Lessons

It was all dark, all-consuming. She was choked mentally. Dumb physically. Blank in the mind – till she started thinking of terrible things. She had a nervous lump in her throat which stopped her from talking. She was afraid of the darkness numbing her tell-tale horror stories, because of its deepness and what she felt like a tangible girth – on the one hand, she would be glad because it stopped her from thinking terrible, terrible things – on the other hand, its motionlessness and depth scared her. She was silent. Breathing in, one breath at a time, one word at a time to get out of the silent treatment everyone thought she was giving them.

It was a small asylum in the suburbs where she stayed. It housed people who were sick, but not too sick, either.

“What’s your name?” the counselor asked. She was the second counselor in three days.

“Bertha,” she said.

Something snaked off of Bertha’s mind. What would happen if she pushed this woman into the water? No, no, she shouldn’t be thinking of that. 

“Bertha, what would you like to do here?”

Or perhaps she could snake a rope and tie her from the back before leaving her in quicksand. 

What if her body were to float along with other carcasses that were without heads?

“Bertha, Bertha –“

“No, I don’t like anything.” 

“It’s okay. You are here, you can talk about anything,” the counselor tried to soothe her.

What if she made her catch a disease simulating rabies and she couldn’t even drink water? 

Bertha started.

“No talking.”

“Okay, Bertha, if that’s what you want. For now.”

“Billy,” Bertha said.

“Yes, you would like Billy to come 

here?”

Billy, the paper boy.

“You want Billy?”

“Yes,” Bertha said, as she wrote down everything that she was thinking, hearing or saying in an exercise the doctor gave her.

A punch to the gut. Mauling the chest near the left shoulder and breaking his left crooked incisor tooth.

‘Stop,’ she whispered to herself.

But she couldn’t stop thinking.

Billy, the paper boy, came near her and sat on a chair with a newspaper in his hand.

“Here,” Billy said.

“Blow wind with it and if you want, you can hit me with it. Would that help? Or may be, I can read you things from the paper.”

Bertha said, “Go on.”

Somehow, when Billy was there beside her, her auto-destructive machine mood slowed down. She would drink in his words. He never tried to decipher what she said, he just went along. He would do whatever she wanted him to do, and somehow, somehow – that worked.

“It will be a windy day with no rain in the next two days,” Billy read the weather column. “There will be a light drizzle on the third day followed by a storm which will last for the rest of the day.” 

Billy ended the weather column there.

Bertha smiled, wanting to kiss his cheek. 

“Finally a positive thought,” Bertha thought out loud.

Billy asked her what it was.

Bertha told him.

Billy hit the newspaper on his hand and Bertha kissed him on the cheek and gave him a card which contained everything that had happened today, till then.

At the end it said, “This being from one invalid to another – thank you, Billy.”

Billy smiled a crooked smile. He too hated to be reminded that he was an invalid. He nodded, and went out of the room to his own room – four rooms away from where Bertha stayed.

Nights were the worst. She could not keep her eyes closed for too long – it scared her not to be able to see and she felt the darkness looming over her more tangibly than the other “normal” people. She could not read for long times at a stretch. Sleep would not come and so she was given a rapid acting sleeping medicine.

She would need someone to stay with her till she could sleep. When the nurse found herself incapable of tackling Bertha to go through her pre-sleep routine of panicking, and panicking still more, Billy was called into her room.

“Let me tell you about the last girl I dated,” Billy said as he was coming into her room.

It was the day after the light drizzle. The storm was continuing and the thunderstorm made Bertha’s words inaudible.

“She pushed me into the swimming pool before jumping in and kicking my balls hard. But that was not the reason I could swim no longer.”

Billy’s mood became darker. “She left me because of money. I didn’t have much, all I had was my passion for swimming and that ended soon too.”

Bertha mumbled, “If it helps, know that I have it worse.”

Billy nodded. 

“You know what?” Billy thought and paused.

“Let’s give you swimming lessons!” 

Bertha looked at him with an expression of ridicule.

“It’s a perfect solution. It’s dark but not too dark underwater – it will help you face your fears. Swimming can calm your nerves and stop you from thinking or overthinking!” Billy said.

Billy flitted from the room to the owner of the asylum.

Bertha blinked back some errant tears and she prepared a card for Billy repeating all that happened today saying, “Thank you, Billy.”

After her husband had left her, she was alone. No one would think of her given her state of mind. But Billy…

It was with utmost care that Bertha entered the water. The water reached her waist.

What would happen if she could not breathe and died?

Bertha shook her head.

Billy was there.

One step at a time. One breath at a time.

This time, she would really need to do it – one breath at a time.

Dip in – breathe out slow – get up.

Billy gave her a thumbs-up.

This went on for a while – half an hour.

What if she inhaled water while exhaling? She felt panicky but then Billy got in the water and pressed her shoulders.

“In,” he said. 

Bertha went in.

“Up,” he said.

Bertha got up. 

This went on for another half an hour.

She forced herself to keep her eyes open. The blackness and the water attacked her. But Billy held her hand reassuringly.

“One, two – and up.”

“One, two – down.”

She breathed out under water, opened her eyes, closed them again. She wasn’t ready.

A few days later, she found herself able to calm herself down with the breathing exercises under the water. She could avoid the darkness as she learnt to float.

Also, the flow of her misdirected thoughts came to a halt when she learnt to glide the muscles of her legs and hips smoothly. 

Billy complimented her progress.

Finally, Billy taught her how to breathe while swimming almost effortlessly. It took him a month to teach her. And lastly, another month to apply her arms in swimming.

Even though Billy wasn’t swimming himself, he gave her directions mostly from beside the pool.

One day, there was no Billy. But there was a note..

“It was a dry day. I had been swimming all across the lake and making decisions to go deep-sea-diving into the sea from the boat which was going to take us a little farther away. I jumped and through some mistake of my own, my legs cramped. I didn’t realise the extent of the injury. 

I thought my life was over when I got a permanent limp and a crutch to walk with. 

Until I met you, Bertha. You were trying to hold it in, but with me you could let it out.

I'm staying with my son from now on. Did I tell you the reason I came here was to get over the grief of never being able to swim again?

Well, that’s all gone. I came here, and you now can live my dream and your illness is under control too. Thank you, Bertha for so much.

Oh, and what did you murmur to me that day I was telling you about the last girl I dated?” 

Bertha whispered, “Only that I wish I could do something to make you thankful.”

Bertha smiled.

She was not okay, but maybe, one day she would be.