eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 45

WS TR KR IH O P
O O S ES

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MY FINAL NOTE
    SHRUTHI NAYAK                                   

Shruthi Nayak is from Manipal,
Karnataka. Writing has been her
interest since she was a child; however,
with no great support from her parents
she is trying her luck with the help of
her husband. She is a Speech therapist by profession, ardent reader by
passion, part time writer to satisfy her
insatiable soul and a full time wife by
god’s grace.

D

EAR MA, I have realized that
her time is running short and
she has only a few hours to
breathe. Breathe this pure fragrance into
her lungs until it slows down, never being
able to stand again, to survive, to feel. She
is dying, looking so deep into my eyes,
that I can feel her pain within me. I feel
so suffocated, so tightened on the inside,
just like the air-sealed jar in which you
kept cookies. Whenever I looked at those
cookies, I thought they were dead, unable
to breathe in the stifling confines of the
jar. This feeling makes me nervous. I can
imagine what would happen to her at the
last minute of her battle, which started
several years ago.
It’s a battle lost, but won; a battle where
death is her trophy; a battle through which
she never stopped smiling. I often asked her
how she could smile so heartedly, lying on
her death bed. In return, she always asked
me the same question. I could never figure
out how to give her an honest reply, snuggled by her side on the coir mattress bought
by Paa specifically for me? It was soft and
thick with a pink-laced bed sheet covering my body, adding comforting warmth
to it. Lying on the mattress always made
me feel like I was rolling over a chocolate
crumbs cake. I sardonically laughed at her
then, contemplating if death could be that
syrupy? I felt sorry for her then. Poor girl!
A good human being with a golden heart;
she is my best friend, in fact my only friend.

I still remember the day you introduced me
to her. She looked sad and you reasoned
that, like me, even she did not have any
friends. When I asked her name you told
me I could call her anything. But when
for weeks I could not give her a suitable
name, you asked me to call her Chhaya.
Thus began a new realm of friendship,
love and an unspeakable bond that finally
made life seem meaningful, even exciting,
to me. I was only three years old when I first
met her. Those days, I was always lonely,
restricted to the four walls of my room all
day long. I was angry with you for never
allowing me to go outside to play, to run,
to jump, while Karan came home only for
dinner. I am sorry I even hated you at times
for being so over-protective.
But everything changed when you gave me
Chhaya. She always stayed with me indoors,
so I didn’t feel I was alone anymore. She
changed my whole world, she became
my whole world. I felt lucky to have her,
see her anytime I wanted. I talked to her
for hours, and she just sat there and listened, without ever complaining or getting
bored. She laughed with me, she cried for
me. She was like my genie and I was her
Aladdin. We became inseparable, and only
you knew how much I loved her and valued
her friendship.
Everything seems ha