The Window

A patient who had undergone a major surgery was transferred to a ward in the municipal hospital. When he was taken there, he noticed there were only two beds in that small room. It was very humid and a bit dark. There was a small window near one of the beds. The patient wished he had got the bed near the window, but that was already taken. So he was given the other bed. The window was so oriented that one could not see outside through the window from this bed.

He could not move his limbs because of the surgery. He was told he had to remain there for three months. The other patient had some incurable fatal disease and was destined to die in a few months. Everyday the second patient would rise up a little from his bed and look out of the window. The first patient looked at him distressingly and helplessly as he desperately wanted to know what was outside the window.

"Don't be sad.", said the second patient one day, noticing the latter's distress. "I will look out of the window everyday and will narrate to you whatever I see." So, from that day the second person started narrating to him whatever he saw through the window. He told him there was a park outside. Children played in the park. 'Today they are playing cricket!'. 'Ohh the kid got hurt'. 'No, he is playing again'. 'There are yellow flowers on the trees'.'That small boy holding a baloon is so cute'. 'It's raining outside - how beautiful the rain is!'. The more he told, the more the second patient wanted to see all that himself.

Two months passed. That day, the second patient was looking out through the window and telling his friend what he saw. 'Today there is a parade going on. There are horses and elephants and .... ". Suddenly he started grasping for breath, holding his chest.

The first patient did not move. Didn't say anything. Didn't call the doctor. He just lay there on his bed. In a few moments that man died. Then, he called the doctor. The attendant came. Took the bed out with the body. Then he gently shifted the first patient's bed near the window. With effort, the patient slowly raised himself a bit and looked through the window.

There was a wall right outside the window.