𝐀𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 ✔

Seeing her

Happy reading!

》》》》》》》》》》》》》》》》》

In the right corner of this floor there was a TV set, at a height. Some match series was on, with the volume almost zero. A few youngsters were following the match before a lady demanded to see the repeat telecast of a Saas-Bahu serial which she had missed last night. According to the person sitting next to me, this lady was quite happy today as her father-in-law was being discharged from the ICU in a few hours. The moment she heard this news from her doctor, she discovered a way to celebrate by watching reruns of her favorite soap.
So much was happening around me. Every five minutes, the elevator door opened in order to flush out and take in different people. Nurses and ward boys wheeled patients on trolleys to different rooms on the other side of the ICU door. Frequent announcements called for attendants to meet their respective doctors and, with every call, the concerned persons rushed to the ICU in hope and fear.
This was an altogether new atmosphere for me or, probably, for everyone on this floor. The doctors on the other side of the ICU door seemed like Gods to us and the gatekeeper at the entrance, their messenger. And just like a temple, we were supposed to remove our shoes at the door before moving in. At times, the same door opened from the other side and we saw people coming out, some smiling, some about to burst into tears.

Finally, there was an announcement for us too. 'Bed no. 3. Attendants of avni, please come in.'
This was enough to send my heart racing. Despite the sweat on my forehead, all of a sudden I felt extremely cold inside. I started breathing heavily. I knew the time had come when I was going to see something which would disturb me. I looked at Dad and ritik and then the three of us rushed towards the door. By now, none of us had seen her and I don't know what was happening to them, but I was shaking. I felt ritik's hand on my shoulder trying to comfort me as we approached the door.

'Yes,' Dad said to the gatekeeper.

Go to the CT scan room on the ground floor. The nurses have taken her there for the scan,' the gatekeeper told us.

We rushed towards the elevator. The door was about to close when we squeezed ourselves in. At the ground floor, outside the elevator door, I asked the guard for directions to the CT-scan room. Busy with his cellphone he pointed the way. I was running, with Dad and ritik trying to catch up. I passed by many rooms on this floor and finally reached the zone where I saw a board which read 'CT scan'. The entrance to this zone was a grill-like structure behind which there was a reception counter.
Yes?' one of the ladies at the reception asked me.

'Has the CT scan of the patient named avni started?' I asked her, tying my shoelace which had come undone while I was running.

She glanced at the last entries in her thick register. Meanwhile, I turned back to see Dad and ritik who were still four blocks away from this room.

'Can you see that stretcher inside, behind that green curtain? That's your patient and the CT scan is about to start in a short while,' she said, pointing towards the CT-scan room.
Who are you and ...' she tried to ask me but, before she could complete her questions, my feet started moving towards that stretcher. All of a sudden I was calm. I felt everything around me was freezing, as if time was slowing down every second. The voices around me grew dim in my ears. I was seeing people around me and their actions but was not able to hear them at all. I could see the reception lady behind me still asking so many questions and prohibiting me from going in, but I was not able to understand her and I kept walking towards the green curtain without even blinking. At the door, the ward boy tried to stop me, possibly at the receptionist's command. I don't remember his face and what had happened to him, but there was something, something because of which he took his hands off me the very next moment. Maybe it was my tears falling on his hands ...
And, finally, I was standing beside her.

Seeing her, my heart melted inside me. Never in my worst nightmare could I have seen her this way. My sweetheart, my avn was in front of me and her body revealed what she had gone through. Most of her body was covered with a white bed sheet. Her innocent face had suffered so many injuries. There were blood clots on her swollen right eye. There were scars, big and small, on her entire face. A thick ventilator tube ran down her nose. The soft skin of her right arm bore the marks of so many injections that it had turned blue. I could see multiple tubes of different diameters piercing different parts of her body. On her bed she was surrounded by various medical equipment including a ventilator, a small monitor to read the heart-beat, an oxygen-cylinder extension and medicine bags with injections and medicine in them. And there were these constant beeps from the ventilator.

I saw her hand, coming out from under the bed sheet at my side. I touched her little finger very gently. In response, I felt her beautiful fingers crawling on my palm and, with that, I suddenly held her hand and started crying, seeing my dearest bearing that pain all alone....

》》》》》》》》》》》》》》》》

Do vote and comment..
And follow plshh..

❤