The Hospital Diaries-I a short story

Hello friends,
I hope you all liked my last short story Life Untitled. So today I am posting another short story too. The Hospital Diaries-I, written by me. I hope it stays with you. I feel life is all about living in moments.......these moments are precious. And so whatever I write are about these moments......in all its glory. So do enjoy it.....I will soon be back and till then goodbye.

                                                                   The Hospital Diaries-I

It was the fourth day that I had been admitted to this hospital. The dreary days were filled with white coated doctors, nurses in starched uniforms, medicines, injections, saline, and disinfectants; seemed never ending. As I came in and out of drug induced sleep suffering from severe vomiting, nausea, fever and myriad of other problems all I could think of was when I would be able to leave the drab place; they had not diagnosed what I had, yet. The kind looking doctor, with a twinkle in his eye had told me earlier that they would patch me up. I yearned for my old life every second and as I looked out of the thickset glass windows, even the golden rays of the sunlight dancing on the leaves of trees in the tiny patch of a garden seemed enticing. Inside the ward there was a metallic smell, I could taste blood in my mouth. The nights were horrible, the place was stifling like a dungeon, patients screamed in agony and delusion. I was as if in a living hell. By the tenth day I could walk very slowly, I stepped out of my pristine white hospital bed, treaded carefully out of the ward into the adjacent long corridor. I walked clumsily, out of breath with a channel in my right arm, my injections were still on. There were several wards one after the other, busy nurses walked briskly sometimes barking out orders to some timid looking ayahs, a dignified looking doctor dressed immaculately in a black suit with a swarm of junior doctors with stethoscopes behind him rushed past me. But there was only one thing in my mind; when will I get my discharge certificate and resume my normal life, be happy again. Time had stopped for me the moment I had entered the cursed place and tears have been my singular companion. I went on ruminating about fate and destiny nursing my messy swollen right arm ruefully; thought about Foucault’s concepts of discipline and punish and its relations with asylum, prisons, hospitals etc. I had left shame behind and moaned occasionally with pain quite wholeheartedly.

                            Suddenly a strange sight greeted me. A couple of gentlemen were walking too in that corridor together; but there was something peculiar about it........... their stead was more of taking a stroll in the garden rather than a walk in the narrow dingy hospital corridors. They walked casually, often laughing aloud and patting each other’s backs. One of the gentlemen was middle-aged and the other was quite old with a balding patch on his head. They talked animatedly with utter disregard for anything or anyone around them. I could not fathom what their topics of discussion were; religion, politics, national debt, daughter’s marriage or whatever but what caught me off guard was their lively stance. They did not at all seem bored, lifeless, dull or hopeless by falling in the monotonous hospital life. Although they were dressed in the hospital loose shirt and pyjamas their poise and elegance could easily outsmart the suited doctors. I gasped as they turned towards my direction; I saw their urinary catheters slung by their sides. I could see urine, a shade of reddish yellow in those plastic bags. I took a sharp breath- they were carrying around their pee with them! I was amazed. Yet they seemed so unconscious of its presence. But its very presence unnerved me. But they were so frank and unashamed of it that they didn’t even care for a shawl or a bed cover over it. I stared on for a few moments before I inspite of my weakness and jelly legs walked quickly back to my familiar ward, to the familiar warmth of my bed, to familiar circumstances, to a familiar world with familiar pre-conceived notions. Their laughter was still ringing in my ears when I for the first time in several days smiled.

Life Untitled- A Short Story

Hello friends,

I hope you are all doing very well. I do apologize for not coming up with fresh book reviews often..........however I will soon come back with some interesting reviews on some fabulous books. In the meantime, my friends I gift you the following story. Life untitled is a short story written by me..........I sincerely hope you like it. And don't forget to give me your valuable feedback. Till then goodbye.           

                                                                  Life Untitled

They said I will never recover. I didn't doubt them. I was after all ill for quite some time now. I can feel the disease gnawing away at my innards. I have none to worry about, no money or property to put down in a will. I was always a very plain person living a very average life.....till I had the extraordinary disease which is set to finish my short unappealing life. No one has yet turned up with a bouquet of flowers; no one's even sent a get-well-soon card to me. But I am satisfied, I don't like a fuss. Since my childhood nothing for me was ever celebrated, I never deserved such attention. I don't know what it feels to be admired or cherished, I will never know of such things ever.

As hakimji left I stood by the door clasping my hands together, watching the setting sun. It's so beautiful, the orange hue spreading, engulfing the entire sky and then slowly fading away. And suddenly his thoughts crept up, they always have, an adamant habit of finding me when I least expect them. I try to block them but they erupt out, spreading warmth in my cold heart. 

He was a young man, a soldier in the army. They had come to our village for food, he and his dashing, merry friends loudly joking and talking with each other, smart in their uniforms .I watched them out of the corners of my eye, working in the pigs sty. Our family had gone to my uncle's house in a nearby village for a puja and I was left to take care of the livestock lest the wolves take them. I averted my eyes as a piglet leapt up in evident glee. Radha our cow mooed loudly. I quickened my pace at work, a lot was left. Butter had to be churned, cows to be fed, kitchen to be cleaned, floors have to be scrubbed. ‘Hey, miss’, I was startled, my train of thoughts abruptly stopped by a deep, jovial voice. I saw a twinkle in his eye, a patch of roughness on his stubble, hands wringing as if in some kind of nervousness, and a foot tapping impatiently. ‘Can you spare us some bread and cheese, we have been asking at every door for it’, he seemed serious yet there was some playfulness in the way he said. As if he was cracking a joke yet was trying to be somber at the same time. I lowered my eyes and nodded; I could feel his gaze as I went in for what he wanted. I shivered, it was cold and my clothes with years of constant use were frayed and permeable. I looked up for a lump of goat milk’s cheese and some stale dry bread. There were rats everywhere in the kitchen. ‘Maam, can you kindly give me a glass of water, my lips are parched’. Balancing the food and water in an earthen tray I went out to him. His eyes brightened and he eagerly took the tray off my hands. I had put some pickle, a carrot and an apple too on the plate. I watched him drain the glass thirstily and eat the food hurriedly sitting on a stool by the cow-shed. His hands were dirty, his nails long and I saw a mad gleam in his eyes as he ate. He smelled of tobaccos and sweat. ‘Ah the pickle’s delicious;you have a husband? your husband’s a lucky man.’ I was too ashamed to admit that at twenty-seven I was still unmarried, a burden to my family. My nineteen year old pretty sister was already married off. He sucked his fingers clean and brushed off the bread crumbs off his clothes. Handing me the tray back he stood up. He was so tall, as if he overshadowed the noon sun. He saluted smartly and simply said ‘Thank you maam’. As he marched away, out of the garden gates, I looked on; I yearned to know his name so much. I sat down on the stool he was sitting. He thanked me; I thought over and over again, he had thanked me. No one had ever thanked me before. I could feel hot tears flowing down freely over my cheeks. I cried. A gate was as if suddenly opened in my mind and all its pain, regrets, losses freed from its fetters. It was dusk when I crept back in the house. My mind was back to its normal state, but I felt peaceful and happy, that one ‘thank you’ gave me hope that I probably had more to live for.

But that was the last ‘thank you’ I ever received. They didn’t say that when I gave away my only pair of gold earrings to my newborn niece, or when I gave up my room to my younger brother after his marriage, or when I finally bundled off to a distant aging aunt’s house in a far-off village to take care of her. None shedded a tear as I left, not even my mother. She had other important worries. I looked after my aunt till her death; she was ninety years old when she died. Since then I have lived alone in her small house; she was childless and a widow. I have nothing to look forward to and after all these years the only thing welcoming is my death. I can still see him, eating my pickles, pocketing the apple and then saluting me; the bright twinkle in his eyes as he said that my husband’s a lucky man. I smiled in grief; he would never know my life, a fruitless life, a life untitled.