What Happened Next

The aftermath, of the burn incident at the amusement park that affected so many of the children out there, the observations made by a mother, with an injured child, on another mother, with an injured child, translated…

I’d never imagined, that I’d seen her name again like this.   At least, when her name kept, replaying with the primetime news programs, I’d not known, that I’d caught a gaze of her side profile, her legs, wrapped up in gauze, her silent, and of course, her mother, right beside her.

The very first night I’d stayed with my daughter in the ICU, I couldn’t even sleep, I could feel, my heart, gotten so tight, so wringed up, and, my throat felt like cotton pieces had been, stuffed into it.  Oh, how I hoped, that that jug of hot tea was, poured onto my body, in the instantaneous few seconds (it it’s what was meant to happen), could we have, derailed from the passage of life, and, in the tracks of time, make some brand new sparks, and, poured that hot pot of tea over me instead, so the heat could, maliciously, erode my skin away.  I’d rather, that the horrible heat from the water, gnaw at me bit by bit.  I’d not want my baby girl to suffer at all.

In the long, gruesome night, I’d listened to the pump from her drip, drip regularly like clockwork, imagined, the person who’d suffered burns, opposite of my daughter’s bed; that injured person, with thick gauze, covering all of his body, that child.  The very next day, as I’d left my daughter’s hospital ward, I’d accidentally, looked at the name outside the hospital room, it was, that name that came up repeatedly, at the news programs by the hour, like that seed, buried, deep, inside the fertile soil of the consciousness, all of a sudden, it’d, sprouted, and became, a huge tree.

I couldn’t help, but think of the mother of that child, she must’ve had a hard time, sleeping through the nights.  The first night after it’d happened, did her mother also, get swallowed, devoured, by the gigantic fears, did she also, blamed herself, in the midst, of her own heartaches too, did she constantly think, guess, asking oneself endlessly; what I can be sure of was, that she’d shed a lot of her tears, and, her face seemed to have, aged, a decade, in just that one night, and the tears she’d cried, must’ve, eroded the thin and deep markings, that can’t EVER be filled back up again, wrinkles.  She must’ve worn her frown like it was a part of her now, felt that excruciating pain inside of her heart, that sort of pain that’s so sudden in onset, must’ve felt like those sharpened icicles, kept, nabbing into her heart of hearts.  Her heart must’ve been broken over and over again like so.

Perhaps, after awhile, she’ll look better, can head out to the marketplaces to shop for groceries, to wrap up the goods, the produces she’d wanted to buy, with plastic bags, placing them, into her shopping cart, and can, buy the train fares too, and waiting, on the platform, for that train, that’s destined for, just her (would she wish, that that train of fate, can change direction and, crash into her body, crushing her too?), even, she can, go to work, and, staple up those loose leaf pages with a stapler, or welcome the guests and ushering them, in and out of the shops; or bow, or nod, to acknowledge others, she doesn’t look much different at all, her clothes still fitted her well, she will, put on suitable shoes, even put a hat, or, wear a scarf, as the occasions called for them, at most, she’d had, lost some weight.

A mother told me, that two months after the incident, she saw the mother of the young woman, who was staying opposite of her daughter’s bed, losing weight, bit, by bit, looking weaker by the days.

This shows, how much it pains the mothers, as their children are, suffering, as all mothers are very protective of their young, and wished, that they could, weather the trials that life throws at their children for them, but, it doesn’t work that way, and, these mothers are, strong, because they all have to be, for their injured children’s sakes………