𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ✔︎

||04||

A patient is more unpredictable than you think.

Medicines were like poisons I was feeding her 5 times each day. Forcefully.

It was not out of my mind that she would spit the medicine expectedly when I put them in the black hole of her mouth. Pinching her mouth into a pout and dropping the pills inside was more easier than I thought. But she spat them with a crackle in the air for the disgusting bitter taste of pills. No, I didn't dare to taste them but according to my sense,every pill is bitter, tasteless except some particular ones. Specially,when the medicines are for some rare,fatal disease.

I adapted another way, the smashing wooden tool, I had in kitchen for crackling ginger or Cinnamon was being used to make the medicines turn into powder. I didn't care to ensure if it was forbidden or not.

The powder wasn't enough though.

Some sprinkle of water made the powder into liquid which was simpler to feed her. Every time,I poured the liquid of medicine in her mouth ,the blue ocean eyes squeezed in a twist of eyebrows. Her cheeks getting winced and hands lifting to protest mine, though they were weak.

It was a fight in other words. I remember the glare she offered me after feeding the medicine. The glare haunted my heart with threats of anger. Palpitations of heart grew faster. A desire for tasting the medicine crooked me more, though I disapproved it thoroughly.

Nowhere,food and medicine was somehow managed.

Her dirtiness, I detested. Looked like she used to loo more after I started nursing her. The vomitted clothes around her neck while feeding,the bedsheet,the pillow,the raksin and extra cloth to absorb her urine were being washed, cleaned,rubbed by my delicate palms of hands. Detergent wasn't enough to clean them,heavy liquid antiseptics required.

They weren't few. Backpain was another problem,more ignorable to me. The thought of hiring a housemaid hit me. But, insecurities killed it too. Which housemaid would do the work ? Didn't Bilal try it ? But he failed. But a housemaid like me never minded washing them, because my heart was so influenced by the heartfluttering words Bilal emotionally drenched me with.

I was happy from another side,the works engaged me while the time passed like clouds. I thought I escaped from loneliness.

Unfortunately,no.

After toiling blood & sweat taking care after the patient,my heart was supposed to rest on the soft bed and sigh a breath of rest,peace . Nevertheless, it leaped to fill it up with any miracle,any changes which was in a word, 'impossible'.
I almost forgot what Bilal did when I fully accepted the fate of my life.

What would I do with her?

She alone was a ship without a rudder. She also needed someone, she needed someone to talk, express, response. Someone who would touch her heart which was broken, massage her forehead which was painted in prominent lines, hold her hands — cold as snow, relish some warmth in them with fondness.

But I wasn't the one who did that. I couldn't. I already made my mind to serve her,cure her but I didn't intend to heal her. The healing of heart. Because my own heart was stoned under the hide and seek of fate.

After feeding her every meal, when I took my steps back slowly far from her room, closing the cupboard staring at her,she made the same raspy noise which might have said,

" Don't leave me".

That was a foolish thought, I consoled my mind. The moment just before I disappeared from her sight,a drop of tear escaped her eyes, though it was a unclear observation.

After leaving her alone in the room of suffocation and dreadful silence, I used to stand at the balcony for some space, though all I had was just; space. No place for anyone, a vacant bucket I was, without any desiring thought of a drop of water.

My gaze fell upon the busy streets, flowing like a river. So many boats of cars,taxis, rickshaws floating on them. Sometimes, I would shiver, feeling a familiar face would show a glance from any of the following vehicles. But there wasn't a bit of possibility. I thought, city life would be full of luxuries, enjoyments, merriments I always dreamt for. Maybe city life is. But I never got the chance or audacity to step out of the door which caged me inside that house.

My family had a little communication with me, not mentionable. Seemed,they had sent me into that separated island forever. I also feared to call them, express the unsaid words of my heart. The thought they would be disturbed by my call, that thought wasn't unreasonable. The ritual considered that time,a girl married off is already taken away from the world of her family. It was heart-breaking to miss them, but I had accepted it already.

Bilal was gone, I knew. Forever. I forced myself to believe. He never made me feel angry or grudging,even though he should have. There was no reason to hate him, except one.

He used me.

That was enough to fill my heart with hatred for him,but somewhere my love for him grew harder,deeper.

Why?

How could I love him so much in a week even when he had done the most miserable things one  could ever do to his wife.

It was my weakness.

I felt pity for him.

Could I forget the nights I passed thinking about how he even managed to take care of her ailing mother even for a day when we were unmarried? How he would feed her? How he would have cleaned her dirty cloth? Which son would do that for his mother in this age? Isn't Bilal a hearty person?

I still filled my eyes with a lot of questions ; hoping I will meet him oneday,then my voice would be tucked out of shock,I would be speechless but my eyes would glare him,filled with tears. Maybe he will understand the words my eyes would be asking him out of serenity.

Fragility was another frailty in my character. I was more fragile inside than I looked from out. The old woman somehow had fettered the shackles of my heart.

The harder I faced to handle her,the softer I felt for her.

The First moment she made me disgust myself, the second moment she shared some same feelings hidden in my heart. Obscure emotions were fettering the space between both of us.

Do you readers think it's going good?
Or is this story boring or something else?

What are your opinions on Husna and Bilal and Husna's paralyzed mother-in-law?