Of Crows and Squirrels.

Isolation is large part of recovering burns, and isolation is a lot like suicide, a person tends to create his own society, shut off from others in a dingy space, stare at the same wall, day in and day out, looking out of the window rejecting the world which one believes is rejecting you. When the surgeon asks you to step out of the isolation, usual response is,”I prefer not to every offer and every possibility” to any condition no amount of social engineering will cure.

Sam was in a similar state, it was four months now, all she could do was stare out of her window and look at the world passing by, she could look out of the South-western window and see the expanse of the forest and the Arabian Sea receiving the gushing Zuari, the view from the northern window she could see the whole city and this being long weekend with abysmal tourists, it a was city crouched under a blanket of car smog.

The mild drizzle had strengthened to a raging down pour, and watching it was like or rather listening to the pitter-patter seems to send her into a mild trance, memories were being evoked, it was like looking out of a window through a chugging train. Sam smiled,  rains had this ridiculous power waking up all the angels and the demons within, at the same time, to ignite a war between the two within.  Sudden the thought train derails, and one takes a path that we never crossed before, she felt intuitively the crash was coming, the victor could be either, the demon or the angel but she knew she would be wounded in any case.

Still it was better than lying on the bed with tubes inserted, she though, no window to look out, though there was a window that allowed her look inside, she was just too scared.

Her mother would open the door, saying, ”to let the breeze and light inside.”

“but would breeze and light enter a human” wondered Sam,

The gentle breeze that caressed her seem to say, ”if the door is open” it can. It occurred to Sam, looking at the world from her window, was good but there was something essentially missing, something rather big,

“you must also look at your window from the world to see yourself” her mother used to say.

She had moved on, from lying on her bed and gazing outside to sitting by the window to write. Her old cronies, reclaiming their bonds, like the crow she fed. It was a strange bond the crow with one feet it would eat grains given by Sam and no one else, through her illness it had made a habit of perching on her window sill, like it did today.

The  cawing of the crow which every Hindu dreaded, but to Sam it was connect it was that which guided back and forth as she battled the pain it was almost as if the crow had guarded her spirit till her body was reconstructed, slowly and steadily.

The next visitor at her sill, was the squirrel the nutsy one, she would perch by the grill and the minute Sam moved she would run away.  it was almost like the squirrel had come to tell her it is time to have fun. It was fun enough viewing the antics of the squirrel through window as it dashed along the branch of the tree sometimes with another squirrel, sometimes all by itself. Picking up the bread slice.

Today the squirrel was doing something different, it was picking up berries and nuts and stacking it up almost as telling Sam,

”Honey it is time to honour the future, things are changing, get ready for it.”

Yes she had to it was time to move on, Sam thought as she stared at the squirrel,

“find a safe place to put your gatherings it seems to say.”

A safe place maybe an untroubled heart and mind, to put the wisdom she had gathered, and compassion she had learned.  These gathered energies set her mind and heart free, assuring her that all will be taken care of in its own time.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’