Fear

Fear

A hospital is a place ripe with emotions. Ordinary problems are blown out of exaggeration by patients or relatives to attract attention of the treating doctor, or force him to admit the patient who might otherwise not require admission. Somewhere, most often near the ICU, relatives would be seen beating their chest and crying out loud to mourn the death of a closed one. A doctor, or a nurse can be seen somewhere close by, stoically carrying on with their duties, the paperwork and treating the other critically ill. Yes, showing a complete lack of emotions is also an emotion in itself, just that it has not been honoured with a name. Amidst all the emotional upheaval in the sterile (and often, not-so) corridors of a hospital, there is one emotion you will never find- Fear. You can see relatives of critically ill patients casually chatting with each other, sharing tea and biscuit or even lunch, or running errands for each other. They seem to have conquered fear and replaced it with another strange emotion- acceptance.

Question would arise then, why was the sister afraid of Ward 3?

I woke up unusually early that day. Perhaps it was the alarm clock I must have set in my sleep, trying to keep the promise I break daily; of waking up before the sun would rise. Or maybe it was the plain old brain which had kicked me out of my sleep. But, something was not right. Something was strange. Why was I all drenched in sweat? I had grown up from my days of night terrors, and the air conditioning of the room worked perfectly. Then why was I all drenched in sweat? Musing on the strange beginning of the day, I went to the bathroom. That was when the phone rang. The special ringtone was my brother’s, who was admitted in Hope Hospital. I ran to receive it.

“Hello?”

“Shyam, this is Rudra.”

“Yes bro, what's up? How is your hernia?” I joked. He was operated for hernia the day before.

“Shut up and listen Shyam. I am not feeling well. I am feeling tired and drained out. My heart is beating faster. Just come over here. I need your help!” The voice emanated fear. I dropped everything; kick started my bike and rushed to the hospital. Being my only second visit to the ivory tower of disease, I was yet to come to grips with the goings-on.

“Excuse me, where is Ward 5?” I asked a ward boy.

“Who do you want?’ he asked me tersely.

“My brother, Rudra, got operated yesterday. We had admitted him in ward 5.”

“He must be now in the post operative ward, ward 3,” he replied, then whispered, “But remember, patients who go to Ward 3 aren't discharged soon.”

“What do you mean? Oi! Come back!” Before I could ask anything about the mysterious last sentence, the ward boy walked away. Somewhat shaken, and a little bit stirred with interest, I walked towards the wards’ building. Surprisingly, there was no sign for Ward 3. “Must have fallen down somewhere,” I muttered. There it was, Ward 5, where my brother was admitted at first.

“Sister, where is ward 3?” I asked the young staff nurse. She was gave me an expression of surprise, shock and horror, tried to stammer a reply but couldn’t. Her senior came out and asked me what I wanted.

“Ward 3. Simple as that. Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything about it?” I asked, more out of exasperation than curiosity.

“Thing is, sir, we don’t discuss ward 3. It doesn’t exist for us. If you want to see it, go straight and take the first left,” the senior staff nurse replied in a whispering tone. Finally! All the nonsense about searching the ward had made me forget the real reason of the visit- my brother! I ran across the corridor, found the first left turn and there it was! Ward 3 in its resplendent glory.

It was a strange place. The other wards had a few empty cots, but not this one. This one was filled to the brim. Every cot occupied, every possible floor bed occupied. And yet, the nurses looked relaxed. Hardly anyone was giving medications, checking files for fresh orders or doing anything. It looked…out of place. I stepped in the ward gingerly, expecting a barrage of shouts from the nurses, asking me what I was doing there. Nobody uttered a word. It was as if they didn’t even register my presence.

“Woah! Its cool in here! Something to do with me? Didn’t I just bring my coolness here?” I joked. Normally it does the trick. But no, not in the mysterious ward 3. One nurse looked up, and pointed towards the eiling. I looked up and found a brand new large AC. Not the one for jokes, I decided.

“So, where is Rudra?” I asked.

“Who?” came the stoic response.

“Mr Rudra Mehta, brother of Shyam Mehta, operated for…” I struggled to put together the name, “yes, left inguinal indirect hernia yesterday.”

“Oh, the fresh admission?” there was a sudden warmth in the voice, a smile on the face and a twinkle in the eyes. Neither of the three had I seen before in the hospital.

“Yeah, that one I guess,” I replied. The nurse took my hand and walked me through the ward, till we reached the last cot. Before I could feel the surreal, I saw my brother, in deep sleep.

“Hey wake up bro! Its me” I shook his shoulder. No response. I tried it a few moretimes with zero success. That was when panic struck me.

“What is happening, sister?” I asked, my legs trembling.

“Oh, you don’t know? He has been put to sleep,” she replied coolly.

“What do you mean?” I shouted. Apparently my shouting had no effect on the nearby patients. That was when I discovered the strangest thing- every patient was in deep sleep.

“What have you done to him?” I shouted again.

“Oh nothing. Nobody will ever know. In fact, your brother has already been discharged and is currently watching a movie with his fiancée,” the sister winked. She took out her phone and dialed a number and held it to me, “Here, talk.”

“Rudra?” I asked, trembling.

“Hey bro, what's up? I thought you would come to pick me up from hospital! Where the hell have you been?”

I couldn’t answer. On one side, the vegetative body of my brother lay in front of me, and on the other, he just talked to me on the phone.

“Maybe you need a chair and a glass of water, Mr Shyam?” the nurse asked gently. I was too dazed to reply and merely sat down on the chair. Head held in hands, I could mutter just one word, “Explain.”

“Well, you see, this hospital is much more than a healing centre. It is a feeding centre. Which means, this ward is occupied by the patients whom we harvest for organs”

“WHAT?”

“Yes dear. This ward doesn’t exist. It is not a ward of the dead. It is, in fact, a dead ward. This room has been trapped in a time loop. The age of patients here ranges from one day, like your brother, to two hundred years, depending on how many useful organs they have. Nobody ages here, you see.”

“And…w..what about my brother? I mean, I just talked to him! How can he be here and there?”

“You see, sir, too many patients disappearing makes for bad publicity for the hospital. We, instead, send a Time replica in their place. They are exactly the same in every way except one; they are not alive.”

“So I just talked to…a shadow of my brother?”

“Well, you are smart! Yes, a shadow, only in Technicolor,” the nurse laughed aloud.

“This bloody scandal ends today! Wait till I get the word to the press!” I jumped up and started to run. Surprisingly, nobody tried to catch me. I thought maybe they were not used to their patients escaping from ward. It was then that the truth hit me. Or more appropriately, the wall. There was a solid wall just where I had entered the room. Helplessly, I looked around. The entire hospital staff of the ward laughed out aloud. Then it began. One ward boy held my hand while a nurse inserted an injection in my blood.

“400 years of doing this. Cant miss a vein, you see,” she winked. The last words I heard before falling asleep were, “We have a new admission. Prepare the bed!”

Are you kidding me? The brain that beat a thousand others en route to an international Su-Doku championship does not get subdued by a jab of anesthetic. Yes, I couldn’t feel my legs, but the rest was an act. I knew I had to get out soon or I risked losing my consciousness, my organs and my life, in that order. And that was when I spotted an open window by the side of the ward. To the utter shock of my captors, I broke free of their clutches and ran for the window. Without thinking of the consequences, I umped out of it. If I had to die, let it be on my own terms.

A crowd gathred out in the street. They saw an unconscious man, lying in a pool of blood. They did what any conscientious individual would do- took him to the nearest hospital.

I woke up to find myself being carried to a hospital. I tried to shout, tried to prevent them from taking me to the place from where I had just escaped, only to find that I had landed in a new city altogether. Apparently not many people had jumped out of Time-locked chambers and survived to tell the tale. You don’t just jump through time. You also jump through space and land over a hundred kilometers away.

“Hope General hospital, how may I help you?” A smiling receptionist greeted us. There was something familiar about that smile. Something that told the discerning watcher that she has been doing it for….four hundred years.