Sparrow

My mother used to tell about a world outside the bunker; she would tell me about the bright sky which changed colours, clouds of different sizes and shapes which poured water from them, she told me about humongous rocks called mountains. She would draw them on the wall and I would intently listen with amazement.

But in complete honesty, I never believed in the world outside the bunker. That was because if it was actually real, then we could have gone there. But we never left the bunker; from the day I was born, my entire world was the bunker in which we were kept imprisoned by ‘The man’.

The life inside the bunker was hard. It had trapped us with thick concrete walls; there was one door made of thick iron and one small bared window on one side of the wall from where sun light would enter. I would always wonder what that light was and where did it went at night – I didn’t know about sun, moon and stars. Sometimes it would get very hot in the bunker for days and sometimes it would get really cold – I had never known about summer, autumn, or winter.

Most of the time I would be sick, I had a very weak body. I could not walk properly, could not even speak properly. It was actually hell living inside the bunker, but that hell was all that I had known.

But I know that mother suffered a lot than I ever did. She was always worried about me; she would give her share of food and water to me. My mother told me that it was her fault that I was suffering so much; she would apologies to me and begged me for forgiveness. I never understood why she felt so miserable. Still we loved each other, I was there for my mother and she was there for me, and that was enough for me.

But one night, when I was sleeping, I felt someone strangling my neck. I opened my eyes and saw my mother pressing my neck with her hands. She had closed her eyes but tears still flowed through them. I struggled to free myself from her grasp, but I was very weak so I had no chance. It was getting harder and harder for me to breathe, and slowly I was losing my consciousness.

“..Ma...” I kept on calling her, but she didn’t listen to me.

“I am so sorry dear, this is my entire fault.” She said. “You don’t have to suffer anymore; I will free you from this hell. I will do it, so, you don’t have to live in this prison your whole life.”

I knew there was no point in struggling against her, compare to her I was very weak. So I stopped struggling. Also that night wasn’t the first time that she tried to strangle me; she would strangle me sometimes when she would be very sad. I never understood why she did it but I knew that soon she would release my neck, hold me in her warm embrace and apologies to me like always.

But that night, she wasn’t letting go of my neck. Instead she was pressing it harder and harder. She was constantly apologizing to me and I started to feel scared. I wanted to tell her to stop, but I couldn’t even speak.

Then suddenly I heard the iron door open.

“What are you doing? Release him right now!” I heard the man scream.

He ran inside the bunker and kicked my mother in her head. That made her release my neck and when she did, I gasped for breath. I started to cough and my chest started to get tight and loose simultaneously. Soon I regained my senses and heard the man shouting at my mother as he beat her, I heard my mother’s cries and they were as heart wrenching as always. I quickly dragged myself under the bed and remained under it facing the wall. My mother always told me to hide myself under the bed until the man leaves the bunker.

So I hid under the bed and listened to the man do awful things to my mother, as he always did. Another reason I didn’t believe in the outside world was because my mother told me that it was a beautiful place. But the man always came from the outside world and he was very cruel and ruthless. So the outside world should also be equally cruel and ruthless as the man. But my mother told me that the outside world was beautiful world, which means she was lying to me.

That night the man beat my mother till she fainted and then left the bunker. After he closed the iron door from outside, I slowly crawled out from under the bed.

My mother bleeding from many places and watching her in that painful state made me tear down. So I cried the whole night with my arms wrapped around my mother. I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep.

The next day when I woke up, my mother wasn’t sleeping on the floor; so I looked around to check where she was. When I saw my mother I got completely petrified, my eyes grew bigger because of the horror they were witnessing. My mother was lying on the bed and she was completely covered with blood. There was blood everywhere on the floor. She had slit her throat with a little sharp metal that I had never seen before.

“Ma...” I called out to her, again and again and again, but there was no reply. I wanted to go towards her but I couldn’t move at all. I just kept on calling her from where I was, hoping she would hear my voice. But she didn’t. I felt something was wrong but didn’t know what. I was so scared and couldn’t even do anything but cry.

After that many days passed and mother never woke up. Even I stopped crying because I was exhausted, sick and starving. The man had never returned back to the bunker for days, usually he would come within two to three days with food and clothes for us. But after that night even he didn’t come. I was left all alone in the bunker and it was suffocating.

My body felt numb from head to toe and my mind was dazed. Most of the time I would fall asleep and when I would wake up, I would feel pain in my tummy. It was really hard but I could do nothing, I was too weak for even getting straight up.

Then one day, I was woken up by a cacophony of babbling in the bunker. When I opened my eyes I couldn’t properly see, but there were many men inside around me and they were all wearing the same clothes. They had covered my mother with a white sheet.

“Is that kid dead too?” I heard one of them say. But I had no idea what ‘dead’ meant.

“No, he is still alive. But I can’t say for how long. Poor kid, he had suffered a lot.” Another man said.

“Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?” then I heard a different voice, it sounded like my mother and when I looked, there was a woman who had light coming from her hands. She was wearing white clothes and she looked very sad.

I nodded a little, that’s all I could do. Then she gently picked me up from the floor and wrapped me up in a warm blanket. Then she took me out of the bunker and as she did I saw bright light coming from the outside world.

‘Is she taking me to the sun?’ I thought.

It was so bright that I covered my face with the blanket.

“It is alright now. Everything is fine. You don’t have to be afraid of anything.” The woman told me with a calm and soothing voice.

She was climbing the stairs towards the light carrying me when she asked me.

“What’s your name?”

I was too exhausted to even utter a little sound. But I knew what a name was; mother told me it was very important for a person. So she also gave me a name.

“Ichu.” I told her in a weak voice, at first I wasn’t even sure if she heard me.

“That’s a lovely name.” She said in a gleeful tone. “Doesn’t that mean ‘sparrow’?”

I had no idea what sparrow was. I was thinking about it when she carried me inside the sun. I closed my eyes again, but soon I felt a cool air over my face. The brightness was slowly waning so I opened my voice.

Then I saw a blue blanket stretched above us for as long as our eyes could see. I saw the huge rocks that were so big that they were reaching the sky. The white fluffy clouds of different size and shape were floating in the sky. Then I saw the sun. It was all so amazing that I was overwhelmed with amazement.

My mother was not lying. The outside world was very, very beautiful. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole life.

“Ichu..! Over here!” Then from somewhere I heard my mother’s voice calling for me. I looked around but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

“Ichu, over here, look up.” I heard her say so I looked up.

Mother was sitting on a cloud up in the sky and she was waving at me. She had a beautiful smile on her face; she was even brighter than the sun. I somehow managed to raise my hand towards her but she was so far away.

“Ichu, come over here.” She told me.

“..Ma...” I said and I jumped from the woman’s arms. When I did the wind carried me up even before my feet touched the ground. Then I ran towards my mother on the wind.

“Mother, see I can run!” I said as I ran towards her. My mother was happy and she was waiting for me with open arms. I was very happy, I had never been so happy ever in my life.

End.