Winter silently crept upon us both as we were awakening to the summer of our lives. The stillness and stealth with which our lives were enshrouded in the cold still takes me by surprise. It was not foreseen — it could not have been foreseen. Not even the most renowned oracle could have predicted the flurry of events, each leading to the other, and presented our future believably before our eyes.
I digress, however, when it comes to recounting the story in its essence. We were two young people maddened by the joy of discovering each other. There was work, yes, and we both took our jobs with great seriousness. Yet, each day ended with that walk along the beach, breathing in the charms of the gentle evening breeze and charting the path of the stars across the sky, all the while being grateful for the time ahead of us. But, honestly, if the iron hand of Time were to hold your struggling form firmly in its grasp and carry it ominously towards the guillotine, is there anyone or anything that can save you?
The jolt in our hitherto happy lives arrived without us even noticing its significance. I worked in a Genetics lab that experimented with viruses, in particular. In our modern age, far removed from both Alzheimer’s and AIDS we were confronted by a new problem. The virus, which till the end of the twenty first century was thought to cause conjunctivitis alone, was showing some startling new phenotypes much different from its wild type strain. My lab-mates and I were studying this to determine whether it had actually mutated to a different species. Viruses, with their constant mutations are difficult enough to study, in spite of the technological advances of the present, but what we encountered was novel for even those who’d grown up learning the Baltimore Classification and other historical landmarks in science along with their A-B-Cs.
We needed human tests, and although the ethics of it were debatable even in the Age of Learning, we quickly sanctioned a few. It was easy enough seeing that it was a moderately harmless virus and only those in the project would be involved. No outsiders and laymen meant less paperwork and our pre-testing health checkups were conducted quickly enough.
The day my All-Clear letter arrived, Kew and I had spent an evening at the beach overlooking our home, celebrating with champagne, a rare delicacy these days, dried fruits and cheese. I remember how the sultry breeze stared in our faces as we walked across the warm bleached sands, bare-feet and a little tipsy. We moved with an unhurried pace, reminiscent of the leisureliness that retirement confers upon the old. The next few days for Kew, would be spent rushing back and forth from the lab, visiting, as I would be in quarantine. We weren’t in any hurry for tomorrow to arrive.
Tomorrow did arrive, however and it washed away our hopes with the force of breakers crashing into a rocky shore. We were mistaken about the potency of the virus. It did much more than just cause conjunctivitis. It entered normal body cells and wreaked havoc in the metabolic pathways leading to rapid cellular disintegration. And it was highly contagious, spreading by merely breathing the same air as an infected patient. From what we could study with dread weighing down heavily upon our hearts, a person barely had months. And, Kew was infected too.
I spent many sleepless nights left to me wondering what would have happened if we had waited longer. What if the Advisory Board had ruled out the experiment calling it too dangerous? What if we had been more prudent and waited for more results? But no, we were arrogantly riding upon the successes we accomplished by taking innovative risks. We weren’t about to be deterred by an eye infection!
Kew and I visited the beach more often. There was nothing else to do. Work was no longer a haven to immerse sullen spirits in. We would spend hours sitting on a stray boulder by the shore watching the chafing waters. Sometimes, I’d tell Kew that I could hear the waters wailing. Kew would give me a quiet smile and then look at me with an odd expression on his face. He wouldn’t speak much at these moments, but would clasp my hand a little tighter than usual. And then we would gaze at the waters together and a strange calm would settle upon us both, as we would find ourselves surprisingly content with the quietude that emanated from the waves crashing into the rocks. If water could be resigned to its fate, so could we.
The breeze would only get colder with each passing day. I don’t know if it was our condition affecting our senses or whether winter had really decided one morning that it would visit us early. The day had started out chillier than usual and the cold intuitive shiver that ran down my spine made me look upon it with apprehension. Both of us were in a bad state by then. The sparseness of hair, weakening of muscles and shortness of breath were nothing compared to the weariness of spirit. We were ready, and extremely tired.
Kew’s last sunset saw the sky being conquered by a blaze of fiery orange. The horizon stayed a defiant red long after the sun had said goodbye. We stayed very quiet. The pale and diminishing light of life seeped out of our eyes as we spent our last moments by the sea. I sat on the boulder that had felt many silent tears when no one was looking. Kew lay on the sand with his head in my lap and arms around my waist. We felt the moment come when his arms tightened a little only to slacken a while later. I stayed the same, my hands playing with his hair, my fingers tracing the contours of his face, and watched the darkening horizon. Somehow I’d always known that I’d be the last to go.
