Her eyes imploring, he finally figures it out,
It must be her bed sores, and he adjusted their snouts.
‘So jao ma’, he said, kissing her night,
She responds, blinking enthusiastically despite her plight.
He left, and the doctor’s words flashed again in his jaded mind,
‘A year is the max she has left, everyone knows the prognosis of her kind.’
He was emotionally drained, tears having dried up long ago;
He didn’t feel anything now, there was nothing more that Algea could bestow.
She had endured a lot as her muscles had withered away,
The cramps, spasms, and the constant falls she suffered every day.
Maybe the mental stuff pained more than the physical,
Being incapacitated rendered her hysterical.
She was his child now, and he realized he owed her a lot,
For he was a boy once, though his childhood hadn’t been so fraught.
What is left now is not much, as he reminisced the past,
Trying to catch the sands of time, to extend each moment that her life would last.
Smiling absently, he repeated his favorite saying to himself;
The most temporary thing in life is life itself.
– Mayank Sharma, PGP Co2017