s forehead. The sweat infiltrated his eyes and irritated him. He scratched his eyes. His eyes, a little moist, a little tired and incoherently calm delineated a coldness that belied all comprehensions about and all complaints against the hot weather. His eyes carried a tinge of orange, formed by the redness of the scratch and the yellow left as a mark by an execrable and agonizing jaundice.
Sean entered the metro station. The cold air from the air conditioning hit his face, and fell back, as if accepting defeat to a greater force, to a higher degree of coldness. Sean stood at the queue to purchase his ticket. Tokens flashed before his eyes, reviving the memory of a city where tokens were given instead of tickets in the metro. The uninvited vision could not bother him. With the ticket in his hand Sean waited for the train to arrive. The train arrived. The doors opened. The doors closed. The train left. Sean stood at the same place. When the sound of the train moving on the rails ceased to reach his ears, he started walking towards the exit. He wanted to walk.
Sean was walking by a playground. The green-ness of the grass hurt his eyes. He stood there for a moment. A few kids were playing football. The swift movements of the white and black skinned sphere sent him in a tizzy. He saw his brother score a goal. ‘No. Not real’, he said to himself and resumed walking. He walked past a house where a lady was singing Hindustani classical music. The voice of his mother singing Raga Desh, an evening raga filled his ears. It filled him with a peculiar sense of excruciating ecstasy. ‘No. Not real’, he said to himself and increased his pace.
Sean entered the coffee house. He wasn’t hungry, nor thirsty, probably tired. He rested on the chair and ordered for a cup of coffee. Two middle-aged men were sitting at the next table. They were discussing something very animatedly. Sean didn’t bother to listen, until he heard one of those men reciting a poem. The poem didn’t just sound familiar, he knew it by heart. He saw his father sitting across his table and reciting ‘Nirjhorer Sopnobhongo’, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. ‘No, not real’, he said to himself and got up without finishing his coffee. He paid the bill and left.
He crossed streets adjoining which stood buildings with picturesque architecture. The white pillars, at a place, a thousand miles away got projected before him, as if through his eyes, exploring some hidden chambers of his mind. He saw a couple walking hand in hand, talking and smiling. Who was the boy, was it him? Who was the girl, was it…? ‘No’. A kit of pigeons rose from the ground and assumed flight. It startled him. No. ‘Were they pigeons or a murder of crows?’ They sounded like crows, but he thought that he saw pigeons.
He was exhausted, hallucinating.
He plugged in his earphones.
He needed some respite.
The hospital was five minutes away.
Andy had been unconscious for two days. The doctors did not say that there was much hope that he would make it. Andy had made it, apparently.
The first thing that Andy did after gaining consciousness was to call up Sean.
‘... Sean, my whole body is covered up with bandages and plaster. I look like, rather I feel like an Egyptian Mummy…’
‘Okay Andy, I will see you in the evening’
Sean pushed the glass door at the hospital’s entrance. His facial muscles yawned and stretched as if they have been woken from a long slumber. He was smiling. All the hallucinations and their misgivings were swept aside. A strange energy flowed through him. ‘Is this, what they call happiness?’ He thought to himself. ‘Adventures of the Egyptian Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster. Now, that’s a vision, a good one’, he shared a joke with himself, the smile still painted on his face. Maybe it was Andy. Yes, Andy was his priority now. He felt that.
The last but one stanza of his favourite song stimulated his eardrums.
“I took a heavenly ride through our silence,
I knew the moment had arrived,
For killing the past and coming back to life.”
I knew the moment had arrived,
For killing the past and coming back to life.”
– Pink Floyd
Sean walked towards the reception.
Andy’s father was filling in a form. It was for Andy’s death certificate.
Andy had made it, apparently.
---x---
