Highly Commended Story - Humanity Comes From Heart

“Humanity Comes From Heart” by Arnesh Chakrabarti, Delhi Public School Ruby Park Kolkata, India, is the Highly Commended story in the junior category of the second biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

Humanity Comes From Heart

Everything was perfectly swell.

There were no prisons, no slums, no wars. Death, barring accidents was an adventure of the volunteers. All diseases were conquered, so was old age. The population of United States was stabilised by forty million souls.

One morning in Chicago, lying in the hospital was a man named Wang. He was waiting for his son to complete his surgery. X rays have told that he had broken his collar bone. Wang was 46 years old. His face was white, his lips were trembling and he was looking very colourless. His camouflage was perfect since the waiting room had a demoralised air. It had been redecorated as a memorial to a person who volunteered to die.

A sardonic old man, stood on a stepladder and was painting a mural. It was a painting probably would be alliterated as ‘heaven’ by a poet. The painting was depicting a garden where doctors and nurses planted trees, watered the plants and took care of them.

The hospital orderly came in singing a popular song. He lifted his voice calculated at an angle at a distance and said “It looks so real, I could practically imagine standing in the middle of that heavenly body.”

“What makes you not think you are in it?” Said the muralist with a satiric smile.

“It’s called the ‘Happy Garden Of Life’, you know.”

Not even in medieval Holland or Japan was a garden so formal like that. Every plant had all the loam, light, water and nourishment it needed.

“that’s good of Dr. Hide” said the orderly. He was referring to the portrait of Dr. Hide who had passed away recently as he was murdered.

The muralist was jealous because of that great portrait compared to his painting.

“Go and frame that picture in your house, if you find that more honest than mine.”

“you are a old gloomy duck” said the orderly

“Is that a crime?” replied the muralist

After that harsh conversation the orderly went away to do his work and the muralist left the mural incomplete and went to talk to the receptionist.

Meanwhile the nurse came out of the operatic room and informed Wang that the surgery is completed. After some time when the boy came out of the room with his hand plastered, he couldn’t see his father. He saw a man sitting on the place were Wang was sitting. The man had his face fully covered with his hat like he was sleeping. Wang’s son moved towards that man and he found a letter beside him. He recognised his father’s handwriting and started reading the letter.

My Parents always wanted me to be a doctor, to save human lives but they passed away. I grew in an orphanage and pursued my studies to fulfil my parent’s wish. When I came for an interview with Dr. Hide in this hospital he asked me for bribes. When I said I couldn’t afford that and I really needed the job to feed you, he asked me for your mother as a substitute for money. I slapped him and threatened him for saying that. In anger he killed your mother and suppressed it from the society. I was broken from inside. I killed Dr. Hide and took revenge on him. I only did it for my dearest son and my wife. In these days people have forgotten humanity and are overflowing through animality. They don’t have respect for women who gave them birth. They only want money. You will always be my dearest.

Your Father

Wang’s son stood baffled for a moment with both sorrow and happiness. He lifted the man’s hat.

“Father………”