A cry from yonder, from the innards of a loving heart! Part -1

A cry from yonder, from the innards of a loving heart! Part -1

Futile! That is what they all said. They all knew what they were speaking about. Their wise heads nodded in unison. An exercise in futility, or was it really? The million dollar question was, do I meekly agree and prove them right or as is my wont should I attempt to see the invisible and do the impossible? I did not know their minds but I knew my heart, so I decided to listen to it which reverberated with that shrieking voice that had woken me up from my slumber. A voice not only of a young and beautiful girl, but it was a cry from yonder, from the innards of a loving heart.

“You just enjoy your coffee and then go back to your beauty sleep. By the time you wake up everything will be over and the child will be dead. But what is it to you?” She had shrieked her lungs out.

For a whole fortnight I had been getting barely 2 hours of sleep, working nearly 22 hours to finish an important project. I had just about managed to finish it that morning and was about to hit the sack with a vengeance to make up for a fortnight’s sleep when my sister had come with a steaming cup of coffee accompanied with a fuming young neighbor, who did not even know that I had just come back that morning.

Her elder sister was in labour when I had left two weeks ago and this ear shattering outbreak was in response to my innocuous query as to how was her sister and the newborn. Even before I could gather the last fragments of her response she had stomped out.
I looked askance at my sister, who calmly told me that the child was in pretty bad shape and the doctors had given up hope. Maybe he was even dead by now, as she had just come from the hospital unable to bear the sight. She was upset that I had not visited them even once during the interim period. My coffee had gone cold along with my blood rendering my brain numb. I shook my slumber away and told my sister to get my clothes ready and headed for the shower.

The hospital was an apology in the name of a medical service provider. The child was laid on a thin mattress on the floor, as there were not enough beds. The child was barely breathing. The doctors had given it a maximum of two more hours to live. The parents of the child were sitting in front looking more lifeless than the child itself and watching it with tearless eyes, as if waiting for it to die. The doctors and their support staff was squirming restlessly facing a very indignant me, trying to convince me of the futility of the situation.


….. to be continued