Crush - KarEena

Chapter 2

Dr. Haseena Malik stepped off the elevator and approached the central nurse's station. The nurse at the desk, who was usually talkative, was noticeably subdued.

"Good evening, Dr Malik"

"Hello"

The nurse takes a look at the White dress under Haseena's lab coat.

"The funeral is today?"

Haseena nodded and answered

"I didn't take time to change afterwards."

"Was it a nice service?"

"Well, as funerals go, yes. There was a large turnout"

"Dr Champat was so well-liked. And he'd just gotten that promotion. It's too awful."

"I agree. Awful" Haseena left with a heavy sigh

"Everyone on this floor, we saw him nearly every day. We can't believe it" the nurse's eyes brimmed with tears

Nor could Haseena. Eleven days ago, her colleague Billu Champat had died. Given his age, a sudden death cardiac arrest or an accident would have been hard to accept. But Billu had been murdered in cold blood. Everyone who knew him was still reeling from the shock of his death as well as from the violent way he'd died. Haseena almost expected him to pop out from behind a door and cry "Just kidding!".

But his murder wasn't one of his shitty practical jokes for which Billu was famous. She had seen Pushpa Ji weeping inconsolably for her son, making his death and the permanence of it grudgingly real and even more difficult to accept.

"It will take time for all of us to absorb the shock," Haseena said in a tone both quiet and conclusive.

But the nurse wasn't ready to let the subject drop.

"I heard the police had questioned everybody who was at Dr Champat's party that night."

Haseena studied the patient charts that had been passed to her during the conversation and didn't address the implied question underlying the nurse's statement.

"Dr. Champat was always joking, wasn't he?" The nurse giggled as though remembering something funny, "And you and he fought like cats and dogs."

"We didn't fight," Haseena said, correcting her. "Occasionally we argued. There's a difference."

"I remember some of those arguments getting pretty rowdy" the nurse pointed out

"We made good quarrelling partners," she said, smiling sadly.

She had performed two operations that morning before the funeral. Considering the circumstances, she could have justified rescheduling today's surgeries and closing her office this afternoon. But she was already in a time crunch due to a recent, unavoidable ten-day absence from the hospital, which had proved to be an awful inconvenience to her and her patients. So, she had chosen to perform the operations and keep the appointments in her office. Billu would have understood.

Seeing the post-op patients was her last official duty of this long, emotionally draining, exhausting day, and she was ready to put an end to it. Closing the topic of her colleague's demise and funeral, she inquired about Mr Choudary, whose oesophageal hernia she had operated on that morning.

"Still groggy, but he's doing very well" the nurse confirmed

After checking on him and assuring his family, Haseena moved to her next patient. No one was standing vigil at her bedside. The elderly woman was a charity case. She resided in a state-funded nursing facility. According to her patient history, she had no family beyond one brother who lived in Alaska. Haseena checked her progress, but even after reviewing her vitals, Haseena Stayed with her.