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PART IV:
“How did that happen?” I ask.
“Easy I just rang him up to tell him we were bailing on him.” She says stretching her legs.
“Wait what? How would that have..” before I can finish my question, Bravo drops a stone in my chest.
“He was dead by then, he was diagnosed with terminal Pancreatic cancer about half a year ago.” I feel the heat in my cheeks.
“Who told you about that?” I ask.
“His mom picked up his cell phone; she told me that he passed away on the night of the first of June. It begins to shape up in my head.
“So you guys did this as a final reminder of him, considering it his death wish.” I say trying to gain confirmation from the too quiet room. But Bravo takes me by surprise “Not really, I mean I wasn’t okay with the fact that he died on us all of a sudden. But if you think about it people die like every second of every day. Most of them don't even get a chance to make a death wish. We had nothing to do with him. As Z said we didn’t even know him well.”
“Maybe he didn’t even know he was going to die soon.” adds Wall-e.
“Or if he did know he was not going to exist very soon, shouldn’t there have been other things on his mind, why was he thinking about his job like it mattered more than his life?” Z says.
“Then why did it matter?” I ask finally.
“That was exactly what I was curious to know, why was a dying man is so concerned about something that we alive-folks weren’t bothered to deal with?” Bravo answers me.”I asked his mom if she knew that he had a job that he wanted us to do for him. She said it wasn’t a job, no one paid him. He started the service himself, three months back. She also said that it was our decision we could bail out if we wanted to.”
“Did you ask her why he was so into it in the first place?” I ask.
“I did. She said that every time she had asked her son that question he had said one thing that it was the only right thing he could do”
“What? That is kinda cheesy” I say.
The upper bunk yells out in pain,” SHUDAAP SHUDAAP SHUDAAP!!! Do not say another vial word related to the p-word! I swear I’ll bust the skull of any p-word delivery guy I come by”
Z raises his leg to bang the underside of Wall-e bunk, “Dude stop it! Annie is asleep in the next room.”
“It is isn’t it?” Bravo attracts my attention “Well at first I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. But then on the next day the third, we had a visitor.”
Z cuts in and continues the story "She said she wanted to meet MJ, the guy she had talked to for arranging her sons' birthday party on the fourth. I told her about his demise, and she got all teary eyed. I didn't understand why she was so upset, I mean someone else could arrange for her kids' birthday"
Then Wall-e says, "Then something got into Bravo all of a sudden, she got the lady inside, sat her down and calmed her. Then she starts asking her all these questions. I actually thought she had changed her mind or something, that maybe we were going to go with the plan."
"What? You changed your mind because of the kids' mom?" I ask as my forehead crumples in confusion.
"You wouldn't believe what you could discover just by sitting next to torn up people." Bravo says looking away. I think about what she has just said. To discover, you'll have to convince yourself to actually listen to torn up people.
"What did you discover?" I say finally.
"It's funny actually she kept mumbling in her mouth, something really scared her. Among the many things that she said, the one which landed on me like a lightning bolt was when she said her sons' birthday was really on the first of June, but the hospital agreed to discharge him on the morning of the fourth. And he kept saying he didn't want to celebrate it in the hospital and wanted to be home. I wasn't even thinking, not even the slightest bit of curious but I asked her if her son was sick or something." I hear my blood pulsating in my ears.
No.
"She managed to look a little surprised when she said her son has Leukemia."
The first domino tips over, colliding with the next one in line, which stumbles into its neighbour, in a matter of seconds the row of questions drop and bring each other down to expose the truth.
My mouth drops open, the pale skinny bald kid.
The birthday boy.
I can't believe I missed that. MJ arranged parties for kids who were going to die one day, like him. That explains why the lady got all emotional, hearing about the death of another cancer patient, someone else's son, had triggered her own pain. Releasing all her worst fears on her. Even though she was not the parent suffering because of the loss, maybe she thought that day wasn't far off. When I was watching that soap with mom, maybe mom was crying because of the same reason. Whatever she had seen triggered her worst fears. Or maybe I am just thinking too much.
I hear fingers snap and I come out of my hypnotic gaze. Bravo is looking at me intently.
"So, that last detail fell into the picture really well. If you think about it there were still a tonne of excuses that could have gotten us out of this. After all MJs' mom had said it was up to us. But the instant our perspectives changed there was only one thing we could do."
I look up at each of their faces, what?
"Like MJ had said, the right thing." She answers the unasked question.
Her face is a perfect feminine shape, lovely raised cheek bones, a fair complexion with a thick braid of brown hair resting on her shoulder. She is really pretty, but there is something else I feel for her apart from obvious admiration for her looks, she talks like intelligent people. She may be bossy and a total control freak, but when she speaks I can't help but feel and I don't mean this lightly, I actually want to listen. I mean how many people does an average person know who they actually want to listen to.
When she speaks I am all ears, "Maybe all this time, you, like everyone else in the world have been looking for the reasons behind everything that you do, everything other people do. Think about it, you can't explain why you helped us, why you walked out at the last minute or why you didn't tell on us. At first I was looking for MJs' reasons, but the truth is he didn't have any. I used to think that to act upon something humans essentially need motives. But then why can't we explain the stupid things we end up doing anyway? Maybe some actions don't really need any motives; they stand on their own without any reasons."
Z speaks up and I realize they are doing that thing they do again, the 'speak your mind' game. But instead of thinking about what I have to say at my turn, I listen to them. I listen to their minds.
"I think we can't really find meaning to some seemingly pointless things we do. And when the moment passes by we are only left with what we did and not the answers to why we did it. In the end I guess it just comes down to what we thought felt like the right thing to do at the time."
Wall-e sits up on his bed, and stares at the sheet for second, then still in his gaze he says "I don't know...I guess I am a little confused. I mean I am thinking about what you said Bravo but if we don't need reason to act then... is knowing what we think is right, really enough?"
So that means you can even ask the questions that loom in your mind.
I certain thought jumps in my head and I say it out loud "Maybe we end up doing these things when they fit in the four walls of our perspectives"
I am still thinking about what I have just said when I hear these idiots banging the wooden frames of the beds. They stop quicker than they did the last time.
"You know," Bravo says to me, "I like you."
"I still hate you." I say with a smile.
"I think it's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not." She says. I am about to say I'm impressed when Z adds " before you say anything to praise this phony I would like to tell you that Andre Gide said that before she did. Better luck next time B."
All of us laugh. I got my answers. But somehow I still feel a little dubious. I stand up and head to the door "You idiots don't plan to run off somewhere again do you?" I ask.
"At the moment we have no plans." Wall-e says "I'd much rather try to recover from this horrible nightmare I just had where I was forced to eat Piz...no I can't even say it, I was forced to eat 'it' three times a day for a whole week."
I let out a laugh. "If you plan to head somewhere don't forget to take me with you."
"Bravo is going to do the laundry tomorrow, want to come along?" Z perks up.
"Wait it's my turn again?" Bravo whines but she has a grin on her face.
I laugh as I shut the door. Then I head down the steps, and enter the TV room. It's about eleven. I look around but I can't spot mom. When I enter the bed room, I hear the sound of rushing water coming from the attached toilet. She must be taking a shower. It's a good thing she didn't follow me upstairs that would have been a disaster. Maybe the only time she shows up is when I pray for her not to, I didn't have the time to wish for that while these guys were jaming new information in my head.
I grab a pillow and make myself comfortable on the bed. I shut my eyes and slowly descend back into my thoughts.
How many years of continuous change and rigorous evolution did it take for us to convert from naked hairy flee eating monkeys to clothed waxed whole wheat bread eating monkeys of the tail-less variety?
Regardless of the span of time, Maybe the only feature of the resultant produce which never changed is our inherent need to feel safe. Case in point, caves got popular only because it felt safer there than out in the open, fire assured our hairy ancestors a safe goodnights sleep. Weapons of stone, cattle for milk and meat, primitive forms of clothing, saving food by farming seemed like good ideas to them because they assured safety. They laboured the ages away, because it made sense to them, losing the only life we are given just because of carelessness was just stupid. Didn't make sense to anyone.
Who would want to risk their safety by opening up to the innumerable dangers outside the cave?
I guess its different these days though. We don't hide in caves anymore, we moved out a while ago, in fact now we are much more sophisticated, having our perspectives locked up inside air conditioned rooms. Seems like our need to hide things never dies. Hiding our bodies helped us cheat death and now hiding our minds helps us cheat adjudication.
Our actions are laid out open before people. There is no stoping there dissection and study. I have judged my dad multiple times and every time i have half judged him. I guess that is because I can only see his actions, what I can't see and therefore judge is, his perspective.The only thing we achieve is safety, knowing that no one could ever judge us with absolute precision. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing no one can see into our room and no one gets in without our permission.
I wonder what it really would take to understand someone completely. Like Z said, being friends doesn't get you the ticket. In my case, being related doesn't help either.
Maybe it isn't even possible, until the person finds the courage to open up the doors and let us into the room. Until they choose to let us see in the light of their perspective, give us the privilege to understand them, until then we only half understand each other. So the gap between all of us remains abridged until we find the courage to build the bridge.
But not many of us actually have the courage to risk losing the safety of our rooms to gain the safety in being understood. I guess the reason would be the possibility that the person we let in doesn't really get us at all. Maybe staying half complete will forever remain the fate of the bridge. There is no running from that truth. So we lock away our perspectives and cling to safety because we think that the only thing worse than being misunderstood or misjudged could only be never being understood at all. Many still can't find a reason, it doesn't make sense to us.
Who would want to risk their safety by opening up to the innumerable dangers outside the room?
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