Muna Nassir S.
He opens his eyes and stares at the glaring fluorescent light in the ceiling. He had been sleeping for an hour? Two hours? Three hours? Five minutes? He could not tell. He closes his eyes praying for an opening through which his soul could escape this imprisonment.
The door opens. The sound of stilettos click clacking on a tiled floor in the corridor comes in through the opened door. He finds the sound rhythmic yet disturbing. It should not be there. It ought not to be there. He needs absolute silence to concentrate on finding that slot through which his soul could escape. Like the eyes, if only one could blink one’s ears shut without the benefit of the hands, he thinks. He opens his eyes.
‘Good morning Mr. ___’ the nurse says as though talking to a wall or a void yet flashing a smile. He stares at her. She avoids his gaze.
So, it is in the morning. And it is the nice nurse today, the one with the big hands and a beautiful smile. Perhaps in another time he would have asked her out. But that is another time. Now she goes through the daily routine of measuring his pulse and injecting vitamins and medications into the IV tube. She turns her back and scribble some notes on the placard. On some days with the help of the other nurse, she would wash his body and change his hospital gown.
He closes his eyes again. When he was brought in at first, in between sedatives and drowsiness, in moments of wakefulness, he would keep his eyes open for as long as it was physically possible. He would stare at the ceiling, and the walls for hours hoping oblivion would come.
This did not last long, unable to escape the monotony of the whiteness in the room and the immobility of time, he had nowhere to turn but inside. At the beginning, all the memories would come gushing forth. He could not handle all the sounds, all the colours, images of places and faces of people. He would give them each but fleeting moments and rush back to the cold embrace of the present waiting for him in the absolute white.
Flung as he was in a merciless and timeless space; this incursion into the past would take only a few minutes at best. Time seemed to have been confined to a hospital bed next to him. Like his entire body, it refused to move. It would not budge. He did not ask for this, he did not ask anyone to save his life.
He could hear the nurse approach his bed again and sit on a chair by his side. Oblivious, he focuses all his energy in his head. He starts with his left ear, then the left temple, the forehead, the right temple, his right ear, his chin, his left ear again and on he concentrates his energy in a circular clock wise motion. Slowly at first, then it picks momentum.
He is transported to a lush green field and the sound of his daughter’s laughter. It is a bright day flaunting the bluest of skies. He runs chasing her. Wearing his favourite red dress, she runs as fast as her four-year-old legs could carry her. The closer he gets, the harder she laughs. He catches up with her and lifts her on his arms. He opens his eyes.
The nurse stands from her chair and looks at his eyes which seem to have intensified with all the life drawn from every motionless muscle in his body. She looks at his eyes and for a split second she sees a passing glint captured in time.
*****
