IS IT SAFE TO LOOK AT THE MOON?

The Loss

She cannot cry. Even as her brothers mourned and shed tears for the death of their youngest brother, her eyes did not water nor did she feel any emotion that should have made her cry.

She was sad and the grief in her heart was real. She reminded herself this was the brother she took care when he was newly-born, and as he grew up. There were nights she was up, walked him to sleep when he was teething. There were days she stayed home, to babysit the boy when nobody was around to do it.

Then, there was the separation. He went away to a foreign country, worked as an oil engineer, and seldom came home. He seldom wrote letters, either, always giving the excuse he was not a letter-writer. He definitely disliked writing.

She heard one day he became a smoker. She was devastated. She wrote to him, begged him to stop the habit, that one day it may kill him. He laughed it all off, of course, and insisted cigarettes were not and will not make one ill.

Years passed. The young brother married, had children of his own, but still continued smoking. His children grew up, went to college, and still he smoked. He retired one day from work, and spent practically most of his days smoking - at sport games he attended, at parties with friends, at weekly card games. People gave him a name: The Chimney.

He returned one day to the foreign land where he first worked as an engineer. He was alone then. His wife had passed on and his children found life with their own growing families. Still he smoked...

One night as she read a book about the poison of smoking, the telephone rang. Annoyed at the call she thought was a "scam", she put down the book. At the other end of the line came a voice of doom:

Your brother collapsed at a friend's house party. He was rushed to the emergency. Apparently, his lungs were congested and he could not breathe. He died on the way to the hospital...

She listened intently. She waited for the tears. She shivered, her hands shook, her heart beat raced. But there were no tears...

elephantsealer