A cold July breeze characteristic of the weather this time of year whistles past a grove of immaculate eucalyptus trees in the yard & into Eric’s room through a half open window snuffing out a lavender scented incense stick smoldering away on his desk. He eases himself into his chair & wheels himself towards the open window. He lingers on for a moment to watch the blinds dancing in the wind and the happenings right outside his window, a world he feels quite estranged from & rightfully so.
The breeze heralding a downpour caresses his face and flutters the pages of the half open book on his desk. Moments later a light shower ensues and lightning cracks in the distance, illuminating the sky and the deserted streets for a moment. A light successive knock jerks him from his reverie before Aisha his nurse walks into his room with a tray in hand. “It is time for your evening meal babu.” She coos too him as she wheels him away from the window & he grumbles in passive aggression.
“It’s been 3 days now & you haven’t touched any of your meals. Should I be worried about you? You don’t want your wife visiting me in my sleep to accuse me of maltreating you now do you?” Aisha was the only nurse with whom he had a rapport. Everyone else thought him too eccentric or ill-tempered. Eric stares blankly at the youthful woman standing before her. ‘’She’s got her whole life ahead of her, yet she chooses to spend her best years taking care of senile invalids”. He wonders whether he should tell her, tell her that he was indeed very grateful, but it was almost time. His ancestors have been visiting, calling him by name. He wonders if she would understand that he knows. Should he tell her that he had seen her? That she was still as beautiful as she was the last time he saw her? That he had been waiting to be reunited with her? Would she understand that he knows it is almost time?
He was nearing the end of his tenure here, a notion that brought with it intense peace & gratification. He was unafraid of taking his last breathe, if anything he was gleefully looking forward to it. This notion was particularly potent when compounded with nostalgia & the fleeting longing for his wife who had left him almost twenty years before. He seemed to remember her with utmost fondness despite his senility to the awe of many, with some even commending him for the enthusiasm with which he had kept her memory alive through the years. He had done & said very little to betray the fact that this lonesomeness was debilitating, a personal hell that he had woken up to every day for the last twenty years.
Oftentimes, the loneliness had been near damning. He had lost count of the numerous times he had toyed with the idea of taking his own life. He was aware that the state of his mental health was in decline, but his will power had long waned and with it the resolve to regain control of his own life. He was trapped inside the confines of his own mind & he had slowly & painfully come to terms with the reality that his best days were now behind him. His two sons had paid him constant visits right after his confinement. The visits had slowed down to a trickle and had eventually stopped altogether. He relished the moments he had spent with the boys, they had grown into fine young men, their mother would be proud. Initially he had been quite resentful after they had decided to have him committed here, a bitter argument had ensued but he had eventually yielded & given in. He was aging and he was in need of special attention, he would however go home after his treatments were done, but that was well over 2 years ago. Now he hardly thought anything of the matter, every now & then however, he would be consumed by the desire to go home & after the recent prognosis, it had escalated into an obsession.
In his solitude, he desperately longed for the land where he’d spent his youth, the fields where he had grazed his father’s herds, the dew under his feet in the early mornings and the aromatic petrichor after a downpour. The rivers he had frequently bathed in as a boy, the watering holes in the plains dotted with zebra & gazelle, the sprawling grasslands dotted with acacia trees that would turn golden when the rains stopped & the arid plains littered with scrub. The hill-top from where he had watched the sun bathe the entire valley in golden light at dawn & what he would come to later learn was known as the escarpment, the unbeaten tracks he had trodden in pursuit of game, the cackling fire in the hearths at twilight and the camaraderie from his peers. The nostalgia had served to harden his resolve about going home, beneath the jacaranda grove where they had laid her to rest. Little else mattered to him now.
The doctors begrudgingly granted his request for discharge & did very little to hide their disapproval. He had argued his case & preyed on their sympathies with little remorse when all else had failed; he was after all a dying man. As the vehicle wove its way through the quotidian evening traffic, his gaze remained fixated on the city outside his window particularly the transformation the city skyline had undergone in the last two years.
Muamar, Eric’s gardener had somehow felt that he owed his previous employer one last debt of gratitude & Eric had preyed on this sentiment. The pre-existing relationship between them had grown into a friendship & this was therefore a pact between friends and the handshake between them had sealed the accord, an unspoken gentleman’s agreement. The rest of the drive was marked by a rather intense silence broken only by hooting from disgruntled drivers and Muamar’s occasional humming. Eric had eventually let the hum of the engine lull him to sleep, the most peaceful he had had in years.
He was finally going home; beneath the jacaranda grove next to her, he was finally going home.
