Our boarding house is perched high on a beautiful hill, affording grand views of the forests and orchards in the valley, and our curving blue lake. The place is so beautiful you never get tired of it.

Here I live with innumerable other children.

Some are very small and cannot tie their shoes yet. Some are almost grown up. We have come from different places and speak different tongues, but on this hill these differences melt away quickly.

It is not a dull or gloomy abode, like the sinister boarding houses in stories. There are no dark and dusty corners. The floorboards do not creak at night to scare us, and there are no horrid caretakers to lock doors or shout.

This is the most fun place you can imagine, overseen by a saintly old warden.

We simply call him “the grandfather”, though I also know his name now. I have learned to spell simple words, and the nameplate outside his office reads: Ibrahim.

Eric—my five-year-old German friend with a red, freckled face and straight golden hair—calls him “Abraham von Ur”. Eric has been living here for ages, but he likes to tell tales, and I doubt his claims about the grandfather’s Teutonic origins.

It is true that the grandfather is very tall and well-built and has a very fair complexion—his long silver-grey hair falling over his wide shoulders in a majestic manner.

However, his large black eyes and thick, full beard point to his Middle Eastern roots.

Or maybe the grandfather belongs to both the East and the West, for when he flings his arms out, it seems like he can gather up the whole lot of children in his embrace.

The grandfather has a lot of children to look after—the number of his wards is ever-increasing—but he manages in a miraculous manner to lavish love, care and attention on each and every child.

Despite his busy schedule, he even finds time to play silly games with us. When he joins us on the football field, the goal almost disappears behind his huge body, and when even the three-year-olds score against him, he falls down in despair amid the children’s laughter.

The grandfather understands every language, but he speaks only the language of love. Nobody has ever seen him angry. He has never punished anyone. He has never shouted or yelled at any child.

Many children believe that he is even more affectionate and loving than our real parents, some of whom, including my dear mom, sometimes visit us with lots of presents.

On her last visit, my mom brought me a small prism on a string. When the sun comes through the dorm window, it throws a rainbow across the floor, and the little children try to catch it.

In fact, the grandfather was the one who received me when I arrived at this place after walking through a dark tunnel one night in December.

I can remember that before embarking on that journey, I was lying in a hospital bed with a number of wires and tubes attached to my body. My chest hurt when I breathed. My arms were thin, and there were blue marks where the needles had been. The room smelled of medicine and cold air.

My dad was always by my bedside. He wore the same grey sweater every day. At night he held my hand while I slept. His hand was big and rough and warm, but it broke my heart when I heard him cry in the dead of the night.

But on that particular night in December, I was woken up at a moment when my poor father had probably been sent out to “arrange” some blood or platelets for me.

Someone had whispered in my ear that I was to leave now, and this sudden announcement about an immediate departure had filled me with a deep sorrow. The machine next to my bed was beeping more slowly than usual. The chair where my dad sat was empty.

I was not afraid of the journey. I just wanted to hug my father for the last time in a tight embrace.

My eyes were fixed on the half-frosted window in front of my bed.

This window gave a view of the corridor outside the room, and I waited with bated breath to at least catch a glimpse of my father for the last time. I kept staring at the corner where the corridor turned. I thought if I stared hard enough, he would appear, rubbing his hands from the cold.

Unfortunately, the journey started even before he could return, and I had to step into the tunnel with tears rolling down my cold face. The tunnel was dark and quiet and cold, and every step took me further from him.

However, as soon as I arrived at this beautiful valley, my sorrow was gone. The grandfather was standing with a broad, welcoming smile at the end, along with a number of other children. He knelt in the grass and lifted me up. The air smelled like pine and warm bread.

And now I live happily at this place of unending bliss. Yet, I still sometimes feel like sneaking out of the boarding house, finding the grove of trees that hides that secret tunnel, running back to that hospital room and hugging my poor father for one last time.

This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious

The writer can be reached at farrukhkamrani@gmail.com