Life

The smell of glucose, urine, and excreta had sieged the room a long time ago. Shanthi had tried various attempts to drive away this stench but failed. She wiped the entire room with Dettol Disinfectant Liquid, but it ended up producing the aroma of a hospital. She then tried the air freshener her neighbor suggested, but it didn’t last more than two hours. Not knowing what to do anymore, she sat down on the foldable green steel chair in front of the human body lying before her on the steel cot.

The human body looked at her and smiled. The body hadn’t moved for a long time. It would have been buried if not for the inlet and outlet of air through its nostrils. Occasionally, it moved its pupils to grasp its surroundings. The only movements were when it was time to feed and change. The upper body was lifted and seated with the help of a wall, milk or any liquid was fed through a spoon, and then it was laid back down on the bed. Another time, the lower body was lifted, the diaper was removed, the urine tube was plugged out, new ones were fixed, and it was laid back down on the bed. The second routine was always performed by Shanthi. Nobody knew if the body could see, hear, or remember anything. Everyone doubted if it even remembered Shanthi.

The pupils now moved to Shanthi’s mole below her lips. It was just like her mother’s. That is why the body had smiled. Secretly, it had many moments running through its mind like a movie. It still remembered the first notebook its dad bought.

It was the day before school. It grabbed the notebook from its dad and ran into the corner room of the house. That is where they stored valuable items like silver vessels, jewellery, documents, and pens. The pen was dipped inside the ink bottle, and the little one slowly slid the nib to draw on the first page what the mother had taught: “SHANMUGAM.”

Following that, Shanmugam’s first day of meeting Shanthi’s mother played in his mind. It was a sunny afternoon, and they had traveled a long way to see the girl. The hall was crowded with family members. They were making a commotion about how difficult it was to come to this place as they had walked ten kilometers from the bus stand. Also, the girl’s house didn’t have a bedroom. Where would the couple stay after the wedding was the only concern of Shanmugam’s mother. Additionally, the dowry was very low. How would this help Shanmugam’s business was the sole concern of Shanmugam’s father. These floating thoughts were dismissed by the arrival of a short girl draped in a red saree with a mole below her lips.

Eight years later, the girl, now a woman, screamed from the room. Shanmugam prayed to his deity Mariamman to protect his family. The door then opened, and a lady in a white saree was holding a little creature in her arms. “It’s a girl,” she smiled at Shanmugam. The tiny feet were the first thing Shanmugam noticed. They were pink and tiny.

For a moment, he thought about how long these moments had been playing on his mind. Was this the first time? Was he lying here for the past two days? Maybe it is two weeks.

“Six months, Akka,” Shanthi sighed to her neighbor who had come for her daily gossip time. “I’m tired of this. I have wiped this room eight times in the past two weeks. The stench will not go.”

“Do not talk like this in front of him. He might understand what we say. Poor soul!” The neighbor looked at the body with pity. She remembered how healthy the body once walked every morning to the temple where it started its day.

“That is the worst part. I don’t know if he even knows who I am. If he had some senses remaining, at least he would signal me in some way before the fetus leaked out from the napkin.”

The mention of the word fetus triggered the sensory organs of the neighbor. Suddenly, she could feel the domination of urine engulfing the room. She looked at the pouch containing the dark yellow liquid hanging from the bed. She felt disgusted. She abruptly moved her pupils to the body. It was like sticks wrapped in a brown cloth. Finally, she looked at the face. There the body’s eyes were fixed on the clock hanging on the wall, as always.

“What a life he had lived. God should show some mercy.” She glanced at Shanthi, who was taking out a new diaper from the cover.

“My son keeps asking me every day on the call when I will return. What should I tell him? More than that, it is very hard for me to see him suffering like this. Sometimes I wish he was freed from this suffering. It would have been better if he had died when he fell that day.”

Died? The pupils moved from the clock to Shanthi. To die means to leave the smell of the new notebook. To die means to leave the memory of seeing his wife for the first time. To die means to get rid of the vision of the tiny feet. The body doesn’t want to die. It wants to relive these moments a hundred more times, a thousand more times, or even forever. The pupils now moved to the mole below Shanthi’s lips. There it smiled again.