A loner's Ravings

He couldn't get her off his mind. He had seen so many cancers - there was nothing really special about this case. Except maybe the intensity of her family ties. She stood at the center of the family circle, like the sun. Darkness must follow her inevitable demise.

The boy was trying to run witout falling. He had flatfoot and weak muscles. The strain of the overwhelming desire to run and play had made him sweat. She watched him silently, numbly. My son. She remembered the thrill of his first step in her womb. The seed had sprouted. That was seven years ago. The never fading memories of the exultation and agony of motherhood. The everlasting anguish of a mother who knows her only child cannot be fully normal. The boy fell down on the lawn, picked himself up bravely and continued running. My son, she thought. Be brave, be ready to be alone.

The bleeding from the nose has stopped, she noted with relief. Temporary relief, she realized. Secondaries in the bone recur with the inevitalbility of death. Flimsy. That is what life is.

Death. Blessed slumber. Beacon of everlasting peace. Hallowed companion. Life. The first tentative step towards eternity. So why despair about cancer.

She was home. She was at work. She was at a loss. What is happening? She had no idea. All she knew was that she had changed almost overnight. Small things irritated her so much she realized she was quarreling all the time. That is stupid, they did nothing wrong, she told herself. Maybe it is because I have changed. And how !!

The day was finally over. He was back home. Back to his never ending introspection. Today her image obscured everything else. The small, ominous red spot in that nose. The unhappy girl trying vainly to be brave. All her anxiety, all her fears showed so painfully through that wan mask. The thought of the tumor growing in her nose, the deformity of that lovely face, the pain and the eventual, eternal sleep that would claim her soon. Have I helped her ? How futile !

She noticed it after the steam inhalation session. The small speck of blood in her left nostril. Philosophy is no good when faced with blood. Instinctively she realised what it was. The cancer is angry, restless. It is eating away my nose. A prelude to the pain and deformity that is my destiny.