Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
unwind with - Bheegi Bheegi ( From Gangster ) by Pritam, James.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The rain had stopped but the glass of the hospital window still bore streaks of water like faint scars. The world outside was muted and small cars like silent insects, people reduced to dots moving without meaning. I should have felt something at the sight of it, some longing or connection but instead there was only a familiar emptiness, the cold echo of distance that had been living inside me longer than my wounds. The room smelled of antiseptic and damp cotton, the sheets beneath me were stiff and white as if untouched by life. I did not register the hum of the ventilators or the quiet beep of the monitors. They were irrelevant, background noise. My arm throbbed in a rhythm I tried to ignore, each pulse reminding me of the event that had sent me here, reminding me how fragile the vessel of flesh could be.
Then almost. A sudden cough tore through me before the thought could finish. It started as a tickle and became a violent shake, tormenting my chest until pain radiated from the wound beneath the bandages. I tasted spasm at the back of my throat and straightened instinctively, my fingers reaching for the intercom. But as I pressed the button, an agonizing stab shot down the left side of my arm. Sharp, electric, merciless. The device slipped from my weak grip and crashed onto the tiled floor. At the same time one of the monitors toppled from the bedside table with a hollow clang. The sound was louder than it should have been, bouncing off the sterile walls, an alarm to summon the world.
Within seconds the door burst open. Three nurses, two doctors, Oliver and Arthur all filled into the room at once. The nurses were already at my side, voices overlapping, their hands moving fast to check the monitors, to straighten the tubes and wires. Questions swirled around me. Did the pain increase? Where? Can you breathe? But I did not answer. Their words slid over me like water over stone. All I could think of was the dryness in my mouth and the way my throat burned.
