Whole Again

17
The number of medications my pops is on, for life.

$ 500.00 +
The dollar amount of the sum of those medications, per month.

$ 49,000.00 +
The cost of the pacemaker and labor of the docs on my pops tomorrow.

Undefined
The number of days my pops will survive, even after the pacemaker. The docs simply don't know. How can they? How could they. They are professional guessers, blessed with lives of devotion to health, passionate all.

Infinite
The amount of love and honor that lay behind the closed eyelids of my father.

Zero
The number of regrets I have. I did more then any I know for their respective fathers...

It used to rain in the night so hard the garbage in the streets floated in streams nearly ankle deep. It rained like that too often but the mountainous geography of the city didn't let it flood for long. But sometimes coupled with the agressiveness of the storm it took me that much closer to despair, as a kid. I was always scared of thunder.

Sometimes after the storm subsided after the rain, the August lightning flashed against the night sky occasionally. I used to look for the nearby mountains that surrounded the city, which were visible everytime the flash came. Most of the streetlights used to get burned out after the storm so the night hung like those thick curtains on a makeshift madarsa in the small small mosque beside the barber shop.

There used to be a few lights from the high-rise buildings in the distance and a few stores causing glare against the wet streets and on the limbs of trees, after the electricity was lost after the storm. The night was tinged with illumination but darkness loomed like a bill collector outside our houses.

So was the beautiful Islamabad, my home as a child. Its still like that according to an old buddy of mine. Next year...

She was clutching her purse like she always did, when she was nervous...Giving some type of an alarming sign only I could detect, in my head. We were fighting. I was losing it. She`d already called me a bastard and an asshole, and I`d already called her a bitch. We`d lost track of what had set us off by then, but it still seemed immensly important that someone come out on top, if only so we could go to bed that night in complete despair and mutual agony and set the stage for a morning of sobbing and apologies followed by tender hours and warmth. Unfortunately, she stopped playing. She`d gone quiet and cold. Her car keys were in her hand. I couldn`t stop her. I was out of ammo. Then there was the sudden, cold sound of steel on mosiac as she pushed her chair back.

"It cannot be anymore"

My face was, as usual, calm, yet I found her's trying to look for some emotion on mine. She couldn't, because there was nothing there. There never is, on mine. What she didn't see, that for an instant, there was physical hurt inside. A breathless moment in my throat, a sharp pain form my chest to my stomache, then a flush down my arms to my fingertips.

Inside, after the calmness subsided, and my fingers back to their normal color, I started thinking about her again. I wasn't mad. I am never mad. I was upset though and hurt too. There was a sudden ease on my lips as they broke free from each other.

"any particular reason you'd like to tell me about"

The white tube light flickered and I could see her tiny fingers grasp her purse even tighter, as I had witnessed many times before whenever she tried to hide something inside. There was a small water residue on the table, something oblivious to her, which was teasing her elbow. I wanted to warn her but I didn't. This type of thing didn't require attention at this point. A tear went down her eye.

"I don't want to talk about it, but..."

I squinted my eyes and turned my head away, still cool. I was hoping I would freak her out with a smooth face, and felt pride when I saw a tear in her eye. I finally swallowed since the start of the converstation and walked out the door. The fucking beans were still on the stove, where I was, when she came home that evening for the last time.