From a COVID-ICU Bed

If I can return this time, I'll go to the mountains. I'll climb high up and watch the sunrise. I'll stretch both hands toward the sun as I ascend the mountain. I'll fill my eyes with the pale light of dusk. I'll spend at least one whole afternoon in the lap of the mountains, holding my beloved's hand. My love is sulking because I can't give her time. How many days it's been since we talked! If I can survive this, I'll truly break her sulk. And if I die, her sulk will break on its own. But what if it doesn't break even then? Is mother still sulking with father because he forgot to buy her glass bangles? If nothing else, just to break my lover's sulk, I feel such a strong desire to live today! Again and again I think—there's nothing more beautiful than breaking a lover's sulk! The way she turns her lower lip and cries somehow! It looks so endearing! Won't I see my little bird again?

I haven't known for many days how the three dogs in the alley are doing. If I recover, I'll go see them, feed them chicken fry. They haven't nuzzled against me for so long. They get sad too—I can tell. Do they nurse grudges in their hearts, I wonder? Probably not. If they did, why would they come running to me like that even after so many days? My lover never came to me that way! Or is their capacity for love greater than their capacity for resentment? How do they live with such simple hearts? Doesn't it hurt them to love so much? Why haven't dogs learned to forget? Apart from a few packets of cheap biscuits, they've never gotten anything else from me! And I never fed them out of love! I enjoyed it, so I fed them. They mistook my joy for love and ended up loving me this much! They live with such simple hearts! Why can't humans be like that? Dogs still haven't learned to become human!

When did I last embrace mother? I can't remember! I think of mother constantly—can she tell? Can mothers catch everything by looking into their children's eyes? When did mother last look into my eyes? Can I truly say I love mother? What a strange world! I don't even know whether I love someone or not, yet I can say I love them; but the one I truly love—I can say nothing to her! I feel such a strong urge to hold mother close to my chest! Will I see mother again? Mother and I have so many stories saved up! Have I ever caused mother pain? When returning home, did I forget to bring something mother wanted to eat? I've ordered and bought a hand-painted peacock-feathered sari and kept it in the wardrobe. Mother's birthday is just two days away. What sorrow—I couldn't put that sari in mother's hands!

Today it feels like in this life I couldn't keep some promises I made to some people. I never felt this way before. Perhaps from my side, this promise-breaking wasn't such a big thing. Was it equally small from their side? Those I made promises to but couldn't keep, or could have kept but forgot to—though it caused them no harm, surely they felt hurt... even a little? If I can return alive to them, I'll kneel down and ask forgiveness with folded hands. Won't I get forgiveness if I ask like that? Do they remember these petty mistakes? The one who doesn't keep promises may forget, but the one to whom the promise was made never forgets. Why didn't I understand this simple truth before? Just when all my words are gradually running out, the failure of not keeping promises haunts me like this!

Today I feel like laughing so much. How many days since I laughed out loud! How long since I cried over small joys! I've spent so many days living a life numb to feeling, caught up in various busynesses! How long since I talked with myself! When did I last spend a whole evening sitting quietly by a river—I can't even remember today! How many times I went to the sea and just wet my feet and left, never thinking to wet my soul! Right by my window runs that lonely road—I used to walk there slowly in the afternoons. I don't walk there anymore. Today I feel such a strong desire to walk on the world's roads! Do people cry for roads only when roads run out?

Why do I remember all this after so long? What good does remembering do now? Why is the human heart like this? Why are we always too late to understand? Why are we always too late to love? Why are we always too late to cry? Why are we always too late to return? Why are we always too late to laugh? Why are we always too late to say sorry? Why are we always too late to see humans as human? Why are we always too late to recognize people? Why are we always too late to live? In this life I never even had time to waste time! What a failed life!

Today I feel such a strong desire to spend time idly! I too could have had an unbroken leisure! I too could have engaged in intimate conversations with my own sorrows! I too could have sat with life and spoken the unspoken words! I had so much to say! Will I truly get no more time? To whom should I ask forgiveness today to get a little lifespan for wasting time? I think I've exhausted all my rights to ask forgiveness today! Why did this happen to me? My whole life passed in life's busyness, and today each moment at life's end passes in death's busyness. Not life, but busyness became the truth in this futile existence! I lived with busyness, and I'm dying with busyness too. Where then did I ever truly live!

I can't breathe. I'm in such pain, mother! There's so much air all around, yet there's not even a handful of air anywhere for me to breathe. I'm leaving. They don't let anyone come beside the COVID ICU bed. Their rule, my loneliness! Both illness and death—the experience of both is so solitary! Yet somehow, deceiving all their eyes, father has slipped in here! Like in childhood, father is stroking my hair, running his hand over my head. Such comfort! Mother, I won't see you again. I couldn't say I love you one last time. I had so many, many stories to share with you, mother! All of you stay well. Father has come to take me—I'm going with father.

Ah, after so many days, today I'll walk holding father's hand for a long time! Father will surely buy me a bag of peanuts! After father left, I never ate peanuts again. Do you remember, mother? Today after so many, many days I'll eat peanuts leisurely. I couldn't give father anything while alive, and I can't give him anything even in death. What was the point of earning so much money all my life, mother?

You know, mother, even though you've grown old, father still hasn't aged. The age he was when he last left home—it hasn't increased, mother! Father's hair is still black, his hands still strong! Perhaps because father has to take responsibility for the rest of my life, God has kept him so capable and strong. God is so good, mother!

Mother, shall I break an old grudge of yours today? During the accident, father's bag contained three bunches of red-blue-green bangles he'd bought for you. When they deliver my body to you, smile a little in this joy, mother?