Dying with Dignity

I enjoy autumns a great deal, for they test the efficacy of newly tarred roads. No sooner than I locate self-formed miniature rivulets or rainwater logged along the edges of footpaths, I begin calculating how much the local corporator “churns” out of these tainted deals and slick civil projects. However, one reason why I loathe autumns is that the early-morning rains, prevalent during the season, keep joggers from rambling out of their cosy homes. Even if the rains take a hiatus, water accumulated along the streets deters people from putting their tracksuits on. I detest autumns for this. I really do.

One such morning, I was woken up by a spurt of raindrops that let itself on my face. I reckon it was probably ushered in by the breeze through the bedroom window. I was too vexed to think how it dashed into my room and splashed on my haggard face. I am certainly not habituated to such impertinence. Anyway, with extreme reluctance, I got out of my bed to shut the window lest another atrocious spray of rainwater might find its way through to my face. Cursing the wind which I otherwise savored, I gripped the rusted handle to pull the glass. As I turned it, I spotted a couple two storeys below, taking refuge under a tree in the relentless torrent. Their reddish pink cheeks and faces striated with wrinkles were overt indicators of their senility. The woman held on to her bandy-legged man’s left forearm with both her hands while he rested his other palm on her left shoulder, drawing her face towards his heaving chest, as if trying to shield her from a monster. I was amused by the warmth they still shared. In fact, I was growing increasingly fond of them.

After a minute or two, the downpour ceased dramatically as my eyes remained fixated on the two obscure persons waiting beneath the dense foliage. The rains sufficiently reduced; rather acquiesced to let morning-walkers reach their abodes without necessarily getting drenched. Gushing streams along the promenade reduced to twisted, snake-like deposits of glimmering sand brought by receding waters. Followed by the withdrawal of the precipitation, the couple gadded out of the green cover.

Before both the figures reached as far as the tree allowed me to see, I discerned that the stream had also carried something else, apart from the sand, which it deposited right beneath the tree. For a brief second, I wondered what it was. Something harlequined with pink and dark brown: a young bird. It lay still. Its naked pink skin appeared rough and bore deep cuts. Sparse dark colored feathers clung to its clipped wings. I thought it was dead. To my utter bewilderment, it started writhing instantaneously, splashing the water around. I hollered for the chaukidar but my continual efforts went in vain. Exasperated, I dressed up as quickly as it was humanly possible before rescue operations for the hapless creature be undertaken. By the time my face sneaked out of the window to appraise the bird’s condition, I saw the old man and his spouse sprinting desperately towards the tree to tackle the crisis.

For a split interval of time, the old man seemed utterly baffled. He stood by the bird, his hands swinging like rags left to dry in the wind, indulging in violent to and fro motion at one moment and limping lifelessly in the very next, as if they had an autonomous brain that went down with apoplectic fits. The lady followed him too, panting. Not long after she arrived, he immediately swung into action, as if her presence reassured him of his abilities. He bent over the bird and held it gingerly in his cupped palms. Its convulsions ceased suddenly, rendering the body lifeless. The man tried resuscitating it, sprinkling water on its moribund eyes. His failing attempts to revive the poor bird showed up as perspiration on his brows in the breezy morning. All this while, the woman witnessed the battle between life and death over her man’s shoulders, praying and snivelling alternately.

It was dead, which they didn’t take too long to realize. The man thrust the insentient body to his heart and pushed on to bury it under the wet earth they had spotted adjacent to the monolithic trunk. They dug a grave and covered it back after the burial. The downpour commenced again wetting the man and wife while they stood there, still like rocks. Funereal silence ensued.

Everything is just the same now, but for the mound under the tree. Although quite a few weeks have passed since that morning, I still get a lump in my throat whenever I see the old couple ambling in immaculate mornings. They always look at the bottom of the tree. They smile a pining smile or shed a tear or two sometimes. It seems the old man still recounts how the poor bird had beaten early death, waiting to die in his own moist hands.