Fatima’s Tears

My chest was tight and it was getting difficult to breathe. I was suffocating with the burden of the heavy loss. I couldn’t tell anyone, what I had lost last night. I always believed that sharing makes a man weaker, even weaker than he could be with the burden of a lot of secrets inside him. This is one of the reasons i thought i should write about this incident of my life.

That morning, i wasn’t feeling hungry at all, but I knew if I wouldn’t eat anything, my mother would suspect that something was wrong. So, I barely ate something pretending to be normal, but I guess she already noticed the gloom in my eyes. When i left, my mind was completely out of track and i had no concentration on driving.

To me it was no ordinary day, I never felt such an excruciating pain before. It was like my head was tearing apart and i was about to explode any minute. I was passing through my usual route to university of the Punjab, with the sound of loud rock music entering my ears through headphones. As i was driving more recklessly than ever, the very next moment i saw someone just came running into the road. I tried my best to push the brakes and avoid hitting the person, but unfortunately i ran directly into her.

She was a little girl of about 8-9 years lying about 8-10 feet from my bike. My engines were still on. I knew it was dangerous to stop now to help her.When i looked at her lying in the middle of road completely soulless, my mind went blank. The only thing i could think was to flee from the scene instantly. So, I pressed the clutch and pushed the gear. I was about to drive away, when I saw at her one last time. Her hand moved and it was then when I knew if I were to leave her like that I might never be able to forgive myself. I thought that i might be bad person, but perhaps not this bad. I stepped away from bike and started ran towards her. Till then a young boy and a man had approached her already and were picking her up. From the appearance of the young boy I could clearly see that he worked at the workshop of the man on the back. When I reached there, I picked the girl took her to the chair in that workshop nearby. I asked the boy to bring a glass of water for her. She was crying and tears were all over her face.

The handle of my bike slightly scratched her face and her hand was strangled as well. Miraculously, there weren’t big injuries, just some small scratches. Being related to medical field i could see that there were no major injuries and even there was no blood. In my heart i was relieved but still i was worried due to her tears as she was constantly crying.

Soon there were horns of cars when i ran to remove my bike from the middle of the road. As I was walking back towards the girl i realized something very strange. I felt like she was not crying cause she was hurt. She was not crying cause a bike hit her. Suddenly I felt that strange smell all over me. My shirt was wet somehow. When i looked clearly, there was milk all over me.How could i not notice it earlier? May be perhaps i was too scared. I was worried for myself that if something would have happened to her it could send me to prison. I think she was carrying milk to her home, when I hit her. There was milk on the spot where i hit here. When i looked at her again, somehow a thought came into my mind. I thought may be she is crying not because of pain but with the worry that now she had no milk to carry home. Her worry of spoiling the milk was perhaps greater than her physical pain. To see if  it was true or not, i gave some money to the boy to bring her a packet of milk from the shop nearby. The very next moment, her tears stopped falling off her checks. She was watching that boy going to get milk for her as she sat on the chair inside that workshop.

I left without waiting further. Now I was not driving recklessly. Now my mind was not clouded with the thoughts of last night. I was feeling nothing. I realized that the fear of losing something precious hurts more than the loss itself. We human beings keep running after things that seem so important to us that we often lose track of life itself. That poor girl was carrying milk for someone at home and when she lost it, she couldn’t bear it. But the moment she saw that she could get it back again, she forgot all her physical pain. her name of Fatima.

The pain is in our heads and most of the times its usually linked to something that were considered important. But the important question is if it’s right to say that the void left by the loss of something precious can be filled by something of equal value or not? In either case, life continues on its course whether we like it or not!