The World Beyond My Bedroom Window, by Diya Basu, Kolkata

Born, raised, and currently living in Kolkata, West Bengal, Diya (she/her) is just another curious someone in pursuit of looking glasses and rabbit holes.

It’s morning now. I can tell, because I can see shafts of the early morning sunlight streaming into my room, through the translucent curtains hanging on the frame of my bedside window.

Sweat dots my fevered brow. I reach my fingers gingerly up to my forehead. It feels warm to the touch.

“At least it's not burning up, like yesterday,” I tell my mother later, another masked warrior, when she comes into the room laden with a breakfast tray– a half-hearted attempt at some humor.

“Have you checked your temperature this morning?"

My mother's voice sounds so very faint, as I lie on my bed, struggling to haul myself up into a sitting position.

“Not yet. But I think it's down to about a hundred.

"Well, be sure to check your temperature now, okay? We need to report it to the doctor.”

With a herculean effort, I reach my hand out from under the blanket, grab the thermometer, and thrust it underneath my tongue. Now, we wait. One, two, three, four… I close my eyes and start counting in my head. When I reach 120, I open my eyes, and take a look at the thermometer.

“Well?” asks my mother, who has been standing near the bedroom door the entire time.

“I was close," I tell her as I turn the thermometer around to show her what the display reads: 100.2.

“That's an improvement then!” My mother tries to sound optimistic, but I can see that it’s forced.

“Ring me when you need anything, okay? And your pills are by the bedside, you need to take them after breakfast. So, you better finish off all the food that's on that plate,” she says as she walks away.

I smile ruefully, as memories of a half-forgotten childhood come back to me. Memories of me as a little girl, whining and struggling to finish her food. Fast forward a couple of years– a lot has changed, yet somehow this still hasn't.

I glance at the clock, it reads 8:00 a.m. I grapple underneath the bedsheet, searching for my phone, and after some grunting and groaning, I manage to locate it, hidden underneath the many layers of my blankets. I was probably sleeping on it, but at that point, I was far too weak to care. I turn it on. The notification panel reads: 56 unread messages. They were always of the same kind:

“How are you feeling today?”

“What's your temperature?”

“Have your breathing problems reduced?”

"We are all praying for you … don't worry, you will get well soon!”

I kept staring at all the unread messages, too tired to read and reply to each and every one of them, too tired to watch people go about their lives while I stayed confined to my bedroom, hidden away from the world, alone with my own thoughts and insecurities, ones I was too scared to even ponder.

I close my phone, reach for the breakfast tray, and start digging into my plate of food. Until now, I had never realized how completely the sense of taste and smell could be gone. I felt like a machine who needed organic elements to survive.

There isn't much to do when your whole body feels like a solid block of lead, breathing is an absolute struggle, and your vision is perpetually blurred around the corners. Normally, I would pick up my pen and pour this volcano inside onto the papery necropolis of my journal. But now… now, I could barely move my fingers, let alone hold a pen.

So I took to propping myself up on pillows and staring out of my bedroom window. The world beyond my window resembled a deserted, yet somehow hauntingly beautiful, picture of the metropolitan city I call home. The City of Joy no longer has people throbbing in every street and every corner, and yet, it has never looked more beautiful. With each and every passing day, the skies seem clearer, and the trees in our backyard have a much richer, greener hue brimming with the youth and vitality of young saplings. It's as if all these years, I was seeing the world through a thin veil of smoke and fog, which detracted from the natural beauty, dimming the rainbow hues so startling and fascinating.

During torrential downpours, I sat and watched the rain draw mystifying patterns on the frosted glass of my bedside window and gently traced them with my shaking fingers, my face pressed to the cool surface. And after the rain, when I opened my window, I would see a rainbow. That gave me hope for better days, when we shall be unencumbered by the crippling fear and anxiety that consumes us now. Days filled with the joy of just being out in the world, the happiness that comes with being free.

And just like that, I found my peace amidst this constant noise and chaos, in the living, breathing serenity of the world beyond my bedroom window.

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(This story was prepared for an “Imagine Another World” online storytelling workshop held October 16, 2020.)

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