Paracetamol is supposed to be simple.
A small white tablet.
Something you don't plan for.
Something you assume will always be there.
That night, it wasn't.
The room was quiet. Not peaceful-just quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you listen to breathing, to movement, to time passing. My wife lay on the bed, her face pale, her body warm with fever. She wasn't crying. She wasn't complaining. She never did. She just lay there, eyes half closed, trying to rest.
I sat beside her and felt something heavy settle in my chest.
I knew what she needed.
Paracetamol.
I also knew I didn't have it.
That realization didn't come suddenly. It came slowly, like water filling a room. I went through my pockets once. Then again. I checked the table. The drawer. The bag I hadn't touched in days. I already knew the result, but I checked anyway. Sometimes hope hides in places logic has already ruled out.
Nothing.
The strange thing was-I had money recently.
Not a lot, but enough. Enough for medicine. Enough for small emergencies. Enough to feel, for a moment, that things were under control.
But money in my life had a habit.
It never stayed.
Whenever it came, it was already assigned somewhere else. Food. Bills. Someone else's urgency. Someone else's problem. Something always felt more immediate, more necessary, more unavoidable.
By the time I realized what I truly needed it for, it was gone.
Again.
I sat there trying to trace the path of that money. Not blaming anyone. Not even myself. Just trying to understand how something enough always became nothing. How responsibility didn't guarantee security. How planning didn't guarantee relief.
My wife shifted slightly, covering herself with the blanket. Her breathing was shallow. I watched her and felt a quiet shame. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a deep, sinking awareness.
I was present.
I was responsible.
I was trying.
And still, I couldn't bring her a tablet that costs almost nothing.
That thought stayed with me.
I didn't panic. I didn't cry. I didn't raise my voice. I just sat there, silent, listening to the ceiling fan spin, counting rotations like it might give me an answer.
Outside, life continued normally. Shops open. Lights on. Pharmacies full of medicine. Somewhere nearby, someone probably took paracetamol without thinking twice.
Inside our room, that tablet might as well have been gold.
My father was awake too. Sitting quietly, tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix. Loans had become routine in our family. Monthly installments. Delayed payments. Survival through adjustment. Somehow, we always managed. Until moments like this exposed the truth-we were always one step away from nothing.
No one shouted.
No one accused.
But silence can accuse better than words.
I looked at my wife and felt something shift inside me. Not anger. Not fear. Just clarity.
The problem wasn't that I never earned.
The problem was that nothing was ever protected.
Money came.
Life took it.
And when life demanded something specific-something urgent-I had nothing left to offer.
That night, I prayed quietly. No long words. No demands. Just honesty.
Ya Allah, I am trying.
Ya Allah, I keep failing at the worst moments.
Ya Allah, teach me what I'm missing.
Eventually, we managed. We always do. Help comes from places you didn't plan for. Relief arrives late but arrives.
But that night stayed with me.
Because it taught me something no advice ever did.
Poverty is not always about zero income.
Sometimes it's about never having anything left.
About money without control.
About responsibility without protection.
About realizing too late what mattered most.
Paracetamol didn't cure my wife's fever that night.
But it exposed something else.
And once you see that truth,
you can't unseen it.