Draw double lines. Always draw double lines after you finish your work.
My school teachers always said this to our class and I often wondered what it meant. For me, these lines came to signify the marginalisation of the blank space of a page. They meant the end of the text: the end of meaning. Because blank spaces don’t mean anything.
Why am I thinking of what my teachers said anyway?
I’m aware that I’m having flashbacks. At this point that’s the only thing keeping me conscious. I had a terrible accident a week ago and the doctors said that I can’t speak now. Permanently.
You need to express yourself clearly. Only then will others know what you mean. My grammar instructor told this to me once while reading a short story I wrote. In my quest to express myself clearly, I fell in love with the art of writing. I did not have a laptop then, so I wrote on paper and the walls of my house. My childhood was filled with stories from my parent’s childhood. Although the little bedtime tales lulled me to sleep when I was young, they became the fuel to the fire within me. I once asked my mother how she told me the stories in such a great manner. "Storytelling is an art, you’ll learn it someday", she used to say.
The arrangement of the words on a page determines how you perceive the story. The blank space on the screen: the white page staring at you is your chance to make something out of nothing. The ceiling of the hospital room is another white space at which I’m forced to look due to my newfound immobility. Sometimes I twist my body sideways so that I can peep outside the window and watch the snowfall.
It's been a month since I got into the road accident. I remember how I was hurled on my two-wheeler by a truck. I was thrown off from the centre of the road to the side stripped white by double lines. It was a special day for me before it all happened. I was returning that day from a publisher’s after submitting a story manuscript I had been working on for a year.
They have shifted me to another building in the same hospital. My voluntary muscles, although not swift, give me enough mobility. I’ll be in the ‘people with special needs’ category of the story. The window and the ceiling are the same here just like the old room. I feel like I have not moved. Sometimes I write airy letters on the white ceiling: N O W, I try writing several words. But they all end up vanishing from my imagination into thin air. Slowly, my hand gestures gain prominence over my absent speech. I feel powerful.
The new nurse appointed to me is a young woman in her mid-twenties. I don’t know her name yet. So, I will call her “S”. When she first attended to me yesterday, she did not utter a single word, I saw her lips not moving. She entered the room, replaced my bandages with a fresh one, and left. Today she came with white tuberoses in her right hand. S smiled at me and placed the flowers in a little vase on the side table. Her daily routine consisted of mopping my room and changing my bedsheets. S then used to fill my water jug, feed me, and give me medicines.
A week has passed by and I’m looking at snowfall again. My thoughts skip from the ceiling to the snow to the unpublished manuscript. I also wonder why S has not talked to me yet. I wish I could tell her that I can hear. Sometimes I hear several footsteps outside my room and I have slowly gained this special skill of distinguishing sounds of footsteps. I recognize S’s footsteps the moment she enters the corridor. But these are different. I hear two pairs of footsteps. S enters with a tall man.
I hope you’re doing fine. The doctor is in a jolly mood today. She is your caretaker. She can’t hear. She lost her listening ability in a tragic event when she was little. But there is nothing to worry about. She is wonderful at expressing herself. Please bear with us. You are one of the few chosen ‘special needs’ patients working with ‘special needs’ nurses. You are a part of a research project proposed by the hospital.
As I heard the doctor’s receding footsteps in the hallway, I realized that S’s silence was not a mere habit but a fact of her body. This time she carefully arranged the tuberoses in the vase, putting the small ones in front, and the large ones in back. In the hospital room, where the world seemed confined to the white walls, the days flowed with a regular silence. The only sounds that reached my ears were the incessant talking of people, the clinking of crockeries, and the soft hum of the snowfall outside. My new reality- based on my inability to speak and my silent observation of S- felt like a tale waiting to be told.
S's daily presence had become a very comforting ritual. One day she bought a wooden box and kept it on the table near the vase. Then, she proceeded with her daily routine. I was waiting for her to give me a hint or an eye contact. But she said nothing. She kept on brooming the floor and dusting the furniture. When she was done, she came to me and stood beside me. A large smile covered her face- it was the first time we were communicating.
She continuously looked at the box as if waiting for me to open it. I reached out for the box and uncovered its lid. Inside the box were meticulously carved figurines of different sizes. Her eyes were filled with pride as I examined the box's contents. I observed how carefully the human figurines were carved, every body part looked as if real. I looked at her and she nodded shyly. She was very proud of her art.
My respect and admiration for S increased from that day. She knew the importance of work and had the utmost passion for her art. We started communicating more often and I became better at using sign language with her help. I never got to know her story, and how she felt about this inability to hear. It felt like, for her, this ability did not exist in the first place. Each day, she carried on with her chores just like nothing happened to her and never behaved like she wanted to gain attention about this. And I asked myself if S could do this, if she could go on with her life as if nothing happened, why am I the one worried about my muteness? I still had the power to write- the thing that matters to me the most.
Sometimes, we would silently sit and look at the snowfall together, and sometimes we would talk to each other in a language beyond words. My time at the hospital was becoming easy. It was a speedy recovery and on the day of my discharge from the hospital, something remarkable happened. As S arranged the tuberoses in the vase, she placed a white envelope on the side table. The envelope had a logo I recognized instantly- it was from the publisher to whom I submitted my manuscript a month ago. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be?
S caught my attention and gave me a promising smile. She gestured with her eyebrows towards the envelope. Trembling with anticipation, I reached for the envelope and carefully opened it. Inside was a letter from the publisher. The letter was filled with the kind of news that dreams are made of- my manuscript was accepted for publication. I read the words that spoke of the life I desired- future book signings, conferences, the joys of seeing my work in print and various media- a deep sense of accomplishment washed over me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked up at S.
Her silent encouragement had played a crucial role in this moment, though she might not have known it. Her care and the way she filled my room with beauty and soft companionship had given me the strength to keep going, even when words seemed to fail me.
A week has passed since I returned from the hospital. A newfound strength has surrounded me. I do not feel bad about myself at this point, and all because of S. I feel I should gift something to her. Moreover, there are some of my things left in the hospital which I have to collect. So, on my way, I stop at a flower shop to buy a large bunch of tuberoses. As I enter the hospital, I go the receptionist, and she hands over some papers, my clothes and a wooden box. I pick up a pen and write that the box was not mine and I was looking for the nurse who looked after me. The receptionist reads the note and gives me a hesitant look. For a while, I try to convince her that the box was not mine and she kept on saying that they found the box in my room. The box that S showed me earlier was already at my home and this, I wonder, would be a gift from S again. The receptionist stares at me blankly.
The nurse who looked after you passed away in a car accident three days ago. She says.
My heart sinks here, right in the moment, and I open the wooden box. Inside, is a figurine of a writer sitting at his desk.
About the Author:
Kumar Sawan was born and brought up in Lucknow. He is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of English and Modern European Languages, at the University of Lucknow. His works have been published in Rhetorica: A Literary Journal of Arts, Contemporary Literary Review India, SPL Journal, Literary Horizon, Creative Saplings, Borderless, and Teesta Review.
A beautiful story