Departure

The heart is a wonderful thing. It can bring you back from the brink of death. It can fill you with enough sorrow that you can never function normally ever again. But the heart is fragile, it can take the smallest illusions and turn them into the gospel truth.

You're dying. Your body is growing weaker by the day as the disease eats away at you. Your family is your only solace.

What happens when your family, your own dear sweet mother, keeps reminding each other that you are dying. Sure, everyone knows it, everyone thinks it. But then again, they aren't exactly big on subtle. Years of a wild wild life has already taken it's toll and that makes you the cautionary tale.

Your day goes by with you in a small stuffy room. There's barely enough room for anything other than a mattress and a small desk. On the insistence of your mother, a chanting machine blares a solemn ode. The same one they will play at your wake.

Today a few old men and women dressed in blue polo shirts walk into the house and chant, preparing you for the afterlife. Try as they might, they cannot hide the sadness in their eyes. With every word, with every verse, you are only reminded just how soon you are to go.

Explain to me how can there be hope like this. How can a heart stay healthy, a resolve stay unbroken in a place like this.

The heart is indeed a very fragile thing.