The chilly December night threw a blanket of lullabies over the sleeping inhabitants of the quiet suburb. The row of streetlights rendered a mysterious hue to the empty serpentine roads that led to the row of dark shadows of colourful houses, and to the clear black waters of the lake beyond. As if resolute to ruin the monotony of the scene, a single window somewhere amid the shadows was lit in full glory. From a distance, it looked like a box of light gliding in a river of darkness. A closer look at the open window revealed the silhouette of a lady, she was pulling her long hair into a bun behind her head. From where she was sitting, she was fixedly staring at the computer screen in front of her. Occasionally, her hands moved swiftly to wipe and cover her face, perhaps she had been crying.
Janet had turned thirty a few days ago. With her cheerful demeanour and humour, her friends and family had always known her as the lucky charm of her companions. She was already living the life that she had perceived as ideal for herself; a small family, a well-paid job, and a quiet home. Having discovered the love of their lives in each other, James and Janet had both believed it to be better to desert the chaos of the city for this quaint country home when they decided to have a family. It was perhaps for the same reason that they chose to name it their Eden. Neither of them had the ambition for luxury; their idea of a comfortable living having been realised with Eden and the birth of little Shaun. An enviable poetic perfection lingered around it; a certain stern defiance and open challenge to the hands of hectic Time.
The past week, however, had made visible many a crease between the brows of frowning Moment. Having fainted in her office corridor and taken to the hospital by the security guard on- duty, the realisation had soon dawned upon Janet that all was not well with her health. Her swiftness of movement and reflexes seemed to have been drifting into slow slumber. Her limbs felt frail more often than what would have passed off as fatigue from a long day’s work. Hours, when she was awake, could now be squarely split into throbs of pain and infuriating numbness. She had decided against telling any of this to James since she had felt quite reassured by the doctors’ opinion and did not wish to trouble James with such frivolous matters as she saw it. She left the house as usual, except that her visits were now more generously bestowed on the hospital than her office. At Eden, she tried her best to feign her infectious laughter and persuade playful Shaun to sing along with her as she cooked unusually elaborate dinners. But heedless of her best efforts, a gloomy silence had quietly infiltrated the house like a thousand dusty rays of splendid sunshine pouring and pursing within those that dared to touch it a pail-full of enchanting false hope.
Tonight, she was sitting by the window in the empty storeroom of Eden. She stared at the email message on her computer, her mind racing so fast that the words blurred together and no longer made any sense. Just three lines, but enough to make her life--the life she’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much to build--begin to crumble around her. The mail was from her doctor; her biopsy results had come. Janet felt like she was choking in her own breath. She could feel her head swimming; everything around her had come to a standstill and she was witnessing all of it like an alien. She felt as though something was coiling around her body…tighter and tighter with each passing moment. Her doctor was not someone who minced his words, and Janet had always appreciated this fact. However, thinking about the Inevitable and the Imminent, she silently wished he had given her some false assurance, some vain cheer. The thing that was coiling around her had now reached her neck from where it came in front of her to meet her eyes. She could see its green, slit pupils and enormous hood. With one flick of its thick tail, it brushed aside James and Shaun, who were now cowering in a corner, emptiness draining their eyes of all life. As it hissed and dramatically opened its mouth, Janet could smell death drawing closer to her. One swell swoop of the creature and she found herself screaming as she opened her eyes and looked at the computer screen again. She was unable to decide whether she was grateful for having woken and found herself alive. The images of James and Shaun, horror and grief-stricken, did not budge from before her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see them like that. But what could she do?
It was not her death that she was afraid of. She was well past the age when mortal life could give men the illusion of extending an eternity. She was contented with herself and with the life that she had chosen and lived, but her concern for the lives that surrounded her found her not merely swimming, but well drowning in troubled waters. How could she expect to tell them about her failing health and find them cheerful and hearty as they are now? And even if she was successful in completely hiding the fact from them, how could she prepare them to accept her death? She concluded that it was unfair on her part. She could not imagine sitting in a closed room crying and cursing to herself, and pretending to be someone else in front of people who cared to know how she was genuinely feeling. But if she opted to tell them the truth, how could she let the place that she had decorated and planned for so much happiness, become the lingering symbol of her pale health and the gloom that would surround it? Unsettled about the destination of her sojourn, she set out with a bag of clothes, her rosary, and a diary. “Some spiritual journey, maybe a pilgrimage...,” she thought to herself. She had given up religion and its tangles when she was thirteen but holding the rosary today and looking up at the room’s ceiling seemed to suddenly fill her with strength. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the prayers that her mother had taught her as a child. Muttering under her breathe, she saw glimpses from the past and present passing before her eyes like a slow film playing. More than once her eyes turned misty. It all felt like a trance, a dream. She opened her eyes and gazed at her hands. Her eyes bespoke a certain direction.
She put out the lights in the storeroom and walked into the kitchen. She glanced around at the fridge and brought out bottles of milk and some fruits. She proceeded to the cupboard to get some other commodities. For the next half-an-hour, she whisked and poured and finally put the container of sweet into the fridge. As she closed its door, she found the childish crayon drawing that was stuck on it with a magnetic badge that read ‘Super Mom’. The drawing was of three stick figures standing close to a house. The figures were larger than the house and were each labelled as ‘Daddy’, ‘Mom’, and ‘Little Shaun’. She ran her fingers on the drawing and let out a laboured laugh as she hugged it to herself.
In the next room, two figures were curled upon the bed. Their chests moved up and down, rhythmically in tune with their soft breathing. Kneeling close to the bedpost, she lifted her hand to touch Shaun’s soft hair but pulled it back for fear that she might wake him. She couldn’t stop herself from taking her eyes off them. James, with his jet-black hair, the same colour as his eyes, with an otherworldly calm on his face was smiling in his sleep. He was kicking the blanket under his feet out of the cold. She adjusted the blanket and covered them both with it. ‘He must remember to do it before he drops asleep,” she thought. She knelt and turned to James again. How she had always loved the short trace of a beard on his fair face! And Shaun, her son who she was sure would grow to be a very talented gentleman someday. He was already so good at everything he did. Such a sweet, young boy! How she would miss his pranks and chatter! She sighed, wiping her eyes as they brimmed in reminiscence. Planting a kiss each on their foreheads, she stood up and reached for the doorknob, stopping in her steps to turn and glance at them one last time. She saw James turn to his side, muttering her name in his sleep; she smiled and closed the door behind her.