Khawabeeda

■8■

"We are sorry. The patient has slipped into a coma. We did everything we could but his organs couldn't handle the stress and he went into a vegetative state."

Badiya slumped back on the chair covering her mouth as tears dripped down her eyes. There was a ringing in her ears as she stopped listening after the first two sentences and words like "very critical", "life support", "low chances" and "sorry" went through her ears but didn't get register. All she could think about was,

She'll lose the love of her life. And she didn't even get to tell him how much she loves him.

It was pain, pure agony for her to think about it. Think about life without him. He has been there all her life, standing over her like a protective shadow, never letting any harm touch her. With all these thoughts floating in her mind, she didn't realise when darkness covered her vision and she fell sideways losing concious.

Badiya woke up hearing the sound of a continuous beeping but her eyelids seemed too heavy to open. She could hear a woman's wailing in the background but it sounded distant. She tried to open her eyes but bright rays of sunlight piereced her eyes and she hissed.

"She's awake." She heard a male's voice. It was familliar. Wali. She opened her eyes again and her mother's tear streaken face came in sight.

"What happened?" She said in a slightly hoarse voice and tried to get up. Wali, who was standing on the other side of her bed helped her to sit up and made her drink a few sips of water.

She looked around the room as everything started to come back to her.

Badr. Accident. Hospital. Coma.

Tears dropped from her eyes wetting her eyelashes, trailing her pale cheeks as her shoulders shook. Her mother engulfed Badiya in her warm embrace but she still didn't feel the warmth she used to feel. There was a chill settled in her bones that refused to leave.

"Yeh kya ho gaya mere bachon ke sath. Yeh kya ho gaya. Mere bachon ki khushi ko nazar lag gayi, Shah ji. Mere bachon ki khushi ko nazar lag gayi." Sharmeen wailed as her husband tried to console her with his own eyes wet. Even the power couple couldn't keep up their resolve in these circumstance.

"Bas kar dein, begum. Hosla krain. Diya ko is halat mai mazeed stress nai leni chahiye. Or humain us ko hosla dena chahiye, na ke apna khud ka hosla kho dain." He rubbed her back and sneakily wiped his own eyes because he knew if he broke down his family would shatter.

Wali had fallen to his knees on the hospital floor as he heard that the doctors have no hope of Shehryar waking up from the coma. He was barely holding on because of the life support and as soon as they remove it, he'll slip away. He couldn't even fathom the idea of his brother, his ideal, his role model going through so much.

Shehryar had a dislocated shoulder, sprained knee, a ruptured spleen and two broken ribs, one of which perforated through his lungs. His heart stopped twice on the operation table and they revived him back after almost seven minutes of cardiac massage the second time after the defbrillator didn't help which was just a moment before the surgeon gave up him. It was a very long surgery and the surgeons patched him up the best they could but his body couldn't so much stress and he became brain-dead going into a vegetative state.

It was too much to even listen to much less imagining the guy you looked up to your whole life going through it all but Wali had to do it and handle the paper work. He had to be strong as he didn't want his parents or anybody else take more stress.

"Beta, please stop. Your blood pressure is rising again. It is not good for your baby." Badiya who was crying on her mother's shoulder froze when she heard her mother say that.