Thanks all of you for your reviews. I gotta say, some are more challenging than the others and I hope to try each one by and by.
But please do be patient with me.
Let's go for my first shot then!
You'll tell me I don't know… and you're right, I don't know. I can only imagine how my final moments in the hospital must be keeping you up at night.
While I struggled for air, you struggled to keep looking at my writhing, almost lifeless body, to fight back tears as you heard my gasps.
I remember a woman who was murdered. She was calling for help and just as I was speaking to her, I heard the most blood-curdling, hair-raising scream.
A sound so terror stricken, so horrid, a sound that got to your very bones.
That sound stayed with me, day after day, night after night. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard it, every time I was unoccupied, I heard it, every time I did something that didn't require the simultaneous use of all my faculties, I heard it.
It never got better, I just learnt how to better live with it.
That was a woman I barely knew beyond a day. This is the closest I know of what you are going through… but I know that I'm nowhere near. It agonizes me to even try to fathom your pain.
And there is nothing, nothing I wouldn't give to be able to say a final goodbye.
But maybe, it was better for both of us to not go through that pain; our trove of memories would thus remain untainted. At least when you think of us, your smile wouldn't be fettered by anguish. Then maybe, you'll eventually be able to smile when you think of me too, without being immediately reminded of my death and so keep me safe, as a happy memory.
Death is not easy. And if I could choose, I would choose to live. But I would live for a life service and when need be, I would do what I did again.
There is no better death than a death in service.
There is no greater honour than dying for your country.
I find my peace in the thought that I would rekindle the fire of patriotism in those who hear about me and I hope you find yours too.
It has been a privilege to know you, to love you. Our journey, however, has reached its end… and so when the time is right, you mustn't stop yourself from giving someone else that privilege.
~Tasha.
With freshly moist eyes, Vivek finished reading the letter one more time. He didn't know how many times he had already read it.
"I don't know who wrote this letter to me," his nasal voice choking, he stood up from his chair and waved the letter in the air for everyone in the bureau to see, "I don't want to know...don't tell me… I will believe that it is from her."
As everyone else exchanged confused genstures, Freddy smiled in the corner. It wasn't easy, to write the letter….to put together everything Tasha had told him on different ocassions… to pen it down without tearing up - he had to pause several times before he could complete the letter. But it was worth it - he had done the right thing. He had done what Tasha would want him to do.
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