The Orphan's Pill

The rain had been falling for nearly three hours when Sister Agnes heard the crying. At first, she thought it was one of the younger children. The orphanage was never completely quiet at night. There were always small disturbances, the rustle of blankets, a frightened child calling for a nun after waking from a nightmare, the occasional quarrel over a stolen pillow. Old wooden doors groaned in their frames, ceiling fans clicked unevenly, and whenever the monsoon arrived, rain hammered the tiled roof so fiercely that ordinary sounds disappeared beneath it.

Sister Agnes was halfway down the corridor when she heard the crying again. She stopped to listen carefully. It was a faint cry coming from the outside. She walked toward the entrance and pulled aside the curtain covering the narrow window beside the door. The courtyard was almost invisible behind the rain.

"Who would be out there at this hour?"

She shielded her eyes and looked into the darkness. There was nothing but the iron gate and the muddy road beyond it. Then lightning illuminated the courtyard, and for one brief second, she saw a basket. It sat on the lowest step, partly sheltered beneath the small stone awning. Sister Agnes froze.

"Dear God."

She hurried outside.The basket was soaked on the outside, but someone had thoughtfully covered its contents with a blanket. Sister Agnes took the baby in the basket inside. A baby stared at her. He was tiny, his cheeks wet, his eyes open. He was crying so softly that Agnes wondered how she had heard him at all.

"Oh, child."

She lifted him into her arms. The baby immediately stopped crying. Agnes looked around the empty courtyard.

"Where is your mother?"

There was no answer. She searched the basket, but there was no note, no name, no identification. Not even a scrap of cloth bearing an initial, only the blanket. Nobody ever came looking for him. They named him Riles.

He grew up among children who had also been left behind by circumstances they could not understand. Some had lost their parents, others had never known them. They came from railway stations, hospitals, bus stands and streets. They shared clothes, food, punishments, secrets and dreams and Riles belonged among them. When he was seventeen, he asked Sister Agnes about the night he had been brought to the orphanage.

"Do you remember anything about the woman who left me?"

Agnes was quiet for a moment, and stunned because she did not tell him who left him at the convent. Thinning one of the other nuns must have slipped it out, she didn't pay attention and simply answered,

"No."

"Nothing?", he asked again.

"Only that it was raining."

"Did she look frightened?"

Agnes looked at him.

"I don't know."

"Did she look like me?"

"I don't know, Riles."

He lowered his eyes.

"Do you think she ever wanted me?"

Agnes took his hand.

"I think sometimes people can love someone deeply and still be unable to protect them."

Riles wanted to believe her, but he had spent his entire life wondering why love had not been enough to make someone stay.

He left the orphanage three months after his eighteenth birthday. There was no dramatic farewell like those seen in movies. The younger children were eating breakfast, one boy was crying because someone had stolen his slippers, and the kitchen smelled of rice and spices. Sister Agnes gave him a small suitcase containing three shirts, two pairs of trousers, a towel, a photograph and an envelope with the little money the orphanage had managed to save for him. At the gate, she hugged him.

"You'll write?"

"I will."

"You'll visit?"

"Of course."

"And you'll eat properly?"

He smiled.

"I'll try."

She shook her head.

"You always say that."

For a few seconds, Riles allowed himself to be a child again. Then he walked away.

Years passed, he worked wherever he could. Washing dishes, loading trucks and eventually finding a steady job in a warehouse. He rented a one bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom barely large enough to turn around in. It wasn't much, but everything in it belonged to him. For the first time, nobody told him when to sleep or when to wake up.

Then, on the 7th of March, after a night of heavy rain, he found something buried beneath the soil near the old orphanage grounds. He had gone there without knowing why. Maybe he wanted to see the place again. The path had nearly disappeared beneath weeds and fallen branches when he noticed something under the wet earth. He crouched and scraped away the mud with his fingers and a corner of a metal box appeared. It took him nearly ten minutes to pull it free. The box was small and badly rusted. He carried it home, cleaned it and opened the lid. Inside were forty small pills, perfectly preserved in a white plastic bag, and a note was lying there under the pills, a folded piece of paper.

Four words were written on it.

"ONE EVERY THREE MONTHS."

Riles stared at the message, confused as he was but just as curious.

"What kind of joke is this?"

There was no label on the pills, no manufacturer, nor prescription. Nothing that explained what they were or where they had come from. He should have thrown them away but he wanted to know what it does. Curiosity won him over, so he swallowed one and waited for a reaction. Nothing happened. He waited for a few more hours, there was no dizziness, no strange taste, no side effects, no sensation of magic. Eventually, he went to bed.

That night, he dreamed he stood outside the orphanage in the rain. Everything looked exactly as it had the night he had been found, but somehow he knew he was not remembering it. He was watching it as an observer from a distance. A woman was running toward the gate, her clothes were soaked, her hair clung to her face. She kept looking behind her as though someone were following her. She was carrying a basket and inside was a baby. Riles knew immediately who the baby was. He tried to move toward them, but his body would not obey him. The woman reached the steps and knelt beside the basket. She pulled back the blanket and touched the baby's cheek.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Riles tried to speak.

"Wait!"

She couldn't hear him. She kissed the baby's forehead, stood and ran.

"Don't leave me!"

He screamed after her. She ran off to a different direction and then he saw a car charging at her. A shadow figured man got out, dragged her into the car and left. Then the dream changed. Sister Agnes opened the orphanage door, lightning flashed. She saw the basket and hurried toward it. The vision ended.

Riles woke at 3:17 in the morning with tears on his face. For several minutes he sat motionless in the darkness, then he looked at the box. Thirty-nine pills remained. He understood. He got up, took out a notebook and wrote down,

QUESTION: WHO LEFT ME?

ANSWER: A WOMAN.

He stared at the words. Then added:

SHE WAS AFRAID.

He closed the notebook. For the first time in his life, he knew something about the woman who had abandoned him. She had been afraid. That meant somebody had frightened her. And if somebody had frightened her badly enough to abandon her own child then perhaps his life had never begun with abandonment. Maybe it had begun with escape.

Every three months, he took another. Each pill showed him something from his past but never enough. His mother running through the rain, a man arguing with someone in a hospital corridor, a frightened woman carrying a baby, gunshot at the hospital. Whenever Riles thought he had finally understood something, another question appeared. But eventually he learned one thing that changed everything, his mother had not abandoned him because she didn't want him, she did so to save him and believed that leaving him at the orphanage was the only way to keep him alive. Riles never learned what happened to her and probably the reason why he continued taking the pills because they gave him the possibility of finding out more about his past. Sometimes he woke with tears on his face and most times with rage. In one of his dream, he saw a name, his father's name and behind it, a history. Smuggling, drugs, money, corrupt officials, missing people, blood. Riles began tracing the family. He found his father's brother. Alive, wealthy, a bit old now. He is a father, a husband, living with his son in a mansion big enough to fit 10 people. Riles found a lead, and he was keen to find more.

He met Maya six months later. She was standing outside a bookstore arguing with a man who had sold her the wrong edition of a novel.

"I asked for the second edition."

The shopkeeper shrugged.

"This is the book you asked for."

"It isn't."

"It has the same title."

"It has the same title because it's the same book."

"Exactly."

Maya stared at him.

Riles laughed.

She turned.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing."

"You were laughing."

"I was."

"Then something must have been funny."

He smiled.

"You're arguing with a man over a book."

"It's an important argument."

"Clearly."

She crossed her arms.

"Do you want to help?"

Riles glanced at the shopkeeper.

"I think you should give her the other edition."

The shopkeeper frowned.

"Why?"

"Because she's going to stand here all day."

Maya smiled.

"See?"

The shopkeeper disappeared into the back.

Maya turned toward Riles.

"Thank you."

"I don't think I actually did anything."

"You did enough."

They met again the next day at a coffee shop. They both gave a nod and a smile and walked off. Then they bumped into each other again a bus stop, when they were going towards the same route, and then at a grocery store a few weeks later. Eventually neither of them pretended the meetings were accidental.

Maya was intelligent, humble, and has the prettiest smile. Her family was wealthy, though she rarely behaved like someone who had grown up surrounded by money. She dislike expensive restaurants, hates entitled people, loves street food and is intelligent without making anyone feel stupid and has a habit of looking directly into Riles' eyes whenever he tries to hide something, which made lying difficult.

One evening, they sat together on the roof of his apartment building. Maya looked at the stars.

"You've never told me about your parents."

Riles stiffened.

"I'm sorry, you don't have to talk about it."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I don't know anything about them."

"What do you mean?"

"I was left at an orphanage when I was a baby."

Maya's expression softened.

"Do you remember them?"

"No."

"Do you want to find them?"

Riles looked out at the city.

"I want to know why."

Maya reached for his hand.

"You deserve to know."

That sentence frightened because he already had a secret she knows nothing about.

On one afternoon, when they were at home, relaxing, having their food and watching a movie, all cozed up, Maya told him about her mother.

“My mother died when I was young,”

Maya said.

Riles looked at her.

“I remember her face, but not why she left.”

Riles felt something tighten inside him.

“Left?”

Maya nodded.

“I was little. We were at a railway station. I remember people everywhere. My mother was holding my hand.”

She paused.

“Then she left.”

“Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Did she say anything?”

Maya shook her head.

“I don't remember. She whispered something to my ear and left. But I cannot recall what it was."

Riles stared at her. For a moment, he couldn't hear the movie playing in the background. He imagined a railway station, a mother with a child, then left. It was almost cruel.

He had spent years trying to understand why his mother had left him and now the woman he loved was carrying the same wound.

“What happened after?” he asked.

“My father came and took me home.”

“Did he tell you where your mother went?”

“He said she abandoned me.”

Riles looked at her with so much sadness, he took her hand and said, “I know what it feels like to believe someone abandoned you.”

She leaned against his shoulder.

“Then you understand.”

More than you know, he thought.

One day, while they were getting ready to go to church, she found a box, while searching for her accessories. When she opened it, she found pills. She picked it up.

“What are these?”

Riles froze.

“Nothing.”

She looked at him.

“You're a terrible liar.”

He sighed.

“I'll tell you.”

He sat her down and told her about the box, how he found it, how he used it for the first time and discovered what it does, how he saw visions, the woman, the orphanage, the answers he never had gotten. Maya listened without interrupting. When he finished, she looked at the remaining pills.

“You've been doing this all this time?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't know how.”

She picked up the paper next to the pills and read the four letter word. Maya looked at him.

“What are you trying to find?”

“My family.”

“Why?”

Riles didn't answer immediately.

“Because I need to know who left me.”

“And when you find them?”

He looked at the box.

“I'll know what to do.”

She didn't like the answer but she loved him, so she left it as it is. Kept the box back and left the room. He fixed his tie and closed the door. What she did not see was underneath the shelf, their was a box, hidden cautiously that had a notebook filled with details. It had names, address, history, his dreams.

Several weeks later, Maya sat across from him at their dining table looking disturbed. She had been thinking about something.

“I want you to use one.”

Riles looked up.

“One what?”

“A pill.”

“For what?”

“For me.”

He immediately shook his head.

“No.”

“You don't even know what I'm going to ask.”

“I know what these mean to me.”

“I know.”

She reached across the table.

“But I'm asking you anyway.”

He stared at her.

“What do you want to know?”

She swallowed.

“Why did my mother leave me?”

Riles looked at the pills. There were only two. He had spent years saving them. One every three months. One question at a time. He could use this one to search for his own family. He could finally learn what happened to his mother. Instead, he picked up the pill and Maya watched him swallow it. That night, Riles dreamed of a railway station. As usual, he couldn't move, couldn't speak, and then he saw her. Maya's mother. She was holding the hand of a little girl in a pink dress. Her mother led her toward a bench and knelt in front of her. She kissed Maya's forehead.

"Stay here, sweetheart."

The little girl looked up at her.

"I'm going to get the tickets."

Her mother smiled.

"I'll be right back."

Riles watched her stand and walk towards the ticket counter. He tried to follow but couldn't. Then he saw a man enter the platform. Riles watched helplessly as the man approached her mother. He saw him grabbed her arm and how she struggled. Riles tried to scream but no one could hear, and in a split second, the woman laid cold-blooded on the ground. Her little daughter was still sitting on the bench, waiting. Riles woke violently. Maya was sitting beside him.

"What did you see?"

He looked at her. He wanted to tell her everything but he couldn't.

"I saw your mother," he said.

Maya's face changed.

"What was she doing?"

"She wasn't leaving you."

Maya stopped breathing.

"What?"

"She told you she was going to get the tickets."

Tears filled Maya's eyes.

"She came back?"

Riles looked down.

"I don't know."

"Did she?"

"I don't know."

Maya stared at him.

"You said the pills show the past."

"They show something."

"That's not the same thing."

"No."

Her voice broke.

"Then how am I supposed to believe any of this?"

Riles had no answer. Maya turned away.

"My whole life, I thought she left me."

"I know."

"My father told me she didn't want me."

Riles reached for her hand.

"He might have been wrong."

Riles nodded.

"Yes."

She looked at him.

"You don't know."

"No."

For a while, neither of them spoke. Maya looked at the box.

"How many are left?"

"One."

She stared at it.

"And you're going to take it?"

Riles picked up the final pill. For years, he had imagined this moment. One final answer, one final piece and one final chance to know exactly what had happened to the people who had shaped his life. He rolled the pill between his fingers then he looked at Maya who was still waiting for his answer.

Riles placed the pill back inside the box. Maya watched him.

"Why?"

He closed the lid.

"Because I've spent my whole life looking for the past."

He looked at her.

"I think it's time I found something else."

"What?"

He smiled faintly.

"A future."

Maya reached across the table and took his hand. Neither of them knew whether their mothers had loved them enough. Neither of them knew what had happened at the end. Neither of them knew whether the visions had shown the whole truth. For once, Riles didn't need to know. Inside the little box, the last pill waited, untouched.