Before We Leave

Chapter Three

"Sourya" I shook her hand and introduced myself.

I turned on the lights. She stood at her place. She just stared at me giving me a look victims give to their murderers. I was sleepy and I was annoyed why she was just standing there and I was interested in what favor she was going to ask me for.

She snapped out and began to spoke, "So I am Devi, that you know now. My room is the one next to yours but here is the thing- I have to visit and stay in this hospital every 6 months and I am assigned a particular room every time. It sort of became my room. But this time when I was admitted, I came to know it has been assigned to someone else and that is you"

She stopped to catch a breath. I was still not getting what she was trying to say.

"So?" I frowned.

"Oh yes so, I can't sleep anywhere besides my own bed. So when I have to stay here, in this room which I am usually assigned to, I look out the window to fall asleep. Now that you have taken away my lovely room with my lovely window and my new room doesn't have a window facing that side, thus making me sleepless, even though I tried so hard, I am begging you to please let me watch the view from the window for a few minutes and then I will go to my room and not disturb you anymore and also I will forever be indebted to you"

She said the last lines animating each word with her hands, like she was acting on a middle school drama. I couldn't help but smile a little. The girl noticed it and asked

"Is that a yes?"

"Fine. Go ahead" I replied.

"Yes" She threw her hands in the air and jumped but immediately realized it was loud so she whispered, "yes"

I smiled again. Some people have an aura of cheerfulness and sunshine around them always, even in a hopeless place like this hospital room and from the limited knowledge I had about the intruder, she belongs to that group. She went to the window and opened it.

And I finally understood why she has to intrude into my room and beg for that view. The view outside the window was worth it. The barren field was filled with hundreds of fireflies, leading all the way upto the forest. But the most beautiful thing to see was the lonely tree. The fireflies have enclosed into a shell of flashing lights. The lonely tree lit up like it was Christmas.
"Wow" the word escaped from my mouth.

"Isn't it?" she asked and then added, "This view gives me hope you know, that I will fight my disease and I will come to see them again after 6 months. Until I don't have to come anymore"

I wondered if she meant dying or getting cured.

"What disease?" I didn't want to pry but I couldn't stop myself from asking.
.
"Gastropartoporosis" she turned towards me, the child within her vanished, "It's a rare genetic disorder in which the lining of my intestines becomes infected at regular intervals of time and I had to be visited in the hospital for treatement. In my case the interval is six months, roughly"

I remained silent. She turned back to look outside the window and I did the same. She asked after a minute,

"What's your reason of confiscating my favorite room?" She tried to sound cheerful again.

"Attempted Suicide" I wanted to say but instead said that it was a car accident injury.

There was an indefinite pause before she finally said, "Fireflies aren't supposed to be seen until mid-summer but here it is different, they can be found almost any time of the year except for winters. Isn't that supposed to be beautiful?

"It is, indeed" I agreed.

Spring was just around the corner but there was still a chilly feeling in the air. The girl, Devi, was standing with her back facing me. I noticed how long her hair was and how she was leaning slightly onto the wall on her right.

The painkillers and antibiotics made me drowsy and for a moment, the wind seemed colder, the girl standing at the window seemed like Mitra. Why does all the small things of the person you love gets stored safely in some corner of your brain and they come back to haunt just when you are most vulnerable. I wanted to sleep because it is better having nightmares about her when I sleep rather than imagining someone else as her.

"I am not feeling well" I said, "So I am going to sleep, you stay as long as you want, just don't wake me up"

She looked towards me and made a gesture with her fingers that her lips are sealed. I smiled once again and lay down to sleep. But as soon as I close my eyes, those few things began to repeat, again and again, in a loop

"You can't do anything properly", "You are never going to change", "You are hopeless", "I am done giving you chances"

Her smile, her touch, her warm breath on my lips, her sleeping on my chest, the sparkling of her eyes every time I recited a poem for her, her comforting embrace and also her anger, her shouting, her leaving me, the car speeding up and then the crash.

I wished I could erase everything about her from my life, or maybe just go back in time and never fall in love with her again. I wondered if I could ever stop myself from falling in love with her.

A cold wind blew into the room waking me up. The girl must have forgotten to close the window, I wondered. I turned to drink some water and confirm my suspicion. The window was open but by the window, the girl was still there, she was sitting on the chair. A blanket wrapped around her and her hairs are now untied from the ponytail.

I sat up and drank the water. Another cold breeze made the girl cozy up in her warm blanket. The sight outside was beautiful, the fireflies, the barren field, the tree line at the far and the lonely tree which the fireflies turned into a Christmas tree. The sight inside was more beautiful. The girl was leaning her head into the wall, breathing slowly, the breeze making her hair flow, her face dimly lit by the light of the moon. It all seemed familiar, yet I know I have never seen this sight before. But I definitely felt this feeling earlier. Maybe it was the numbing effect of the painkillers, or maybe it was the fireflies or maybe it was the girl herself but suddenly this hospital room wasn't feeling hopeless anymore.

I lay down and pulled my blanket. The lonely tree outside the window seemed sad earlier with no company but the fireflies have turned it beautiful. The lonely tree wasn't lonely anymore. I looked at the girl again and realized I wasn't lonely anymore either.