Dying

And she coughed. Her voice sounded like a broken recorder somebody had forgotten to turn off. It wafted over the spiraling hum of the ceiling fan, cut through the cryptic areas of the darkened room, choking, strangled, beseeching to be put an end to. The clock rolled on, its hands tinkering against the tiny wheels that set its spherical movements. The creases on the sheets foiled, folded and re-smoothened themselves. She continued suffering. In the dark, where the rest could hear her, no one came to the rescue. Everyone remained hostile to the idea of offering her comfort, physical or else. She didn’t need a poet, as she knew the best they could give her was to read to her Bleak House, which unfortunately was a comedy, an utter offense against her last breaths. For a length of time, she had stared at the enormous expanse of the shadows, seeing more life in them than what she regularly saw on the mirror each time her caregiver lifted it up to her to both their sorrow and horror. She was past caring then.

In the morning, she would find her medicines tampered with and obstinately held her silence. Her silence would then mold the foundations of her remaining days.