Essay 4: Visiting hours in a mental hospital

He waited impatiently to meet her at a table in the mental hospital meeting hall.

He gnawed at his knuckles as he waited. Something he did since he was a kid and something bad had happened. He didn’t remember what it was, but he was told that he gnawed at his knuckles since then. His temples throbbed. They always did. Nothing was different. He was anxious. It would have been strange if he had not been. As on each day, today too he had a lot to tell her.

He had been close to his mother all his life. Even when not in her presence. He kept every little incident and thought squirreled away in a corner of his mind. To share with her when he met her next. Same time. Same place. Visiting hours at the mental hospital.

It was time. There she was as always. She came in and sat down opposite him. He reached out and grasped his mother’s hands.

A wild look in his eyes, he started talking. Telling her all that he had hidden away for her. Telling her about every little and big thing that had happened that day. About every thought that had crossed his mind. He held nothing back. Not caring whether the words came out properly through the gnawing at his knuckles which continued. But the words came. And came. And came.

Till his words were spent. His eyes were calm. He was peaceful at last. He had shared everything he had with her. He would sleep peacefully again that night when he went home.

She would lie awake. Blank. Wordless. Like every night. In her cell. To be taken the next day, as silently as every day. To the vistors’ room. Where her son came to meet her during visiting hours.