Love Beyond Death (standard:other, 1339 words)
Author: Nadeem Akhtar	Added: Sep 18 2001	Views/Reads: 3330/2117	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story of an innocent love just at the threshold of death. She is left all alone after being shot by her husband but it had strange consequences.

She was shot in the neck on the right side just below the chin. Thick
red blood poured out like a fountain marking her critical condition. 
They rushed her to the hospital where her life was saved but the bullet 
had damaged her spinal cord, which resulted in the paralyses of all her 
body below the collarbone. She could hardly start speaking when she 
came back to her senses after remaining unconscious for almost two week 
but her body did not move at all. 

Her parents were informed but they did not give any heed to the heart
rendering news. What they replied was in accordance to their tribal 
traditions that they had departed her forever at the time of her 
marriage. If they would ever accept her back, that would be in the form 
of dead body. Whatever had happened with her happened by the will of 
God and they would be none but damned ones if they are not contented in 
his will. 

Miseries never come alone and when they come, they make their victim
alone so that he cannot be shielded against their deadly strike. It 
happened with her as she was left alone by all. The man who shot her 
was no one other than her own husband with whom she got married just 
two months ago. He left the home just after the incident and did not 
come into sight ever since. Nobody knew where he had gone. Her parents 
had turned heartless and refused to see her alive. She herself was 
unable to move even for a single step. All her world had been 
restricted to her bed, where she was lying and all her universe, to her 
hospital room. There was an immense darkness beyond the walls of the 
room, into which, even her thought could not travel. 

Doctors viewed the matter in detail and after a long series of different
tests and reports concluded that she had very little chances of 
recovery from present condition rather that her remaining alive for 
long is almost impossible. Only a miracle can bring her back to life. 
In this dismal state of affairs, when all had lost hopes of her life, 
there was one who had refused to leave her alone at the mercy of cruel 
circumstances. He was the younger brother of her husband, a boy of 
thirteen who, in his overwhelming sincerity and innocence was not ready 
even to think for a while of her death. He was the only person who 
remained with her through all thick and thin. When she came back to her 
senses, he was standing, in tears, besides her bed. Her hardly uttered 
and half-broken words ensured him of her survival. Later stages of her 
treatment nourish a hope of her life in his heart. A small ray of light 
is sufficient to show the path when it is complete darkness all around. 
Soon he got, as much certain of her life as he was of his own. This 
certainty made him devote completely all the energies he possessed to 
attend her. He remained extremely concerned and watchful to the quality 
of her treatment by staying all the time in the hospital and taking 
great pains to improve her condition. In short, he did everything of 
which he was capable to get her better. He used to talk to her on her 
favorite topics, used to bring smile on her face with his innocent 
jokes and funny actions, and also used to wipe away her tears, of and 
on, whenever she had wept and he had to do it quite often. 

All the activities of his life were revolving around her and she too,
had accepted him as her only object of attention. He had a burden on 
his heart for the crime his brother committed and the more he attended 
her the lesser this burden oppressed his heart. Though complete 
deliverance was not possible yet his services to her were a source of 
relief from his acquired guilty consciousness. Man often has to do a 
number of such acts as a compensation of those actions, which he has 
not at all committed. The reason is sometimes the satisfaction of one's 
heart and sometimes the inevitability of such an act due to the 
circumstances. It is also said that whatever crime is committed on this 
earth is repaid and counter-weighted by human beings though not 
necessarily by the person. Earth never keeps the blots of blood on its 
surface. Someone has to wash them up. 

So did he serve her and it had become all his life. She too, had
developed a kind of dependence on him resulting in a strong emotional 
affiliation. He was the first person in her life who has given her 
hopes and dreams, full of life and colors, even in her catastrophic 
life. He entered in her world like an angel occupying the most sacred 
and pre-empted place in her heart. A dying man loves desperately as 
love blossoms more in fleeting things. She was dying and she made the 
pains of her death endurable with the pleasures of his innocent love. 
She shared her emotions with him, her thoughts and feelings, all about 


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