Shards of Love

Chapter 8: She has come

July 25 2020, Saturday.

Arnav decided to visit Mrityunjay hospital which was forty five minutes away from his place. His mother insisted on coming with him, but he refused. He wanted to battle this out all by himself.

He took the scooter and started off by nine thirty in the morning. He was not feeling at ease. Something gnawed inside his mind. He has to muster all his strength and will power to visit the third option and the last, according to him.

Several thought trains were running haphazardly in his mind station, all of which were mastered by anxiety.

'Can I hope to get a solution to my problems?'

'Will I ever be able to lead a normal life?'

'What to do if this hospital also treats me like a confused youth?'

'Will there be any place on Earth that would acknowledge the pains in going through?

'Men don't have it easy. We can never take a break. Why did I have to be born as a boy, into a poor family, with really good brain?'

'Well I be able to have hope again in my life.. ever?'

With thoughts running amock, Arnav's external sensory system was running on auto-pilot in driving on the highway. Arnav has never gotten into a road accident. His road sense and presence of mind were incredible. He mostly would be in his mind palace while driving, but the body would drive effortlessly through the traffic and busy roads.

After thirty minutes, he wanted to make sure he was going in the right direction. This was the first time he was going to that hospital. He stopped the scooter by the roadside and then pulled out his mobile to check the map. The application indicated that he was indeed on the right road and it would take another thirteen minutes to reach the destination. He breathed a sigh of relief. Doubting his capabilities has also started becoming a new epidemic in his mind.

The next fifteen minutes was a blur as he could see many buildings crop up all of a sudden on the highway and he had to carefully look at each one to make sure he didn't miss the hospital. At first, he saw a huge entrance with MMMC - Mrityunjay Missions medical College. He thought he had reached the destination. As he stopped near the entrance and asked if he could go to the hospital, the guard gave him directions to go straight ahead and take the first left and that was where the hospital sat. He rode on a little more for five minutes and came to the hospital.

It sprawled over a huge area. The parking space was almost full and he had no idea how he should go about it. Suddenly, his anxiety started spiking little by little. He had that amazing skill of not showing any emotions outside whilst his internal system was actually having minor earthquakes. He would imagine, by default as a coping mechanism maybe, that he was a celebrity and there was always, always somebody watching him with a camera outside. So he would be conscious of his body language and actions without overdoing it.

He called his mother and asked where he should go for the psychiatric department. Lakshmi said she had no idea about the department, but he could try asking for token service near the reception desk.

It took him several minutes before he could find the main reception where tokens and directions for various departments were going on. It was busy too. A lot of receptionists were on the system, accompanied by some friend or co-worker who wrote down the visiting form, which was mandatory for tracking a patient's visits. Once you buy that form for the first time, the subsequent visits are free of cost. One can directly go to the department and pay the doctor a visit and the respective medicinal and treatment trajectories will go on as usual. Patients will bear a somewhat subsidized rate for different medicines and scans, etc.