THE BURIAL
January 2026. The body was being laid in the grave. An overcrowded graveyard with fewer mourners for the wrapped lady. A 45-year-old Guriya. But there stood the father. Broken. Torn apart. Much older than yesterday.
And it was all a repeat telecast.
THE GOD.
My God. If cruelty had a blasphemous image.
“I’m not done yet,” the mighty voice echoed in his head and the chambers of his heart in 1990, something the father couldn’t understand. His heart was collapsing as he buried his 14-year-old son in the muddy graveyard. His picture still hanging right on the wall, above the TV, so he remembers his departure every single day. Nurturing the pain. The addiction.
Yes, it’s the same graveyard. Because it’s the same drama. Same theater. Same cast. Same story.
Before burying his 14-year-old son in 1990, the father had been here years earlier to bury the other one. Yes, they were twins. The one who didn’t live long introduced him to the theater where his life would keep playing its saddest melodies.
He was back in the graveyard in 1991 to bury the mother of the one he buried the previous year. The mother couldn’t survive the tragedy of the inexplicable death a year before, in which the boy who was getting ready for school suddenly couldn’t walk and gradually shut down within weeks. That was it.
And then the century passed. With martial law and without democracy. But God, up in the air, was as defiant as a great dictator. Never defeated.
And this time, he chose art. With just one tiny microorganism. Cancer.
Artistic. It spreads. Like a paintbrush. Inch by inch around the canvas. Spreading colors. Mostly red. Killing cells. Mostly white. Gradually snatching the soul out of a human.
Took 5 years to kill that guriya. Inch by inch. Around the kidney. Wrapping around the organs. The backbone. The liver. Intestines. Embracing her all around. ‘Till death do us part.’
Turning Mona Lisa into a dead body. Orchestrated by God. But God wasn’t alone. He had his man. The lawful husband who could bestow unlawful tragedies without breaking the law.
The husband ignored the first signs. He saw opportunities where she saw death. Shut the doctors. Bad surgeries. Rejected chemo and radiation. Fuck doctors. Let the tumor evolve. Pain. Pain. Only pain. Nah, no maid. The one who rarely liked her food started to prefer her cooking because the wedded-maid couldn’t cook anymore.
“I need to see a doctor for a strong painkiller…”
“Going to work, will take you in the evening…”
And then take her home. Ah yes, the husband was living in her home, which the father had gifted her. Yes, the same old man, getting older each day.
Remember The Metamorphosis by Kafka. That’s what cancer does to the human body. But not in one nightmare. It took around 1,825 nightmares for guriya. Because she wanted to live, laugh, and dance. She wanted to see her son graduate. She wanted to see a man out of him. But no, the 15-year-old is left to witness the story his mother lived without a mother.
Back to 1990. The father couldn’t understand ‘I’m not done yet,’ and so he was there, again and again. And again. Buried his mother there. Then his father. Then his son. Then another son. Then his wife. Then his brother. And now his daughter. A man living his entire life around this mud-covered theater.
THE MERCY.
May the soul rest in peace. If there’s a soul. And peace. And…
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