The 10 AM Situation

It was about to get 9.30 AM and I had all woken up, waiting for my mother to come and brush my teeth. After the brush, she would have my robe changed, feed me my meal, and get ready for school. She always kept my daily routine as her last chore before she could finally set off for her service as a schoolteacher.

As I was lying down waiting for her to come, I could not help but think about the whole 10 AM situation and how different it used to be three years earlier. There was a time when me and my mother would both get ourselves ready for school. She would drop me at my preschool on her way. That was the time when she would not have to do my daily chores for me. But now things have changed. A sudden terminal illness concerning my brain’s ability to balance and coordinate my body left my muscles weak and powerless. As a result, I was left bedridden at the tender age of seven. 

I think about it all the time. The 10 AM situation. It used to be my favorite part of the day because this timestamp marks the beginning of my busy and eventful life. I used to go to school, meet my peers, meet my teachers, do my classwork, and get excessively competitive with the fellow toppers of the class because I used to be one of them. Then comes the lunch break, and sharing of the tiffin, I remember dumping my tiffin almost every day because I just didn't like that heavy of a tiffin such as paratha and sabji three hours after a full belly meal which my mother used to force-feed me before sending me off to school. Another reason for dumping the tiffin was that I didn't want to waste a single minute of the lunch break eating and not playing. I was never an athlete but I loved playing fun indoor games. After the lunch break the usual session of the school used to resume until 3 PM when finally the school bell rang for the day. After that, I would be on my way to my mother’s school with the rickshawala she would hire to drop me off at her school. There I had to spend an hour or so as her school ends at 4 PM and after that, we both would be coming back home together. 

That used to be my life. But now that seems like a hazy dream to me as I try to recollect them, lying down, waiting for my mother to come with my brush and tongue cleaner and make me brush my teeth. Finally, she came, fluttering and grumpy because of the ticking clock and also because she had to catch her regular bus as she had no means of personal transportation to get to her school. She has to get to the bus stop on time lest she miss her bus and then she has to spend another half hour to find some other means of transportation for her school. This makes it obvious for anyone to get grumpy. I didn't understand that back then, but now I do. Nevertheless, she brushed my teeth and changed my robe, overfed me as usual so that I did not feel the need to eat anything until she came back from school. She usually comes back at 4.30 PM but not when she has to get some vegetables or groceries from the market. If it's the day of marketing then she comes back almost at 6 PM. Either way, it was not easy for an immobile ten-year-old to spend an enormous time of seven to eight hours alone in a room with no means of entertainment except for TV which is highly unreliable due to the frequent power cuts in our rented house. 

Now the time has come when she leaves the house and goes on her way to school. But before that, she didn't forget to put the TV remote on my chest to spare me the struggle of reaching for it. And then lying down on my bed I hear her receding footsteps until I can hear them no longer. When I used to be fine I despised being alone and bored. I would always seek a company to be with whether it is of my age or older. Never have I stayed at my house alone. Or anywhere for that matter. I was always amongst the people. If my parents have to go out they ought to take me with them. Because if they didn't, they would find me at the neighbor's when they came back, a situation they disliked. I like going out, mingling, browsing the outside world, making acquaintances, being overconfident, and having a big mouth. I was a proud extrovert.

The reason for me to give these elaborate details about my past personality is only to let you understand the gravity of my situation. Everything I used to be, everything I used to do, played out in my mind as tears welled up from my eyes during the first thirty minutes after my mother left for work. But what about the remaining six and a half hours?

It was hard for me to think how I would be able to pass those hours. I didn't like the emptiness of the house when I was left alone. To give myself the illusion of company I turned on the TV with the volume loud enough for the neighbors to hear. And that was in a way effective too. 

But after a few hours of watching television, I had this inexplicable restlessness crept into my head, thinking this was all the fun I could get from life. I mostly watched cartoons and thought of the fun days when I used to watch those with my cousins at my grandmother's. The thing is everything I did during those seven hours reminded me of a past filled with outdoor adventures and freedom.

Still, only two hours had passed since my mother left for school, leaving me with five excruciatingly empty hours to fill. As I lay there, watching TV, I drifted into my world of contemplation. But suddenly, my day took a dark turn. In an instant, I snapped out of my thoughts, only to realize that the power had gone out, making it one of those days where I loathed my existence. I suddenly made a swift shift from a person contemplating her joyous past to a person praying and begging to God for the power to restore. It made no sense how quickly my situation became more unpleasant with just one move of a power cut. 

I could not despise my circumstances more, thinking all I want from God is to just let the power supply be restored. The time is now 12 PM and five deadly hours are still remaining, now with no source of light, wind, and entertainment. The ticking clock was my only company, the sound of which was growing increasingly prominent. The second hand of the clock was the only noise I could hear other than my own sporadic gasps. 

To kill time I concoct this strange idea of placing a bet with myself that by the time the second hand makes a full circle of the clock, the power supply would have returned. After that I would start counting the ticking of the clock to sixty but to no fruition. And then I would renew the betting for another minute, then another minute, then another until the point where I get exhausted and fall asleep. 

That was in no way a congenial atmosphere for anyone to fall asleep but for someone who was immobile, to be awake in that state was no less than persecution. In all fairness and honesty, sleeping was the only escape left for me to combat the whole situation. It gave me solace from the agony and spared me to live through the persecuting lonely hours such as those. As I fall asleep I cease to feel the heat and humidity of the day, the deadly ticking of the clock, the pining contemplation of the past, and the longing for a company because I had not seen a single soul of my contemporary age in the last three years. 

As I fell asleep and remained asleep for several hours I lost track of time. I finally awoke after a few hours, drenched in my sweat and confused as to what time it was. If power was there I could have easily told by seeing which cartoon show was being aired on TV. But the power was still out and without it, it was challenging, partly because of the darkness which surrounded the area where the wall clock was hung and partly because of my poor eyesight which resulted due to my illness. That meant I could not see anything at a distance without squinting. Even squinting could not claim success, I had to do the subsequent guesswork too.

As I lay there on my back staring at the ceiling fan, hoping it would move and thinking about what time it was, I heard some commotion coming from the outside. It was of our landlord coming back with his three kids whom he had picked up from their school. By the noise of that, I realized it was 2.30 PM as their school used to end at that time. That awareness of time made me relieved to know that now I only had to endure two hours and a half until my mother finally came back from school. With that thought in mind, I again fell asleep.

After a few hours of being asleep, I woke up again, this time with sweat and drooling and finally getting exhausted from sleeping throughout the day. I looked at the skylight and the sun rays coming from it were no longer coming. This made me deduce that it was about time for my mother to return from her work. I was thinking about it, that suddenly I heard some approaching footsteps, familiar enough for me to get excited. The footsteps were gradually getting clearly audible. And as I could hear them close enough I heard the unlocking of my locked room and there she was, my mother, came back from her school. And this was the best part of my day now. 

My loneliness finally abated with the arrival of my mother from her work. With her, she brought me some pakodas to chug with the evening tea. As I was sipping my evening tea along with the pakodas I couldn't help but to think about how the next day of mine would turn out after the whole 10 AM situation.