• Death Has No Compassion

    I traveled the world searching for him. Asking everyone I meet if they’ve seen him. I have a billion questions for him, questions that only he could answer. I gave up one day believing he probably didn’t exist and came home. And there he was, standing in front of my door step. I look at him, taking in his appearance; dark, from head to toe. A sorrowfully dark aura hangs around him. Finally realizing the true meaning of why he was here in front of me, searching his soulless eyes for clues, I ask him, “Who are you here for?” For the first time since I’ve started my search for him, I only had that one question. He took a breath, shallow and ragged, and said, “For your mother.” I fell to my knees, nearly blacking out. Despair and anger washes over me. All those time I wasted searching for him, my mother had been wasting away. I knew of my mother’s ailing health; it was her health that provoked me into searching for him. I knew that she did not have much longer. Yet, blinded by the passion of trying to find him before her time was up and the possibility of finding a cure, I left not realizing I had less time than I had thought with her. I ran to my mother’s bedside and took her fragile hands in mines. I look at her face, my loving mother’s, she looks like she’s just sleeping; a peaceful calm emits from her. Mother’s breath suddenly became like his; shallow and ragged. I knew then that her time was near. I look back to him, now standing a few feet behind me as if he was giving me some space, my eyes sad and pleading and yet, all he did was stare back with those sorrow-filled soulless eyes. I heard a quick gasp; she had taken her last breath. Tears streamed down my face and blinding my sight, I whispered, “Why?” Anger surged through me. In anger I turned to face him and screamed, “Why?!” But he was not there, not anymore. I scanned the room with my tear-filled eyes, the only ones presently here is only my loving mother’s cold corpse and me. I sank down to the cold hard floor of my mother’s room and cried.

    And that was how my brother found me and Mother’s corpse the next morning. Sprawled on the floor in my wrinkled clothes; with a tear streaked face, sobbing, I was repeatedly asking, to no one in particular, “Why?” Brother was grief stricken when he saw us. Tears had formed in his eyes and were beginning to fall slowly down his face. Brother gravely walked across the room and picked up the phone that was in Mother’s room. After a few minutes of mumbling into the phone, brother came to Mother’s bedside next to me and picked up Mother’s hands. He kissed her hand, then her fore head; it was his way of saying goodbye to Mother. Brother picked me off the floor and sank down next to me; there we sat, up against the side of our mother’s bed. I heard the sirens then. The sound was coming closer and closer. I knew Brother heard it too; his face had become taunt and sad. I looked at Brother; his tears had fallen onto his shirt and had become these dark blotches. I reached for him and we embraced. All we have now is each other. And we sat there, silently grieving, till the ambulance came.