He looked contently at her plum tender hands. Adjusting her
half moon glasses she lifted the spoon filled with floating corn flakes. He
could sense an intense aura of compassion for him in her, something which was
completely alien to his otherwise pale soul. His trembling lips parted. He
almost giggled when she pushed the spoon through his mouth. She parted her own
lips as if to induce a sense to him to open his mouth. Like a mother does to
her child. Although he never got to experience any such circumstances when he
was a child, he could conjure a vivid picture of how he would’ve have felt. The
thought made him feel sorry for him. Not for the numerous memories he failed to produce, but for the great horror he inflicted upon his parents unwillingly. No
parents deserve the fate that his parents were given. No parents deserve to be
offered a child with depravity, defacement or abnormality. No parents deserved
a child with amputated arms.
With his mouth filled, he mumbled something in vowels. The lady
leaned herself to decipher, failing to which she gave a confused look.
“Water”, he said swallowing the partially chewed food.
“Just a second, dear.”
He loved it when she called him that. He had grown up
listening to all kinds of names conjured up to make him realize how different
he was. Some of them were too weird to discard off his memory. He could never
blame them though. It wasn’t their fault they found his condition funny. A
bystander cannot be blamed to scorn at the product of a potter. If they dislike
it, they have every right to let it out.
But, she was different. She never felt disgusted, nor did
she ever show any sign of pity for him. At least not in front of him. He had
never felt so normal his entire life behind him. Ever gleeful, she greeted him
every morning, helped him out of his bed, fetched newspaper for him, and sometimes
even read it for him. He never felt that she got tired of doing what she did,
every single day. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that years from now, he
was thinking of rejecting the offer from an NGO to help him. If he did, he
would never have met Elina. And that was, ten years ago.
“Here”, she returned with a glass of water.
While he gulped the water he looked at her eyes. Two emerald
crystals radiated something holy from within. Two distinct vessels filled with
love, warmth, affection, and various promises. He often wondered what made her
so different, why wasn’t anybody like that towards him.
The thought made him repulse back to the days when he was at
Safe home, an orphanage where his parents left him when he was five. Apparently
they must have thought that where they found themselves incapable of looking at
their own son, some other messiah might find some charm in him. They were
wrong, unfortunately. He felt guilty for shattering their dreams. The dreams of
a mother to see her son walk for the first time, to cheerfully throw his fluffy
little hands in the air, and most of all, the touch of a new born babe. His
father never got a chance to see his son pedal away in his bicycle in a false
belief that his father was still holding him, while in reality he stood far
away smiling, his heart heavy with joy.
He did to their dreams what a hurricane does to a sparrows
nest. He was dazzled to absorb the thought that they tolerated him for such a
long span of full five years. Though their image had blurred form his memory
but he remembered Joy, their dog, as stark as reality. He never minded the fact
his curator was arm-less. He recalled the days when he hugged Joy between his
legs and he dragged him through the house.
Elina placed the glass on the table and picked the corn
flakes bowl again.
“I am full, Elina, thanks”, he smiled at her complete
veracity.
“No you are not,” she slid the spoon past his lips anyway and
smiled at his innocence.
“Why have you been doing this Elina?” he saw her smile fade
away gradually.
“I don’t understand”, she did understand. She always
suspected some day or the other the question might surface “Doing what?”
“This. You could’ve done anything. I mean, I know it’s your
job but I also know that you could’ve abandoned me anytime,” he caught her
looking at her slender fingers as if it held some answers “Ten years Elina.
What made you stay with me when even my mother couldn’t?”
He waited for her response impatiently, which was not long.
She took her time to decide where to start from.
“You know,” she paused “when you were born, there was
complete stillness in the room except for your cry, which was usual. What was
not usual was the fact that it took courage for your father to take you in his
arms. However, your mother never took you in her arms that day. Not in front of
me she didn’t.” She witnessed his face wrinkled with a confused frown “I was
the one who brought you into this world my dear and nursed you throughout your
stay at the hospital. I was there in the room, I held you by my chest dearly
when your father finally realized that you won’t bite. I could’ve adopted you
that very instant. But it took them five full years to do what they should have
done that very day.”
Picture Courtesy - @dokkan
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