I could feel the blades of grass as I walked across them. Their hairs prickled the soul of my feet, in a comforting and inviting way. The grass was not deep, yet I felt like I could fall in its embrace if I so willed. The smell around made me feel nostalgic, but I was not sure what for. It reminded me of something I no longer remembered, and I longed to recall what I couldn’t.

Nostalgia has a way to make you feel complete, make you feel old, to make you feel that you were part of something and that is exactly what I felt. That is what we feel when we are nostalgic, that we were part of something that we belonged to, something we could call ours.

I felt the breath of the wind carrying mine, like I could swing in it. The wind was calm and warm, yet refreshing.

I could feel that my feet were wet, yet they felt dry. It almost felt like I was floating on the ground, like I was existing as my own shadow. I could still feel and smell and even taste the garden, but in my mind I couldn’t picture it to be right.

And that was another thing, my mind. It seemed off, unusual. There are times when my mind is empty, but this was like a heaviness, like a sleep that could not be washed off. It prevented me from thinking beyond, from asking questions. I found myself lying down on the grass. Its faint smell of mildew spoke to me, and made my mind  fall deeper into the haze. I closed my eyes but I could still see the garden, fresh as day. A sunflower seemed to be blooming now, facing me and turning in order to -

I felt it. I felt a large gnawing pull, a claw reaching out and grabbing like my face was plunged into ice cold water. I could taste the tubes in my mouth, their metallic prongs wringing my tongue dry. There seemed to be no saliva in my mouth anymore, and no voice in my lungs. My heart felt hollow, yet I knew I was alive. I was alive and I tried to open my eyes. They seized to obey my commands, yet somehow I could make out that there was a rush in the room. Faintly, I could see masked figures scuttling around me, a haze again, a mist - like a veil keeping me from seeing the whole picture. I was looking through the keyhole and it frustrated me. The picture was right through the door, but I was powerless to turn its knob. The pain drenched through my body, it ate my spirit up in waves. Each wave is somehow worse than the last. There is no getting used to it. I always thought that there is no such thing as insufferable pain, I know now that I was wrong. Death seemed like an anchor to life, or the only way to it. The pain reminded me of a needle point driving deeper and deeper into my eye.

I could hear a voice that was soft and subtle, yet elusive and tantalising. A voice that had a sort of power to it, a ring to it, that made the rest of the world fall into place.

“Everything will be fine now. Don’t you worry.”

I was back in the garden now. There were butterflies now. But the tubes, the pain, the masked men, where was I and what was reality? I was confused and could feel those memories slowly fading, the waves of pain slowly numbing, my welching body slowly solidifying in the grass. I was getting to peace, and that frothy, welcoming mist was filling up my mind again. I knew there was something on the tip of my tongue, something that was there, but I was powerless to reach for, or get and slowly my energy was waning, and even the thought of thinking made me feel tired and dull and sleepy. I could see butterflies now flying around me. They were of many colours, and they fluttered around close to me, attracted to my unusual self. They came close, but never close enough for me to be able to see their individual colors. There was something immaterial about it, but the less I thought about it, the more real they seemed.

I seemed to be sinking into the ground now and my eyelids felt heavier and heavier. I almost decided to close my eyes when,

The flashes came back to me, the men, the table, the pain, the feeling - and I was up.

I was walking now, what seemed more like floating, in fact, towards what seemed like the same in all directions. I continued walking, in hope for an explanation, for both the pipes and its memories fading away. I faced the sunflower now, which was pointing in the other direction. I followed its gaze to a tree that seemed far into the foreground.

I look towards the tree and its image slowly materializing, in fact spiralling away, the pain coming back in its entirety, showing its might and control over my mind. With the prize of the haze being lifted came the burden of experience, like a burning iron rod branding you on the skin.

The pipes were there, and I was in more darkness now. I couldn’t breathe, yet I could feel like I was breathing. My body didn’t feel right, like my organs had forgotten how to coexist overnight. I could feel pain in parts of my body I didn’t know existed.

There was something else that I could feel as well, and it was different. It was not the salt in the air, or the pinch of the needle that had been broken into my skin. With sobbing fitts I could hear someone there, I knew they were there, I could feel their presence, I knew them, I know who she was, I remember her, she,

but it was exhausting to think. The pain doubled as I searched for a name, and a noise seemed to warn me to not exert my thoughts too much. My body seemed to be rocking with pain, yet I lay perfectly still, completely powerless to move even a finger. I fought the massive tides for a moment further, just so that I could search for a name, but I had no success. The burning iron rod seemed to be a whip now, always becoming the next thing I fear, to give me a new dosage of it. I couldn’t take it anymore, I let go and felt the weight being released from my shoulders.

I was walking now to the tree that was in front of me. I could feel the dust settling on my mind, like cobwebs slowly covering the remains of the past. The tree seemed to remain as far as it was, no matter how much I walked to it. Yet I felt no sense of being exhausted, just heavy and at peace. A numbness of sorts. like my body was slowly turning into liquid.

Naina.

The word floated into my head and seemed to engulf the remaining part of my thinking brain.

Naina.

The word continued to ring back and forth in my head, it was like a fly that had entered a room and couldn’t leave it.

Naina,

it floated to the front of my consciousness, but I couldn’t grab it. I could only shove it aside. As the word seemed to fade slowly, the tree appeared to come closer and closer and closer. I could see it now, and it was like no other tree I had seen before. There was something ethereal about it, something unnatural. I looked up and couldn’t see how tall it was, yet I could see its branches of floating fruit, awaiting my approval. It’s bark didn’t seem to be made of wood, more like glowing plasma, wrapped around more and more of the same, and filled to the top. I touched the trunk and felt a beating from it, a sign of life from it. Its spirit seemed to engulf my hand, and make my body feel more and more weightless, like I was fading into the ocean, like my mind was closing and my whole consciousness relaxing as I fall deeper and deeper

“FIGHT FOR ME!”

And now the pain was back and the ringing and the pulsation and the pipes, and the haze disappearing.

“FIGHT!”

But I was still in the garden and the tree seemed to be holding on tighter to my hand, peeking into its insides, making it stay, not letting it reach back and rest. The haze seemed to be there, but the pain flashed back and forth and ,

Naina.

It came back to me in a hurry, and it filled my open pain ridden mind to the full, and the ringing filled me. I couldn’t feel the pipes and I was still in front of the tree, my hand fused to its bark.

Days and nights and mornings faded together and I saw a collection of flashes of her, and me. Arms around each other, smiling from ear to ear. I see days and weeks and months and moments go by of us, together, floating into reality, me and her. I see us sitting together, I see her jacket, oh how I have always hated that jacket. I can feel her lips, that were always so bittersweet, a flavour I could never understand. I could feel her hand, and her tears, falling, warming my body up from head to toe. Her spirit held on to mine, stopping me from going anywhere without her.

And I could see her now, see her clearly. She was there, very real, very alive, holding on to my hand, looking me in the eye, daring me to fight. Tears seemed to be streaming down her face, but there was a sort of resilience in her character that her face seemed hard and soft at the same time. She begged and she was begging, and my hand came free from the bark of the tree.

The pain took hold of me. It paralyzed me and controlled me, it prevented me from thinking of anything else. In the pipes, I couldn’t scream, but in the garden - I seemed to be screaming. Shrieking, for release, from the pain and the haze. She kept coming back to me and the pain materialized with her. I was on my knees now, hand over my head, thinking and not thinking at the same time. Both silent and screaming, at the same time.

I grabbed a fruit from the lowly hanging branches of the tree. It was a red apple. It felt like it wanted me to take a bite, inviting me to taste its insides. It looked like the way out of pain. I had it in my other hand, and it had started fading away my pain, my ringing, the pipes. I reached out to take a bite  -

“You can’t let go. YOU CAN’T LET GO!”

Shaken back into the apparent reality. Both seemed equally real now, the pain drowning me everywhere. My eyelids were heavy and I knew I needed to stay because I had to stay for her. I knew if I got back, I would bite in and fade away, I knew this was my last chance. I held onto it. I looked at her, and admired her, her bravery, how she was sure I would win. I smiled, a tear burnt my face as it streamed down my cheek.

But the pain grew. It took a monstrous shape and chased and beat me relentlessly. I seemed to be taking blow after blow and knew that I couldn’t take it forever more. I knew it was time.

I continued to look her into the eye.

I summoned all the strength I could, taking all the pain I could in a moment, to respond - to show her, I tried. I’m sorry. Goodbye.

What was left of my life was fading back and forth and I reached out and took a bite of the apple.

The world faded to black, and the ringing disappeared.

“She’s been over there since three hours. We have to do something. She can’t just sit there forever.”

“I know, but give her some time. She can’t accept it that easily.”

Naina didn’t turn to look as the people entered. They laid a hand on her shoulder and hugged her. Naina didn’t seem to be able to avert her eyes from the body that lay in the bed.

“You know she fought it right? You know she couldn’t have done anything more. You know she tried as much as she could, just to be with you?”

The words were enough, coming from the parents that had never accepted them, that she broke down. She clutched the embrace that was given to her. She sniffled, and nodded towards them and let go of the person’s hand.

She walked to the top of the bed, looking at the beautiful face of the person who laid there. Her girl, who laid there.

She kissed the head of the body and laid the cover over her. She looked one last time at the bed and then brought her hand close to her face.

Noone is going to believe her, and no one really could, but she knew, she knew that in the last moments, she had felt her hand being held back, being clutched, saying farewell.

Naina knew that Doria fought for two months, just to be able to say goodbye to her.

One thing she knew for sure was that she was never washing her hands again.