Chamber. Night light. Silence. Pain. A strange space that stretches to the deep heart. You know, sometimes you don't realize you're dead when you're alive, but isn't it weird that you feel alive when you're dead? It's hard to feel the million tissues of your body being torn apart and destroyed, to feel your heart pounding between the wood and the consolation. My days were as miserable and hard as years. It was as if the clock had been taken away from me, and so was the air. Today, for some reason, I remembered the big river at the head of our village. When I was a child, my sister and I used to go to that valley. We played until the evening and took a bath. One day, because of the increase in water, for some reason I could not swim, and I began to drown. I could not breathe and was motionless. But I survived it. Even now I am drowning in imaginary water and I can't live without breath. In the face of the virus that is cutting me off from life, I am radiant and discolored as if the sun had been pulled from the sky. I have decided today. I made a deal with my heart. It rises again and again and then ends in a long line. And I will stretch the threads of my life, not only to put an end to everything, but also to get rid of the pain and virus that eats me day by day. I was thinking about that. I believed that death would remember me very soon, and bring me with it. When I think of death, for some reason I think of my grandfather's sunken saga. Maybe it's because I'm sure I'll sink into the ground just like him. The four walls of the room cut me off from all over the world, and I was searched all my life. What I researched not only seemed to be based on the theory of death right now, it didn't even seem to have been touched. It was as if my heart was freezing, and then I was burning again, and I could smell the warmth, the tingling, and the stench coming from me. At that moment, in my mind's eye, when I was a child (or clearly, my grandfather and I brought our seedlings from the market and plantet it in our yard, and now they are vehement), the poplars were burning one by one, as if I was being burned with a virus that I could not breathe. I have been burned. I have been burned for a long time. I was burned with a series of ghosts lined up around me, not hunters. They also said, “Let's go. That's enough for you to live, ”he said, urging me to break my covenant with life. I sank in the sea of Covid, like a boat sinking in the middle of a big ocean. One day . I don't remember which day. But I will never forget those eyes and that voice. He told me that I needed to breathe now, that he would turn off the respirator, and that if I didn't breathe, it would all be over. And I was still careless, convinced that I could not breathe, that the virus had devastated me, and that the corpses of the village were waiting for me, and that the living would never catch me, so that I would not stumble upon it. But then something like this happened. "Samina," I heard her name mixed with tears. The voice was familiar. The voice led me to my home. In the room, the woman was rocking the cradle with dreaming, and in the cradle I was sleeping with enjoying. Then I realized that my mother was also covid. He was also in pain. He was in the throes of pain, and he was in the throes of a virus. My mother's voice reminded me of her dreams. Beautiful dreams. In my mother's dreams, she led me to the altar, and in her dreams, the white dress I wore shone in the sunlight, and these lights faded into my dreams. Now I would start my daughter in the altar. Now, I was striving for a true breath from the air apparatus that had been taken from me, torn from me, for the power of a dream, a motherly dream. But my lungs were still weak. I needed to breathe for my mother, with a thousand struggles. I couldn't see his eyes, I could only feel the ceiling, and the ceiling reflected the dream, I was thirsty for the scent of dreams. Now spring was waiting for me behind the window, joining the birds and immersing my mother in God. For some reason, the crumpled pieces of paper in my room were full of songs about life and living. In the ward, still in a mask, the doctor struggled to breathe next to me, holding my trembling hands, leading me to the island of comfort, and giving my thirsty body a drink of hope. As I stared into his eyes, I could see the glittering tears in his eyes, which, too, were quarantined and tired of the virus, albeit weak, for me and countless patients like me, and these glittering tears made me strong and brave. From a distance, my mother's "Samina, breathe, fight!" His voice was faintly heard, joining the song of life, the dream.
Once upon a time, a man named Paddy dug in the ground to harvest his crop, and found rot. Black, putrid rot. After digging more and more, he only found more of the same. He grabbed up a handful of what was supposed to be a potato, and, after pondering for a second, he suddenly and violently threw it; a long, hard throw, further than he thought he could throw, with fierce, clear adrenaline kicking through his body. But as he looked after his hurled piece of rot, his eyes focused on the Irishman's spear to the side. The landlord's men. A miserable, merciless, loveless lot. Now. Today. Coming to his house. Dropping everything, he turned and ran, faster than he thought he could run, up the hill to his humble stone cottage. He arrived there just as the men came riding at a swift jaunty pace into the hard-packed dirt front yard. His mind was on one thing. He neither turned nor stopped his pace, but hurled himself into the house and straight to that one thing. Along with a few last coins, he grabbed that one precious item, and ran far out back and, digging with his hands in the dry soil he placed that precious thing in the ground and threw some dirt over it. Then, turning, he saw the men ram rod the stone walls of his house. Stones fell and thudded inside the cottage, and he felt his heart thud with them. Like a wild man he wanted to run and fight them all, running into the midst of them like a one-man nightmare such as they had never seen before. With a roar the thatched roof went up in flames, and deep inside him something roared with it. But before he launched himself from his locked trance, heaven's gates swung open, and with a wild rush, it let loose its tears. All was thickly veiled with gray, fast falling, drenching, pouring. Quickly he turned, and threw himself on the ground, over his precious item shallowly buried. When the heaviness dwindled into a light drizzle, he lifted himself from the ground and turned to gaze at the landlord's work. The landlord's men were gone. Tumbled stones and piled ashes dark, damp and glistening held close the earth. Sifting smoke stirred up from it, lifting softly, sweetly, sorrowfully, like a soul leaving a young body, prematurely. And he felt his soul going with it, lifting, drifting, sifting. But not dead. Yes very much alive. More alive than many a living thing. Grief struck deep into his soul, the truest grief, yet not a tear he shed. Sorrow stung his heart, yet still, he rose upward. His precious item buried, he bent and dug it up. There it lay, like a small, premature casket, a narrow wooden box painted black, as long as his arm. His soul was in there, or, at least, a prime defining feature of his soul. Though it lay in a dark box, it was not dead. In fact it was one of the greatest defiers of death. Opening the box, Paddy pulled out his fiddle.
When I look at the sky, I do not see a universe being friendly to me because at that time, I stand out of the world of material prosperity surrounding me to imagine the world where the beacon light of humanity has turned into the twilight of devastating terror. At that time, I see my wings being cut by the ever-lasting knives of injustice, I hear the noises of crying mothers, voices of children fighting against poverty and hunger and see the faces of leaders who died for change. So, I have to gather my entire courage to see the sky as it always turns out to be a fearful situation. My dawn happened to be in a small country in South Asia where grades are important but creativity is not. However, I am not the reflection of my own community. I have a persistent aim to grow my creativity in Physics but I do not know where my strong current of desire will take me. So, when I see the sky, not only the beauty of twinkling stars hit my eyes, I also see an infinite collection of matter expanding every second. When I see the sky, I see the space-time making everything relative, the moon and satellites as my destiny, and the cosmic radiations transmitted by every stellar object but some questions confuse me like what makes so many stars attach as a single galaxy despite such low gravitational force? Then, when I get the answer to my own questions, I get mused and question myself what makes people afraid to choose fields like Physics where many things are still inexplicit? Does everyone fear with the fear itself? Don't they get support who dare? Also, I question myself, why is society making me believe that I cannot discover new? Then, I cannot answer my questions and feel down-hearted. So, my encounter with the sky isn't a mere vision but an encounter to despair and desolation. When the sun begins to set, the red color appears. When I see the sky at that time, the red color is agitated in my eyes and a new image is framed in my mind. I see the red river of blood originated through the crooked desert of politics and formidable faith over religion. I see people dying for their rights, being shattered for their freedom, paralyzed by the whirlwinds of disparity and their family crossing the doors of the judicial court to beg justice. I see some protestors who stake their life for others but are threatened in front of the law. Then, I start to mumble, the sky is not friendly to me. When I see the sky at night, I see eternal darkness which has even touched the mankind. I cannot differentiate that darkness with the inseparable problems of humanity like the problems of refugees, climate change, poverty, hunger, murder, rape, political dominance, water scarcity, etc. They revolve in my mind and I get staggered again. When I see the sky, I look at every star and realize that they change their brightness, position and habit every time. This makes me conscious about the fact that the world is changing all the time and we must embrace the change to withstand the inconsistent humanity. Yet many people do not have the heroism to try new and we are still bounded by the orthodox believers of society. So, when I see the sky, I have to compare a billion numbers of stars to the billion numbers of people and conclude that if there was a single star shining between the dark sky, the sky would not be as beautiful as now. So, every time I see the sky, I do not only see the little white dots on the black background; I see the whole world adjusted between my eyes. Unfortunately, that makes me sad, as I have to compare it to the darkness of mankind and adversity of this world. Then, the sun rises again with a hope that there will be a new beginning and the darkness will be banished by the power of light. Every day I get a new inspiration that the sun alone can defeat the eternal darkness but the fearful situation appears again. Again, I see the misery of humanity and the darkness that has touched our world but I cannot do anything except making my heart as heavy as the cloud. So, my relationship with the sky is a deep relationship that makes me realize that someday I will have to stand on the battlefield for change.