The Breath I Couldn’t Find

After years of misdiagnosis and drug-induced fog, a young Kashmiri discovered that survival sometimes lies in questioning the very cures prescribed to us.

- Mahfooz Ahmad Bakshi

There were days when I envied even the street dogs of Ganderbal, panting in the summer sun.

They breathed without effort, lungs working like bellows, as if air belonged to them. To me, air felt like a privilege withheld.

Each inhalation was a battle. And every night, I wondered how something as free as oxygen could be so unreachable.

The trouble began in 2020, in the shadow of the pandemic. Until then, football was my religion. I would play from dawn until dusk, feet raw, lungs wide. Then the world shut down.

The empty grounds mocked me. | turned to words instead. 1 scribbled poems about hunger and poverty, drafted essays on politics, tried short stories about love. A few pieces made it to newspapers. For a year, writing gave me wings.

Then, my body began to betray me. It started with sudden suffocation, then weakness, then cold legs and a racing heart. Nights stretched into sleepless vigils, my eyes open to the ceiling fan, waiting for morning.

Once, unable to bear it, | stumbled outside and howled into the darkness. Tears fell, but nothing loosened.