The Trail to Spring

Chapter 4

I found Grandpa lying down on his bed and resting. His wrinkled face still bore signs of the extreme pains that he had to endure just a few hours ago. A number of machines and instruments were attached to various parts of his body that either helped to check his health or helped him to keep it.

I pulled up the solitary chair in the room and sat beside him. He still had his usual peaceful face despite all this and for a moment, I thought he would sit up and hug me like always and everything would be alright. So when he opened his eyes and looked at me and failed to even sit up, I could barely hold down my tears.

"Come here," he said softly, holding my cheeks and kissing each of them in turn, "Such a strange thing this concept of time is, pie. You have so much of it when you don't require it and when you finally want it later, it is nowhere to be found. In that regard, you can say that it is not so much different than the buffet in a restaurant."

I couldn't help giggling on hearing him.

"I really like the nurse," he said, "When I woke up, the first thing she told me was that she had called up the reinforcements and they were waiting outside my room. She's wonderstanding."

"Wonderstanding?"

"Wonderfully understanding," he explained. Grandpa always had the habit of coalescing words to make new ones and I had grown used to it after hearing him do that since my childhood.

He waited for a moment to catch his breath and continued again.

"I want you to tell me honestly, pie. How did you feel when you heard that I was in the hospital?"

"Honestly," I replied, "I felt that it was poor timing."

Grandpa broke out in laughter. I was relieved to find him smiling. His pain must have subsided for the moment.

"I see your father has given you the pen and copy," he said, noticing them in my hand, "Give them to me."

I handed them over and he tried to write his name on the cover of the copy. However, his hand shook so terribly that the final outcome was hardly legible.

"You see, I am too weak to write with a pen and too old to use a computer," he brandished twenty three teeth into a grin, "And that's why I want you to write a letter on my behalf."

I looked at Grandpa in surprise. I had no clue what he was talking about as he handed the pen and copy back to me.

"A letter?"

"Yes," Grandpa said, facing towards the ceiling and closing his eyes, "A letter to my grandson and your brother."

I kept staring at him, unable to understand why he suddenly wanted to write a letter to a person who may never read it. But even if I wanted to help him, I couldn't bring myself to write my brother's name down. Writing to him would mean acknowledging his existence and doing so never brought me anything but grief.

"As I faced the sky, I could sense the infinite of the universe," Grandpa started narrating by heart, "I could feel the individuality inside of me crumbling away as I realised the inconsequentiality of our meagre actions in this vast expanse of eternity. I could neither observe the dazzling sun, nor could I marvel at the cotton clouds floating in the distance. But I could feel the omnipresent feelings of hope and rejuvenation that one observes surging inside them when nothing separates them from the infinite."

It was from The Last Mountain Standing.

"He really liked this part from that book. He always wanted me to read it to him again and again," Grandpa said, "Oh, I still remember the undiluted joy with which he used to talk about space, the moon and the stars. He simply loved looking at the sky. He was so special."

Grandpa stopped for a beat.

"He is special," he corrected himself, "However, he would always assure me that he would come and visit my place regularly no matter in which part of the world he might be. I so do wish he could have kept this word of his."

By this time, he was practically wheezing from the exertion of talking for so long and I couldn't bear to see him like that. So I told him to get some rest and offered to come back later.

"Nonsense," he said with a hint of arrogance in his voice, "I will always have enough steam to talk to my grandchild as long as I want to. No illness can stop me from doing that."

Grandpa looked at me with his earnest eyes which seemed to be on fire either because of the pain he was suffering from or because of his determination to stave off that pain. In any case, I let him continue.

"As I was saying, Maya, I am sure he'll keep his promise at some point. To you and to me. He will come back, I am sure of it. I only fear that it may be too late for me by then. That's why I want to convey to him through this letter that his Grandpa never lost hope on him and neither did his parents and least of all his little sister. Won't you help me with that?"

He sounded almost like a helpless child wanting to get back to his mother and I couldn't bear to see him requesting me in such a state. I promptly opened up the cap of the pen and prepared myself to take down every word that he would utter. Grandpa nodded. A familiar smile spread across his face, he started narrating his letter to his runaway grandson.

Author's Note: Unkept promises, unfinished dreams. When will the heart finally be free?