A manual to a broken heart

Chapter 2

07/11/2004-
I am a chronic- My life consists of disaster after disaster. Chaos after chaos. That very chaos begins from my birth. In a small deserted derelict town in Bangladesh. This town was isolated by tall towering trees,stretching for miles in every direction. It always seemed to be misty,well from my very limited memories of the place, like a scene straight out of the vampire diaries. My memories are tainted by constant rain and storms. Well that's how it was the night i was born. Relentless,raging rain pounding the tin of our roof. Every drop, sounding like a heavy weight punch,like a boxer looking to finish a fight. The tin roof was old and rusty,so it came as no surprise that the night i was born is the night the roof came crashing in. The cold rain came pouring in,it only took five minutes before the entire house was flooded my naked bare skin was exposed to icy cold polluted rain. It's quite ironic that i grew up to love heavy rain. Even though its the very thing that almost killed me on the day i was born. From what i was told of the day, my family rushed me to the town masjid, because it was the only place in the entire town with stable infrastructure. However, without any warm clothes and any knowledge of basic hygiene. That night I became very ill.

"I don't think he's got very long left"
"He's not getting any better...he's not."
"Not here. Not in this cruel world that isn't giving him a chance at life, I'm so sorry zaynab"

My mother told me those were the last words she was told before she screamed. The twisted screams of a mother who is witnessing the soul she loved without ever meeting,fading in and out of consciousness. They wrapped my body in a blanket that my mother knitted for me while she was pregnant . She held me. For hours and hours, holding me to the warmth of her body.
As she sat against a pillar and stared out the window into the  sky. Shades of purple erupted
"1...2...3"
She covers my ears, as the earth roared. I've never seen my mother cry, she tells me it's because she shed enough tears for three lifetimes as she sat there. She cried begging for mercy. For life to be merciful to her precious child. She looked around, But no one was there. Physically they were. But the loneliness she felt could not be eased by any pretty lies of hope. She placed her hand onto the carpet and waved her hand back and forth. Pure helplessness. No way to reach any form of a doctor. No hope. No chance. No way.

"Oh my dear lord, for the sake of any atom of good in my life please, if by any chance i can call in a favour, if i can exchange all my good deeds. It is now. Take everything i have. Wipe me off any good in my past and in my future. Let me suffer all the pains this world has to offer. Lay the weight of a thousand mountains on my back, and prick a thousand pins at my feet. Let every breath i breathe be of agony, just fill his lungs with oxygen. Let every step i take hurt, just let him walk. Let every word I speak torture my voice box, just let him speak. Oh my lord I'm begging for a miracle, the universe owes me nothing, but if my stars are to ever align may it be now "

As i lay in the crevice of her body with her knees bent. As the rain hammered the roof. As families shouted and screamed and cried. As the houses collapsed outside,crashing down with loud bangs.As the deafening sound of thunder shook the earth around her. For my mother the sounds of the world falling apart was silent compared to the sounds of her universe fading away. She stared at my chest. Every time I inhaled she took in a deep breath and held it. Held it for however long it took for me to exhale.
" my son if this is going to be your last breath, it will be my last breath too"

But thankfully, it wasn't her last breath,nor mine. If it was I wouldn't be sitting here narrating this story. I would be lying if i said  i never  had wished it was my last. Then maybe i could have avoided all the pain written for me. When my mother had lost every fibre of hope left in her. She looked around her room wondering how of the dozens of people that sat in the room how not a single person could help her. The only person in the entire village who had any medical knowledge, was a third year medical student who had moved half way across the world to the UK. He had visited a few days prior, the pride of the village, as of that moment he and his high expectations were 38,000 feet above the ground. Or they should have been. Through the cracked windows my mother was blinded by the beam of an old beat up Chevrolet. The light was dimmed by mud. Sounds of the engine revving as the car forced its way through the sludge followed a eerie silence. The engine goes dead, the light switches off and then followed three loud knocks at the door. My mum did not raise her head to look who it was. All she heard was the door swing open,and then the loud footsteps that followed,getting louder and louder until they stopped.

"Khala"

My mothers heart skips a beat as she looks up to see him standing there. Sameer Ameen

"Sameer? You're meant to be on a flight right now. What are you doing here."

"Khala my flight was cancelled, there was no way the plane could fly in this storm."

" please Sameer, my son,i beg of you save him sameer.please he's just a boy"

" and I'm just a student. Even if i knew what to do I wouldn't be allowed, if anyone found out i could get kicked off my course"

" who would know! You are in the Middle of nowhere, who on this planet could ever know. My son is going to die, you are the only person in this entire village who has a chance of saving him."

Sameer was very reluctant. For him this was the very first time were another souls life was entirely in his hands, he had no help whatsoever. Never before had he been solely responsible. He had only had a few months of clinical experience. He took me into his arms as gently as he could. He placed his hand against my body. He then placed his ear to my mouth listen to the wheeziness of my breathing. Trying to run through pages and pages of notes in his brain, his heart was pounding out of his chest,with full knowledge that whatever he says is a life or death Hail Mary decision.

"Khala there is no way i can be sure, but his temperature is very high, and his breath is very shallow and wheezy. If i had to give a diagnosis, i think he has a chest infection or pneumonia. He needs antibiotics Right now"

"Well that's just the issue" my mother cries "how on earth can i find medicine here,now, look around were in the middle of nowhere,we are stuck here because of the storm, where can i find antibiotics Sameer"

"I have an idea. But please don't get your hopes up i have no idea if it will work. There are certain plants that act as natural antibiotics. I know for a fact that we have one of those plants in this village. It's called echinacea. Ill have to go out and get it but for now just keep him warm,cover his chest i will be right back "

The Echinacea, the coneflower, a pretty pink flower that sat dead centre of the carnage left of the village . Sameer claims that as he stepped out, he had no idea whether the flower was still alive , was there even enough to save me, would it even work. The chances of that flower being alive in those conditions was probably a thousand to one. Sameer was only sure there were coneflowers in the village because he was the ones that planted them. They were his pride and joy. But now they were needed. He reached his home. For a moment he stood there staring at the earth that he grew up in . The very walls that sheltered him for so many years no longer existed. The rain water reached his shins. He told my mother his heart dropped as he could not see them, the flower was nowhere in sight. It would have made sense for the flowers to have been wiped away. Sameer dropped to his knees. Tears started streaming from his eyes. He felt as if the weight of his village was on his back. Every person in the village knew him as the golden child. But when it was on it knees begging for his help, sameer felt he had let everyone down. Out of frustration, he punches the water over and and over. He strikes the water one last time and this time he grabs the earth below him. He pulls out what he believed to be weeds. But as he brings the contents of his hands to his face. He realises, the plant in his hands were not weeds, they were pink. Like a story straight from mythology,he had found the coneflower. Sameer wasted no time running back to the masjid. He burst in through the door.

"I found it,i actually found" he shouted.
He sat down next to my mother and ground the plant into a thick liquid. The imam sat next to him reciting verses of the Quran and blowing onto the liquid before finally forcing me to drink it.
My mothers tells me it took four whole days i was finally ok, and for those four days she did not sleep nor eat. The only thing she could do is watch me breathe, everything else was excess.