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.