My 8 minutes

I got two dozen Alphonso mangoes from Mumbai. I have been eating 2 everyday. Sharing them with very close friends or my husband only. Treating them nothing less than just quarried drops of yellow sapphire set in giant gold casts. If there is any food item I like after Pani-puri, they are the Alphonsos. I intend to make up for not having any last year.

I had planned on finishing them all before it is time for me to get admitted in the hospital for the biopsy. Leaving nothing to chance. Everyone says it is going to be fine. My sixth sense tells me so too. But this had happened once earlier as well. "Everything will be all right" is a phrase I trust no more than a beggar's blessings which turn into a curse the moment you turn your back to them.

"I cannot leave anything to chance. I must polish off all the mangoes before Sunday", I had promised myself.

Partha asked me if I had any for dinner just now. 

I said, "No". 

"Why", he asked.

I had no answer. I don't know why I didn't feel like having them.

I don't feel like laughing right now. I don't feel like smiling. I don't feel like talking. Being close to anyone. I feel like doing nothing.

I don't feel like saying, "yeah don't worry I am fine". I don't feel like continuing the charade. I am tired of the mask I unknowingly put on every time anyone asks me, "How is everything".

I think I am at the end of my 8th minute. 

They say that if the sun explodes there will be chaos everywhere. Our planet will vaporize. Enormity of the destruction is unthinkable. The extreme heat will ensure devastation of magnitudes beyond any measure.

But there is a silver lining.

Because it take 8 minutes for the light to travel, for 8 long minutes we will continue to live, breathe, dance, sing, love, hate, survive and feel the warmth of the sun that has just exploded. We will be blinded only 8 minutes later. We will be struck by the loss only 8 minutes later.

In those 8 minutes we can live all we want.

In those 8 minutes we can die all we want.

In those 8 minutes we can be all we want.

I feel like I am at the end of my 8th minute. The happy, cozy, cheerful face that I have been keeping, trying to deny the fear that had already set in, is coming to a close. I am scared about tomorrow. I am scared about day after tomorrow. I am scared of the point zero zero zero zero one percent chance that my husband will walk into the room after the surgery and say, "it is malignant". I don't know how I am going to take it this time. The first time around it was easy. I didn't know what it meant. This time I know what it means.

Why can't I stretch my 8 minutes forever???