the face on the wall

In holidays , our family makes regular outings . My father always wishes to plan a tour to some sacred place . In a summer break , we had planned to visit Shiridi . We started at Hyedrabad after staying there a couple of days at our relatives' house . We catched the tourism bus in the evening . Only after crossing the busy city roads , we could enjoy the journey .

We reached our destination early in the morning & got a room registered in the tourism hotel . Everyone of us started to groom ourselves as the darshan time is coming closer . There was a hospital beside the hotel in which we were staying . I saw a child whose cot lies parallel to one of the windows of our room . He looked healthy but was deprived of the natural glow in his face . 'Perhaps , he has some chronic disease which is progressing with time' , i thought . I didn't observe him much in my first time as there was no time & we were in a hurry . We roamed here & there after our darshan & reached our room in the night .

We were busy in starting to nearby places on the next 2 days . We were staying at room only at night & in the mornings . It was in the third morning , i was astonished by my strange observation . I saw the face on the wall losing its margins . And the condition of the child had worsened . He neither was able to get up from his bed nor was eating the food . I was under the shower [in the first morning] when i had observed a patch on one of the walls of the bathroom beside the ventilator . It took the form of a human face & was very clear as if it was an artificial work . Now, it was fading off & had lost its margins .

In the next two days , the patch was increasingly disappearing . I saw the child suffering very much . On that night , i tried very much to stop my tears when the child was struggling in the ICU & the parents , almost hopeless , were unable to express their grief . Before my bed , i tried to increase the contrast of the face with water , with a meaningless hope . I forced myself to bed as we were departing from that place early in the next morning . I didn't open that window this time . Infact , i am not bold enough to do that , after failing to find the patch which had vanished away from the wall .

I couldn't enjoy my return journey . When ever i sleep , the face was disturbing me again & again throughout our journey . This had haunted me for a week . 'Alas ..! its fate ', i thought . Whereafter , when i came across such a wall with a patch , it reminded me "the face on the wall".