The phone rang in its antique way from a wire that Taj had illegally tied into the phone system of a local building. It was the dark of night in the hovel. Buddy could hear Taj as he dropped down from the top bunk of the welded together steel, shaky bed. Once again, scraping his calf on the protrusion of steel that he hadn't filed down yet, cursing and yelling,

"Okay, I'm coming, I'm coming… Coming!" As if the phone could hear.

Finally, scrambling around in the dark making a lot of noise and cursing some more, Taj finally got a hold of the phone and answered. "Hello… Hello… Is that you Meera?"

It was Meera in pain. But Buddy could only hear Taj yelling at her.

"Meera, why did you do that? Why did you go take the last of our money and go to the hospital with it? You know I always wanted you to die here with me? Why did you want to go there? The morphine? Won't that just prolong your agony from this cancer that is swelling your whole body and giving you so much pain? If you were here I could get you some hash that you could smoke. But no, you had to take our money! The money that I earned in the club. I gave my body for you and me to eat! Why would you take it from us, you selfish bitch?"

I intervened. "Taj she's your best friend for life! Why are you arguing with her! You should be kind to her in her last hours. Don't you remember when your family threw you out because you only liked me and other boys better than any girl? And then, came across another untouchable cripple in the street, Meera. Your friendship with her and guile got you through to this place where we can barely hang on with a few rupees that those boys in the Java Club give to you for the favors you give them!

"Shut up Buddy, I'm talking to Meera. She will always be my best friend, just like you, friends for life! But I need to talk to her, persuade her to come home and die here, not in that place where they don't care and they will throw her body in the trash when they are done with her."

"They will see that she gets a proper cremation."

"No thank you, she won't, she's unclean… Let me talk to her, will you!"

"I will come to see you in the morning if you are still alive. And I will bring you home. I will always love you as my best girlfriend since we were about seven when I first found you in the street. Each of us needing the other badly to survive. Bye now sweetie. Get some rest and I will see you in the morning."

I could hear Taj rummaging around in the dark. Finding an old worn out tunic to tear and wrap around that reopened wound on his calf that kept breaking open when it hit that piece of steel sticking out from the bunk bed tubing.

"Dammit! Bleeding again! That will be the death of me if I don't get it fixed." Cursing done, Taj crawled back up into his top bunk, still leaving the lower one for Meera, and was soon snoring loudly, keeping me awake.

When I looked in the morning as the sun finally came over the tall buildings towering above and came through the cracks in our humble structure striking me in the face, I looked over where Taj slept and he wasn't there. Didn't even bother to share morning ablutions with me from our meager supply of stolen muddy water. What has come over him?

*****

Taj arrived at the entrance to the crowded hospital. People wanting to get in were lined up out into the street waiting to get to the check-in desk. He charged past all of them, knowing that he would be unwanted inside when they saw his dirty ragged look with an unruly beard untrimmed masking his sun darkened youthful face.

He moved fast up and down the aisles so as not to be caught and thrust out. But the people caring for the sick and injured were too few and too busy to bother with him. They were mostly nuns of the Catholic religion that founded the hospital during the time of the British. It had now fallen into ruin, but some of the original people, very old and frail, were still working, trying to save the healthy and care for the dying.

Finally, after calling out her name occasionally and climbing up four levels of stairs he saw her in a cot in the hallway outside a doorway to a room that was supposed to be for two patients, but contained four. They dressed and looked wealthy.

As he approached, Taj realized that Meera was much more bloated than the day before. Ballooned up to more than double her normal starving skinny frame. The only thing that wasn't swollen was her face floating on her larger than life neck.

He called out, "Meera, are you all right? Please tell me you're not dead!"

Tears formed in Meera’s eyes as she struggled to whisper. "No, I'm still alive and thankful for this morphine drip that's helping with the tremendous pain. Sometimes nearly unbearable!" She began choking and crying profusely with tears running down her face that she couldn't wipe away because her swollen arms would not move any more.

Taj found a gray streaked white towel by her bed and gently absorbed the tears from Meera's face. "I've come to take you home. You don't need to die in this place. Can you take this morphine bag home with you?"

"Taj, you silly fool. I can no longer walk and you could not pay anyone to carry me home. Besides, when it gets too bad, they give me hypos that put me to sleep for a little while. At home I would have none of that. Only you to just look over me and do nothing."

"What are they giving you? Anything for the cancer to slow it? I didn't know cancer moved this fast to kill anyone like it's trying to kill you in a few days."

"It's not cancer. One doctor came by and told me that it is cellulitis. Something got under my skin and infected my cells. It has spread to my entire body. He said he was sorry, but I came too late. Antibiotics can stop it, but mine was too advanced and the only thing to do was give [be as comfortable a death as possible. He said that the money I brought will give me a proper cremation. Thankfully, he mentioned nothing of my status." Tears flowed again and Taj gently intercepted them with the dirty towel.

Throughout the day, Taj left Meera's side and went out in the street to get food and water. She found the water, dirty as it was, refreshing to her parched, bleeding lips but couldn't eat any of the chapattis, lentils and chilies that he stole from street vendors and brought to her side. Her throat was too swollen for her to swallow.

"I will die tonight." She told him late in the day. "But you must leave me now and I will have someone call you when I get close to death so that you can come and be with me when I leave. Go now and get some rest. Tell Buddy."

At least he had water and enough to eat from what Meera didn't. More than he usually ate in a day. By the time he got back to the hovel, it was very dark and Taj was already very tired so he just said, "I'm back, Buddy," and crawled up into the upper bunk again. He was snoring a minute later.

*****

It must've been after midnight when I heard the phone ringing and Taj literally fell out of the top bunk trying to get to the phone, cursing again. This time he muttered, "Damn, I ripped it open! The blood is flowing too fast! I've got to get it stopped right now!"

I could hear him scrambling roughly in the dark until he found that piece of worn-out tunic. He hurriedly ripped strips of cloth to tie around his calf and stop the spurting blood. When he finally got it slowed, Taj fumbled for the phone and answered it. It was a nun on the line. She told him to hurry to the hospital because Meera was close to death.

All he said to me was, "I'll see you in the morning after I take care of her as she dies, Buddy. I wish I could take you along but they wouldn't understand and I'm afraid that I've already lost too much blood to even get to the hospital."

I wished him Godspeed and said, "I will be all right and I will wait for you to return."

But deep inside, I knew that he wouldn't return. Our time together as best friends for life, along with our adopted Meera, was coming to an end.

I waited patiently for two nights and two days and Taj did not return. The phone rang a couple of times but I couldn't answer it from my place on a high makeshift shelf.

Finally, I heard rustling outside and saw an unfamiliar face poke his head inside. From the dirt on his face and his unkempt beard, I could see he was from the street.

He kept coming back and looking inside. Finally, after another night, he came inside with a scrawny woman and a baby with bulging stomach and eyes of malnutrition. He rummaged around and found nothing except Meera and Taj’s worn out essentials. They settled in anyway.

He thought the phone was of some value but told his woman, "If it rings, don't answer. I'll see if we can use it later."

When the man found me, he took one look and told the woman. "What is this? A board with a charcoal face drawn on it and covered with some moth-eaten bit of old tunic? I will break it up for firewood when it gets colder and we no longer can get charcoal. This ugly place will have to do for us until I can find a way to earn some rupees."

Copyright 2022 © Ronald W. Hull

8/16/22