It is an accident case.  A young girl named Aara. She is physically broken, and the news that she has lost her sight renders her emotionally broken too. All the colors left in her life are her David and her Dreams…..

 

Preface:

“Emergency case! Call Dr. Hamid.”

“Shift the patient 104 to general ward. Make room.”

“MOVE! MOVE! Make way!”

“Hemorrhage, blood group O+ confirmed, arrange units.” “Collar bone is thrashed, Sir.”

“Backbone fracture, injury at spinal cord.” “She’s losing consciousness, Doctor.”

“Kins? Prepare for operation anyway.”

It is a cold, dark room. Very very dark. So dark that I am not even sure that I am awake. How did I end up here?  Where’s David?

I try to feel my body. There is pain all over. Have you ever been bitten by a wasp? Pain, at some places, surges as if I have been dropped in a pool of wasps. I try hard to move. I don’t know what is more painful, the pain in the body or the pain in my heart borne out of helplessness.  The fingers in my right hand twitch, others parts still out of reach. I try to take them a little further, but in vain. I feel so damn claustrophobic.

I need HELP! I want to escape!

Escape this place, whatever it is!

I make more efforts, more futile efforts. No results.  This tries have left me in much more agony. I am succumbing to this torment. Just felt something. There is wetness on my right cheek. Tears. Oh, at least some of my senses are working.

I am exhausted and retreated. I don’t even realize as the sleep takes over me.

                It’s a bright day. I am running on the river side. The sunlight is blinding. I am running fast, just the way I always like to. The air is warm and humid, filling in my lungs. Then, suddenly, my feet hit something and I trip over. But, I do not fall on the ground. David catches me in his arms. I see him smile. Or laugh maybe. You could never tell with David. He laughs silently, I tell him. His smile feels warm like the wind. My hands go over to his hair. They are dark and soft, my David’s hair. And now his face is completely turned towards me. He is grinning as bright as the day is. I giggle. Or laugh wildly. You could never tell with me. I always laugh heartily, he tells me.

The sound of my laughter turns into noise. Into chaos. The scene switches. Everything is hazy.  I am being dragged. There are people around. People hovering, people moving in green clothes. Someone is towering over me. Somebody is pouring light in my eyes. It doesn’t hurt. The rest of my body does.

I wake up with a jolt. And I am back to the cold, completely dark room. There is a constant buzzing sound in my head.  I recollect my dreams. I dreamt about people in green cloaks. It has sure happened for real; it seemed like a memory flashback. And I dreamt about David. We were on the bank where we usually went on our evenings together.

David.

David!!? Where is he?

I collect all my vigor and I try to call out his name, “David!!”  All my might and effort barely brought out my voice in a mere whisper. Even I heard it faintly over the non-ceasing buzz in my head.

“My poor girl! How do you feel now?” A voice comes from a distance. A heavy, but feminine voice says to me. I am unable to see the speaker. I tried replying, but my throat is burning.

“She’s awake. Call the doctor!”

“I think she cannot hear me.”  Well, I can, lady. “I would report this to Dr. It would be really really bad if she won’t be able to hear too, losing her sight is horrible enough, God!”

….LOSING HER SIGHT!!!!! ???

NOOOOO!

Pangs of fresh fear and pain strike. It would have hurt less if somebody stabbed me right now in my heart. This dark room! Everything is falling in place now! What happened! Why God why!!?

I am sobbing by now. I frantically want to scream.

My heart is sinking deeper. Deeper into abyss. All that escapes my lips is not a scream, but a weird gurgling sound. I try calling “DAVID!!” again.

This time, he responds. “I am right here! Right here with you, Aara!” “Don’t be afraid, I am by your side”, he whispers right into my ear. His voice is ringing in my head. I break into sobs and am cry like a child. He caresses a side of my face, tries to calm me down. And for hours, I keep crying. I have no idea if they were hours or minutes, but I can’t help not weeping.

I don’t want this life! Help me get rid of myself, David! – I thought or I whispered. “Be brave Aara, it’s not the time to give up. I am by your side and won’t give up on you.”But, my tears don’t stop.

 Some more hours of crying and my angst has now turned into self-pity. And I cry myself to sleep.

I have lost track of time. I cry, sleep, try to move, agonize, cry back to sleep again. They feed me through tubes. David motivates me every time I try to move. “Aara, you are doing so well, keep trying!” he keeps on whispering in my ear. It’s good to have him by my side. He is my hearth in this dark, broody world. He is the only one understands my whispers. Sometimes, I even think he can read my mind. Like the one time when they were changing my catheters, I was in a dazed state of my sleep and woke up in trauma. David understood and explained it to me. The maternal female voice, which is of my nurse (“She is Yasmeen. Listen to her and don’t throw tantrums.” David tells me) keeps telling me what progress am I making, what is being done to me, done on me. She must have realized that my hearing is just subdued. So, she keeps on screaming her words, which can be felt in her pitch.

I can’t talk. My throat burns like fire, every time I try. I want to speak to David, to actually converse with him. But, the medications keep my senses subdued, and I only do the necessary talking through whispers. David, my so-ever-quiet boy David keeps chattering to me, I try my best to understand. His voice soothes me and he knows it. I don’t know how he does it, but I can feel colors and see expressions in his voice. His voice is my haven. He touches my cheek and tucks my hair under my left ear and I feel like it is the only touch of happiness I can cling onto in my gloomy dark world.

The pain in my body has grown a grain of salt lesser. And the buzzing in my mind is reduced by a certain amount. I know this because once Yasmeen was telling me about my reports and I mumbled that why was she screaming at me. David laughed.  I just felt his silent laughter. Yasmeen was happy that I replied. Though, I think she didn’t understand me. She laughed too. Her heavy booming laughter, still a distant sound in my ears.

Things are falling in a pattern now. So, I know now that when does a so-called ‘day’ begins and when does it end. But, I can’t keep a count of how many of them pass. I regularly hear a distant male voice. It is the same voice and thus same person everyday. It is the Doctor; I guessed this by my own. He asks something every time, my nurse answers. Earlier, I used to ask David about their conversations, he explained. They always talk medical. But by now, I have lost interest in knowing. Little do they know, David is my medication.

The only activity, I look forward to with interest is my sleep. Whatever drugs they inject in me, help me fulfill my interest a lot. I even try to force myself to sleep. Because when I sleep, I dream. Bright and colored dreams. Sometimes they are happy, more often they are not. More often they are so frightful that I wake up all in tears and sweat. Yasmeen isn’t always around, David is. “It’s okay, it’s okay Aara, my girl..!” David is on my side, he caresses my head, my face. But, I like to dream, however harsh they may be. For dreams are visible, the world is no more.

Once, I had a weird dream. I had a grainy imaginary view of my current place. It was surprisingly a bright place; some window was near my bed. Me, lying with all white plasters on me. Tubes running in and out of me. Yasmeen, whom I pictured as a pompous and motherly-figure running here and there and chattering loudly. David grinning at me, sitting on the left side of my bed, leaning to converse in my ear. A serious looking doctor who keeps checking on me once in a day. My dreams and David are the only colors left in my life now. I can survive this darkness, if he is with me. I want to tell him this, but currently I am falling into sleep again.

For how long will I be in this place? For how long will I be in this state? Won’t I ever be able to see again? Or at least move again? How did I get here? I got to ask… David.. …all these….. questions. I am fading now into sleep again.. too much of thinking for now…… got to ask him… once …. I ……….wake up..

Dr. Hamid stacked all his files in his cabin. He has to hand them over to another doctor. Dr. Amaan was the one taking his work over because he was retiring from this job soon. Did he love his job? He cannot say he did, because he didn’t know. Ask heart if it loves to beat, or ask stomach if it loves to digest. They just do their jobs because they are meant to. But, they too get upset under work pressure sometimes. Dr. Hamid smiled sadly on his personal joke. But what if they are told not to work anymore?  He didn’t want to ponder more. So, he sighed and got up. He sighed very often. All old men do.

Dr. Amaan Nuri was by his cabin door now. “Shall we have the visits, sir?” he asked his senior. They walked corridor to corridor, ward to ward, exchanging greetings and information. Dr. Hamid explained specific details of his case to his successor, checked progress of patients with the nurses and moved on to the next one.  Then, they entered the last ward. It was his newest case and the last file in his stack.

“Aara Salemi. 23 years. Hemiparalysed at the left side. Functional ability of the affected side : 0%. Optical nerve permanently damaged. Crack in collar bone. Heavy damage to spinal cord. Acquired Meningitis at the time of admission, Status: cured. Multiple fractures on limbs. X-rays attached. Nutrition and egestion: On Basic Life Support (BLS). Others habits noted: repeated hallucinations, hearing and speaking imparity observed.” Dr. Hamid sighed as he finished reading the report.

Dr. Amaan looked over the patient. Several cuts had gashed into her face. He flinched and then reprimanded himself immediately. Doctors aren’t allowed to flinch. A young girl lay fast asleep. There was a surprising sense of calmness in her breathing. Her golden hair gleamed in the sunshine. Her dark lashes didn’t even flutter on her pale cheeks in such bright light. She was oblivious to this light.  “Of course.” Dr. Amaan thought. He felt a pang of pity for the young girl cladded in white plasters all over.

“What did you say was the cause of the injuries?”

“Car accident. The vehicle brutally thrashed by a bigger one.”

“She was driving?”

“No. A young lad was….” he fluttered the pages and sighed. “David. 24 years. Unfortunately, the young man was dead before we got to him.”