Panacea (Short Fiction)

  As he changed sides with much difficulty, it took me no time in sensing that his pain was acute and dissolved a part of him every moment. He opened his flaccid eyes and stared at me- a helpless being with disheveled hair, sitting near his bed. With bewildered expressions, I glanced at the window where grey-black clouds began teaming up, conspiring a storm. I shifted my glance at him and found him in a comatose sleep. After a few moments of peace, he got up with a jerk and blood drops fell from his swollen nose. He looked at me apologetically making tears gush out of my sleepless eyes. The decade long evening was stuck; it choked our breaths and suffocated us in an undesired moment. He closed his eyes and shivering like a helpless leaf in a wild storm, curled up some more.

  I went to the bathroom and stared at the red threads of my eyes that bound me with his suffering, providing a testimony to the turmoil rising slowly inside my blank mind. I sat on the wet floor and cried like a child abandoned in a swarm of cold and unknown faces and then, rushed straight towards the last drawer. Two drops sufficed in a cup of milk. Slowly, he drank a part and after some uneasy coughing and twisting, wagged his tail before closing his sunken old eyes. With a pounding heart, I heaped on him and clutched his limp body tightly. Despite noticing a certain comfort on his face after a long time, I could not help cursing myself.

  Some situations are crossroads where tough choices become inevitable; the grey gap between white and back merges and wrong becomes right and poison becomes the panacea...