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A WESTWOOD DAY

That halting sensation when tyres dig into the road sending high pitched sound straight into the guts! 

I hear a van followed by commotion. The same van had circled back to my lane. Probably finding out the right address, it was passing by and ran over someone.

I go out to find my love gasping! She was walking back home from the office. About to enter our house. 

The society goes helter and skelter.

In the desert of apathy called the world, an oasis called Westwood society sustained my quiet life and its troubles. Here, we were thrived on illusions of order and care, until...

...My corner in this ocean of calm had some turbulence; then this tsunami. 

It is a regular day by any and all standards in Westwood Society. So regular that, I can recite the daily nagging of my neighbour. The weather is absolutely unnoticeable. No hint of imbalance detected in any of its components. 

No shift in humidity or rains, heat or cold or the wind. The kerb cars parked outside homes suggests nothing unusual. Delivery guys, construction, maintenance and transport workers dot an otherwise unmoving Westwood landscape.

The ordinariness of the day does not prompt any comment from any one about weather. The world around seems pretty dull, even for the most boring discussions. Everyone seems to simply move on to the next bit of task, the next second.

In this mundane corner of the world, a van stops and a man gets down to ask for someone’s address. Right in front of my house. I can hear him asking people at the neighbouring house. I look out of the window for no particular reason. 

I know the address but I am too lazy to go out and help. He didn’t get the answer and takes the van in the opposite direction of his destination. I pity him.

‘If only I had ventured out. Hope he finds someone to direct him back,’ plays in the background for seconds.

I go back to my reading.

Minutes later…commotion, car, people, hospital, ambulance and...

Regularity around me starts spinning. Just like the soundless, slow-motion scenes in movies, routine follows. But this is no ordinary routine. 

Minutes go by in a jiffy and also in agonising slowness. 

...transfer, rush, heartbeats, monitoring machines and…

...her face.

Only the last one is not a regularity for me.

Numbingly, I am more puzzled than shocked or sad at first. I had seen her laughing loudly, smiling, crying, sad and getting super angry! Lately, she’s hated anything and everything about me. But, even her depressed face, which I was trying hard to reform was saner, regular.

This face though!

Red helplessness splattered with extreme pain. Every inch of her radiating desperation for help, to explain.

She holds my shirt all through the transfer from the accident site to the emergency wing, trying to hold on to… me or life? I don’t know. But she might even be saying, let’s go back to happy times and carry on.

Next, my puzzle gives way to torment. What torments me more, I cannot decide - her injured body or the pain of seeing her injured body? The crimson creases from her grip on my shirt have not yet reformed. I am hoping against hope… if only she is able to get up and walk!

Walk away from my life, if she must, as she was walking back home, sometime ago. A time which seems far, far in the past now.

Doctors, nurses, patients, cleaners move about with regularity. Nothing else seems irregular except me, except her, except the day in the life of Westwood.

Earlier that day, I had thought if her hate continues, I might go crazy. Now, I will happily trade being crazy for being helpless. Wish I were the doctor operating, but I don’t want to know the damage or the dreaded eventuality which always lingers in the mind at such times.

Unspoken, but there.

And while waiting, my mind drifts to the van driver and thinks if he ever located that address? 

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 January 2025 at 11:55

    The article speaks to the fragility of life and how it often takes a brush with mortality to truly appreciate the depth of our connections.
    It's as if the veil of the everyday is lifted, and we're suddenly confronted with the raw, essential truth of our love for someone.
    Perhaps it's in those moments of vulnerability and impermanence that we see beyond the surface and connect with the very core of their being, the essence of who they are to us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Prashant17 January 2025 at 12:38

      This is a very profound observation! Something I intended to do through the piece. Appreciate very much.

      Delete

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