LATE
The clock says 3:03 am.
The cruelty of grief is its timing. Tomorrow is my exam. My desk is littered with notes, but my mind is a sieve. I’ve studied, I’ve done the work, but I honestly don't think I can do it. I don’t want to give it. My mind is a complete blank, and my attention is everywhere except where it needs to be. I look at my admit card- that sterile, laminated piece of paper. All I can see is his name. I realized with a sickening jolt that soon, a four-letter word will precede it: Late.
There is a specific, jagged kind of grief that doesn’t arrive with a scream, but with a silent, haunting repetition. To me, it comes in sleep. In the strange, fluid logic of dreams, he is there, always alive. Then I wake up. Last night, I woke up and just couldn't stop crying. Tonight, I can't even get to sleep. It feels like I’ve been living through a cruel countdown. It started during the COVID pandemic with a neighbor. Then, it was Zaid. Then, my chacha. Every year, death moved a step closer, narrowing the circle. I remember meeting a friend and mentioning that I’d seen a dead body on the way. I joked with that terrible, naive irony that someone else was about to die. The very next day, my father was admitted to the ICU.
The weirdest part is how I reacted when it actually happened. When they were taking his body away, I didn't really cry much. I was almost confused by how calm I was. But now? Now that I’m alone with an exam breathing down my neck, it’s all hitting me.
I’m actually angry at him. It feels selfish, I know, but I keep asking him in my head: ‘Why did you leave like this? Why didn't you think about how I’d survive without you?’ He was my pillar, my hero, the one person who never judged me or scolded me. He was the one person who couldn't see me cry, and yet, he’s left me with no choice but to cry every single night.
I’m sitting here with my books open, looking at a name on a piece of paper, wondering how I’m supposed to care about a grade when my entire world has gone quiet.
- Maandvi Srivastava
1st year,
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