Portraits in a Pale Room

He laid down on the soft bed with double pillows and comforters so thick, it soaked up all the stress of a dying man. Perhaps not. He winced as they pinched him with a needle, yet it was with the utmost care. They jutted his broken leg above which dangled low from all the fat that his leg had bore. He screamed and wailed and they took all the care to be as promising as they could be. Stuffing pillows underneath, three boys each carrying a foot of his bandaged leg ensuring the best possible service. He blinked again and everything was a white blur. He tried to move only to bear agonizing pain and instant help from a few skilled pair of hands to set him back up, with the utmost care, not to forget that. 

The next time he opened his eyes, he could see a little bit better. Perhaps, it was worse than before but the pain in his plump legs had subsided which would explain his absence of writhing and screaming. He cringed as the air reeked of iodoform and bleach, directing his calculative brain to move his legs but was met with only questions and pure numbness. He ushered them again, this time forcefully and waited probably for hours yet no response came by. Agitated, he tried shaking his old body, freeing himself of untied ropes only his imagination held. Nothing shook. 

Looking around, he saw elaborate portraits hung like tapestries in a medieval palace across the pale room. His gaze fixed on one particular painting of a tanned young woman probably in her early thirties with a deep scar on her chin right below her lips. She smiled, the one that children adored on a mother. Her curly midnight hair bounced wildly across her slim shoulders and naked collar bone giving out an air of chocolate cookies and pumpkin juice. Sweet and familiar. Her dark green forest eyes stared at him and his fragile heart tied to beeping machines swelled up with recognition. 

He gasped as his brown eyes glistened and the beeping got louder- thunderous and bolting, alarming every soul that hid in the structure. His eyes spotted white-robed men advancing hurriedly, grabbing rubber gloves and pumping pink jell on their hands from the tall stand right beside the only door of the dull room. They looked like aliens with masks and hollow eyes and with puffed caps. His heart galloped hard for the last time before his sick eyes closed. 

The next time, his eyes opened, they drifted unconsciously to the pretty woman's portrait only to discover another fuzzy lined monitor that took its place or probably covered it entirely. He looked around, this time staring at a different portrait of a snowy peak. The sun did not reach there, only the clouds did. He strained his orbs to look at the tiny flag that crowned it's pointy peak, peeking around with pride and a heart full of bravery. Something was inscribed on it, he tried to move, to reach the portrait that felt so close to him yet everything was numb. A figure sat hunched back on a plush sofa, a spectacle drooping below his furnished nose with hair the color of familiar midnight, too exhausted to look at him. He expected his heart to beat unnaturally and the white-robed aliens to march in again like a procession, yet it did not and he was offered more time. 

He felt a soft colorless liquid seeping into his hands through a narrow tube that dripped it continuously. He started gaining strength not fast enough to speak yet steady enough to keep his eyes open. He glanced down and found a mask stuck to his sharp mouth, which he knew was absent the last time his eyes blinked open. He felt as if he was sucking in a bleak vacuum without the fragrances of flowers or the breeze of the wind. He felt two things. Blank and empty. 

He found himself recollecting why he was here and how he got there. Why he couldn't feel his body. Why he couldn't eat or drink anything. Why that stinking tube was feeding him. Why he couldn't remember anything. Why the two paintings felt so familiar. And why he couldn't move. You tried speaking and a quiet murmur was all that was heard. Though it was enough to let the young man come darting by. 

"Father, please lay still," he said, clasping the old man's numb fingers.

The bedridden man tried speaking, anything and everything, yet they all came out as silent blows of air from his moving lips inside the mask. He tried again to narrate with his hands but in vain. 

"Lay still, lay still… " he heard from the young man's weary lips. He abandoned his efforts and did as told. Suddenly he noticed the word- father. For the first time, he saw the figure in front of him, carefully. And that was the moment he noticed the stitches on his forehead on the extreme right corner. Memories came flooding back. 

The first thing he remembered- that sunny afternoon when a two-year-old Ed had first started to climb the stairs. The first few tries were quite futile, with him bouncing back on his chubby butts protected with diapers. But then, as if from the genes, he climbed and climbed with his short baby limbs, just like his mother, soaring up higher, chuckling with his full round belly, and then when he stepped on the last step, he turned showing him his achievement … unfortunately, he lost his balance… 

Then the memory changed. A phone call rang on his personal phone in his rooftop office. His assistant handed the phone, her eyes were wide and scared. He threw his files on his desk, grabbing the phone, and learned the tragic news of his wife being lost in the Himalayan trek. 

Again, a misty haze wrapped his eyes as the memory changed. Protests and rallies ran against him. He saw teens with tent sacks, kids with ropes, women, and men carrying high banners of 'let us climb', even pregnant ladies and the old enthusiasts joined.

Another memory surfaced, this time of Ed again. But he had grown up, now a young man. He didn't remember it clearly but he could collect bits.

"You were the one to snatch…"

" I am old now … "

" You can't do it y… "

"I have to find her remai…"

" What if… "

" It's my last… "

He threw his head back. Ghastly vibrations shook his face, torturing him to madness. His face shook violently, yet he tried harder, he wanted to know about him, it might be the last thing he did. 

He saw again. White, everywhere. Snowy peaks rose high. He saw the flag, the one in the frame. This time his feet moved and saw the engravings in it. 'For the crippled, for all those who couldn't climb'. The wind blew wild. And his feet numbed freezing to the bone like the ice all around him. His breath slowed to a halt and he saw a dark shadowy figure poking out its head from behind the flag. His eyes closed.

And opened. This time the monitor beeped the loudest. 

Peep, peep, peep… 

He saw his son still holding his hands. 

"I am sorry, Ed, for what I did. I love you. I loved your mother."

The dying man's voice was soundly audible for it was the last thing he said.

The shadow surged up from under his bed. It rose higher, scattering across the room. 

"Why are you sleeping? " the smoky figure spoke in whispers as he flopped down on the sofa.

"I can't get up. "

"Really? "

He climbed up on the bed smoothly. The air masks were gone, the blue patient robe and the feeding tubes too. The room floated with honeysuckle and tea grass and minty herbs. Their scent lingering in each breath of his. The pale ceiling was lost and the blue sky loomed with houls of wind blowing louder, filling his ears.

The shadowy figure became a young man with midnight hair and a stitched scar across his forehead.

"Ed? "

" Why did you leave me? Why did you ban the climb? And why did you break your promise? "

"I am sorry... "

But before he could complete his apology, Ed grew into dust, white dust like sparkles melting into the dark floor. From it rose the woman from the frame. 

"Crys...crystal? What just happened? What is happening? You are… alive? "

She came near and kissed his white cheeks. She said nothing but her eyes showed a world. She was sad. Because of him. He had banned her dream, instead of encouraging it. He burned it alive in their own son. He tore it to pieces for what she had sacrificed her life for. He gracefully plucked out all the petals of the beautiful flower she had planted, rooting out the frail plant, making sure they never tried to bloom again.

He was a traitor.