Hi everyone! How're you? I'm back with a new one-shot.

Today is 159th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, one of my most favorite authors in the world. I cannot describe how much I adore his works. So, I've written this one-shot based on one of his stories. The Bengali people may find it out :P

So...it's my tribute to him! :D

Note: Since, almost the whole story has been written in 1st person P.O.V of Hilary, it may have some grammatical mistakes along with some past-present mixtures. Please, pardon them :P

Tokyo Medical and Dental University, one of the most prestigious educational institutions of Japan. It's the learning center where students come to receive the service of education but go out to serve as healers. Not all of them, but most of them are the angels without wings. When I see my seniors and teachers, unknowingly, my heart leaps up with joy. I want to bow before them. Maybe, many a man thinks the university to be a prison. To them, it may seem no less scary than hell. But to me, it's my own heaven. I don't think I'm going to learn medicines when I walk through the lobbies wearing my white apron. To me, the full-sleeve over-garment is an armor. Putting it on, I feel as if I were a warrior. As if I were going to learn warfare to participate in any war soon. Dear readers may chortle a bit but believe me-to be a doctor is just like to be a fighter. As them, we also have to learn how to overcome our fears. Tell me, how many persons can sleep at night with a skeleton standing right behind their heads in their rooms?

Yes, we have to get ourselves habituated with this. At first, I used to feel very frightened. Just imagine, at a night, your sleep breaks because you've started feeling thirsty. Rubbing your eyes and getting up, you are about to reach the water jug. All of a sudden, you get to see a white skeleton in the darkness-smeared room, laughing at you with its toothless jaw and staring at you with its orb-less eye sockets. What will be your reaction? I don't think you'll be pleased at all. The same thing happened to me on my very first day as a medical student. I almost lost my consciousness in fear. Thank goodness, my roommates heard me screaming and turned the lights on. Otherwise...nah, let it be.

Eventually, I got familiarized with the carcass. Sometimes, I used to mock it whenever I felt ecstatic. One day, mistakenly, I broke its head. My reaction was like, "Shit! Now, from where will I manage so much money to buy another one before two weeks of my exam?" Thankfully, one of my seniors lent her one to me. Phew...

Nah, things weren't as easy as you're thinking them to be. That night, being exhausted of two busy hours of studies, I yawned, switched off my table-lamp and went to bed for a nap. My roommates had gone to sleep even before me, turning all the lights of the room off. Though I was feeling tired, I was failing to close my eyes and dissolve in siesta. While my rotating left and right, the largest wall-clock of the hostel banged twelve times, screaming that a new day had already started according to the English calendar. Since the incident of my first encounter with the skeleton, I could never sleep in absolute murk. That's why, on the side-table right by my bed, I used to light a few candles in crystal goblets. Like other days, they were illuminating my corner slightly. Unexpectedly, out of the blue, a stormy gust of wind crossed the threshold of my window and started shaking the flames of those tapers madly. Wheezing for five minutes, they all got smothered. Chuckling at me, turning into a soft breeze, the intruder left my cabin. For the first time after a long period, my heart skipped a beat in that darkness. But what to do? The lives of living creatures to mother nature are still just like these blazes in darkness. It cannot be said when, where and how they'll end and be absorbed.

Gradually, the environment reminded me of my old skeleton. For removing my fear, I started imagining of the life of its owner. Suddenly, I felt as if any living being had been roaming around my bed, groping the nightfall walls of my room. I could hear the resonations of its steady breaths by fits and starts. It was searching for something but couldn't find it out. That's why, the velocity of its feet was increasing rapidly. Though I understood that it was nothing but my hallucination because of studying that hard, my whole body started trembling. With quivering voice, I asked, "Who's that?"

A few footsteps clinked near my bed. Then, a sweet feminine voice spoke, "It's me. I've come here to find my skeleton."

God knows how hard my heart started hammering once again. I felt my inner throat losing its humidity in the speed of whirlwind and drying like a desert. All the water which had been inside my body was showing itself as the droplets of sweats on my forehead and cheeks. I wanted to scream but no sound came out from my vocal cord. Despite being awake, sleep paralysis haunted me. Grasping the cylindrical bolster closer to my chest, I curled myself into a ball. I asked myself silently, 'Hilary Tachibana, what's your last wish?'

"What happened?" She again spoke, being impatient and gloomy at the same time which I thought to be the answer to my previous question, "Didn't you see it? Please tell me if you know where it is now."

Nah, the ghost seemed modest enough. Breathing deeply, I loosened my grips from the side-pillow. Then, clearing my throat, I somehow managed to speak, "You've done a splendid job, my lady. But why do you need that skeleton now?"

"What're you saying, brunette?" I felt her to be much close to my bed, "The bones of my chest were included there. My 16-year long youth bloomed all over it. Don't I feel to see it once? Cannot I want to be nostalgic?"

"You may be right," I turned right, "As a consequence, carry on your searches. Till then, let me sleep a bit."

"You're alone here, aren't you?" She spoke, "Then let's talk for a while. Before two years, I was a human being like you, gossiping with people in this way. In these 24 months, I've only roamed, mixing myself with the blasts of the air of the cemetery and whistling around the liveliness of the world. Let me be an ordinary girl like you."

Hauling a three-legged round bench, she sat beside my bedstead. Seeing no other way, I agreed, "Sounds nice. Studying a lot, my breaths are seeming clogged. Tell me something interesting so that I can be relieved a bit."

"To me, nothing is more interesting than my life, the first sixteen sweet years of this Mariah Wong." The feminine voice chortled a bit.

The hands on the clock over my reading table kept circumambulating their origin.

"As I said before, I was a young lady just like you," She took a long inhalation, "I was growing up in my own house just like a lotus at the center of a crystal-clear pond. People wanted to hide the fact from me but I knew that very few girls in the world were as beautiful as I was. They were rare like rhinos. What do you think?"

"How would I know?" I pouted, "I've never seen you."

"You've seen me! Cannot you remember that skeleton?" Mariah burst out laughing, "Hehehe...just kidding. How will I prove to you that I had a pair of gorgeous golden eyes inside those sockets which used to glimmer in sunshine? The gentle smile clinging to my rosy lips couldn't be compared to anything in the world, at least not to the toothless jaw of my inner structure. I'm tending to laugh and get angry while telling you about the flower-like daintiness and youth that were blossoming surrounding the thorn-like skeleton. The greatest doctors on the earth couldn't believe that my body would help you students learn anatomy one day. My honey-colored skin was a piece of yellow tourmaline. My slender arms had the ability of grasping the mouth of all the manliness in the universe. When I strolled, flowers thrived and birds sang. Emerald leaves rose penetrating the ever-dry twigs of the silent...no, silenced trees. Never did I tuck roses in my hair to adorn myself because my hair itself was the petals of pink rosettes; soft, thick and long."

"Excellent!" I grimaced, "Your descriptions are making me jealous of you."

"Jealous of a pile of bones?" Mariah sneered, "Please, stop joking. Yes, this was my beauty which used to raise the flames of infatuation in the hearts of men and those of jealousy in the minds of women. But the man who burned my heart with his looks and words could never be mine."

"Oww..."

"Don't feel pity on me," She sighed, "I feel helpless. He also saw me with pities, not with love. That's why today, I'm nothing but bones."

"But what happened?" I couldn't control my curiosity, "Why did he leave you?"

"Before answering, let me give you his introduction, brunette," She explained, "Ray Kon was the closest friend of my elder brother. Like you, he was also a medical student. Amongst all the students of our village, he was the only one who got selected for the most prestigious medical college of China. Though he was only a learner, people of our village used to consider him to be a skilled and professional doctor. Helpful enough he was; never rejecting anyone's appeal to serve.

I was suffering from fever. Lee, my brother, called Ray in. Sitting by my bed, he said, 'Miss Wong, please let me feel your pulse.'

I heard, 'Miss Wong, please let me feel your heartbeats.'

From inside the blanket, I moved my left wrist and stretched it to him. As he placed his two fingers on the skin which was covering my blue veins, my whole body shivered. To him, my fever caused it. Only I know why it happened. With his concerned golden orbs, he was observing me. I felt him to be caressing me with those eyes. Did I sense his heartbeats? Did they have same velocity of those of me?

After recovering, I noticed that I knew only one man on the earth. Ray. He came in my dark life just like the rays of sunshine. Though he had come to free me from my disease, he had ended up giving me that. Did he know the remedy of the morbidity of love? If he knew, how would he do that, Hilary?"

"Wait!" I exclaimed, "You know my name?"

"You bed has that," She sniffed, "Often, he used to visit us. Laughing, I wanted to know from him about diseases and antidotes. Opening all the doors and windows of his heart, he told me about the poisons too. Hearing him all the days, death became my neighbor. Love and demise, demise and love, nothing else.

One day, I saw him spraying the perfume of my brother around his body. He was wearing a white shirt which was tucked inside his jeans with sleeves rolled down to elbows. Oh my, he was looking just like a Greek God. Fulfilling the thirst of my eyes, I kept gazing at him without blinking. Deep inside, I questioned myself, 'Where is he going?'

When I asked Lee, he briefly spoke, 'To die.'

I snorted, 'Please brother, tell me the truth.'

'For proposing his girlfriend,' My brother replied, 'Salima is really a lucky one.'

Hilary, I felt someone had thrown a pebble at my heart and shattered it just like crushing a castle of glass. I don't know how the next two days went. I was only informed that soon Ray and Salima would marry each other. The one who had used to make the whole world jealous of her comeliness was herself struggling to get out the web of envy. What lay in that Salima? Which quality of her attracted my Ray?"

"Human mind is complicated."

"You're right, brunette," She sighed, "But I was also determined. Ray Kon didn't know Mariah Wong. She got whatever she wanted. The things which she didn't get were turned into ashes by her. That day, he was getting ready for going to shopping with his fiancée. Suddenly, he started feeling thirsty. For making him feel comfortable, I prepared some orange juice for him. Adding a few ice cubes, I handed him the glass. From it, he took a few sips. Smiling at me, he spoke, 'Thanks, Mariah.'

I want to note something important here: I got to learn from him about the poisons. On that day, I felt grateful to him for teaching me about those substances. Keeping the goblet, he went out. I also went to my room with the chalice.

Then, I wore a white gown with puffy sleeves and pink linings. Dressing my hair, I tucked a few white roses over both my ears both for the first and the last time in my life. Wrapping pearl bracelets around my wrists which had been touched by him, I put on a diamond necklace, surrounding my pitcher-like neck. Hanging a pair of diamond-star garnet gemstones from my earlobes, I guzzled all the liquid which was inside the crystal cup. Laying sepals of different flowers on the bedsheet, I lit a few candles in my room, shutting all the doors and windows. Lying on my bed, I closed my eyes, smiling."

"What?"

"Yes," She seemed to nod, "I thought I would be able to see him when I would open my eyes. But no, instead of him, my invisible eyes met nothing but the air. Since that day, I'm roaming aimlessly in the ether."

A crow cawed outside, saying that the sun of the new day would rise soon. Yawning, I spoke, "Don't worry, one day, you'll meet him soon."

No response came. Thinking that I'd been only dreaming, I closed my eyes. After a long time, I was feeling sleepy. How could I let the chance go in vain after all?

Done!

How was it? Good or bad?

Pardon the grammatical mistakes and the spelling errors. Do read and review. Take care :D. Once again, a very very happy birthday to Rabindranath Tagore :*

-Misty ^_^ ^_^