Friday, June 03, 2005
Late Night Nocturne
He listened as she told him her story.
It was a bad story. He'd heard worse before, but he knew there were thing she wasn't telling him.
We falter, we fall.
We get back up again, and find our paths.
Eventually.
*****
The old woman's face contorted in agony and her eyes filled up with tears as she saw her son lying in a profound coma. Her face lay half in shadow, backlit by the soft orange glow of the ward's night lights. Her eyes glistened with a burning intensity; there was something she had to say.
She didn't even ask the attending doctor how bad it was, and whether he'd wake up again; she just latched onto him and started babbling.
They gravitated towards her; it was the human thing to do, it was almost a natural reaction to grief; they brought her food and drink and sat her down.
He listened the way he'd learnt to in his year in A&E counselling people who had lost close relatives, as she poured forth her grief, and felt comforted by the listening presence of the (hot) nurse by his side, leaning lightly against him since he'd taken the only other chair available to sit down eye to eye across from the pre-bereaved.
His ability with oriental languages and dialects had never been brilliant, and what with the little old woman launching into three of them all at once and all, he felt rather lost.
But after a while he began to realise that she wasn't talking about her son at all; or even about her grief at seeing him transformed into a shell of who she once was.
She kept beating her chest and talking about herself, and how she would have nobody to look after her. And about how bad a son this one had been, how he had failed her so often.
How wonderful she had been rearing him, and what an ingrate he had been.
The minutes slid by and his eyelids began to feel heavy.
At last she reached the pinnacle of her tirade, and asked him, implored him not to send her son home because she couldn't look after him. Send him to a home; send him to social welfare.
But of course, he said.
Of course.
It was a bad story. He'd heard worse before, but he knew there were thing she wasn't telling him.
We falter, we fall.
We get back up again, and find our paths.
Eventually.
*****
The old woman's face contorted in agony and her eyes filled up with tears as she saw her son lying in a profound coma. Her face lay half in shadow, backlit by the soft orange glow of the ward's night lights. Her eyes glistened with a burning intensity; there was something she had to say.
She didn't even ask the attending doctor how bad it was, and whether he'd wake up again; she just latched onto him and started babbling.
They gravitated towards her; it was the human thing to do, it was almost a natural reaction to grief; they brought her food and drink and sat her down.
He listened the way he'd learnt to in his year in A&E counselling people who had lost close relatives, as she poured forth her grief, and felt comforted by the listening presence of the (hot) nurse by his side, leaning lightly against him since he'd taken the only other chair available to sit down eye to eye across from the pre-bereaved.
His ability with oriental languages and dialects had never been brilliant, and what with the little old woman launching into three of them all at once and all, he felt rather lost.
But after a while he began to realise that she wasn't talking about her son at all; or even about her grief at seeing him transformed into a shell of who she once was.
She kept beating her chest and talking about herself, and how she would have nobody to look after her. And about how bad a son this one had been, how he had failed her so often.
How wonderful she had been rearing him, and what an ingrate he had been.
The minutes slid by and his eyelids began to feel heavy.
At last she reached the pinnacle of her tirade, and asked him, implored him not to send her son home because she couldn't look after him. Send him to a home; send him to social welfare.
But of course, he said.
Of course.
