Virus - Prisoners of the Nature

Chapter 4

Neil Patel, 35 years old, sat on the green dining table in the living room. He ate curry in dinner as he watched Animal Planet on his 28 inch TV. 

The light from this room projected a glow on the road outside the window grill. In the darkness of the new moon, this glow shined dust particles and aerosols that lingered in air, infecting the lungs of anyone who breathed without a mask.

Mosquitoes flew outside the window and tried to get in, but a mosquito net covering this window prevented them from getting inside. The living room had only one window and three doors. One led to outside, another one led to the kitchen and last one led to the bedroom.

He was watching Life in The Nature show on Animal Planet. It depicted how animals in the forest live. Continuously praying on each other. Constant danger that these animals were in contrasted the serenity of this room covered in white tiles on the floor and blue tiles on the wall. This serenity was only disturbed by the turmoil of traffic noises.

TV screen showed a lion hiding in the tall and dry golden grass. He observed a herd of deer feeding on the grass nearby as his stomach growled from a month of hunger. The cloudless blue sky and clean fresh air in this forest reflected the purity of the nature that existed in the habitats of these animals. Lion's bright yellow skin, black mane around his face, muscular legs, and long sharp claw scared anyone who rose above him, especially the round-eyed slender innocent deer.

As the lion emerged from the grass like a 2-year-old thirsty toddler prolonging his hands to drink the glass of water and ran after a deer and its fawn. Fawn is a young deer in its first year of life. The lion stumbled when he ran. It looked like his leg was injured.

The deer, even though it had slender legs, ran with the speed of the wind. Lion knew he couldn't catch up. Not with this injury on his leg. So he went after the cub. The cub wasn't fast enough. Its legs were still adapting to this brutal life in nature as it tried so hard to keep up with its mother. But its new legs were still no match for the lion's fierce ones. Lion came more and more closer to fawn, jumped on its neck, and sank his monstrous teeth into the petite neck of the fawn.

As blood spattered across the land and started flowing from its neck into his throat, the lion's stomach finally stopped growling. Lion put his muscular leg on its fragile body, keeping it down, and preventing it from escaping his grasp. Finally, Lion removed his leg from its body as it stopped moving. His teeth, lips, and mouth completely covered in red juice while other deer watched as the lion dragged the body away from the herd. Helpless, they were.

Lion brought the body to a lioness, resting beneath the shadow of a tree. Lioness was lying with her eyes closed. Lion put the body of the fawn in front of her mouth and roared. Still no response. He roared again. A roar that can wake up a sleeping beauty resting as far as five miles away. Still no response. Lioness was dead. Dead as the body of the fawn. He sat beside her, alone eating the fawn. Vultures circled above the lion, waiting for him to go away so they can feed on the lioness and the leftovers of the fawn.

"How can you watch something like that when you are eating?" A voice emanated from the kitchen. This was his wife, washing the dishes as usual.

"Well. I am a doctor, so that helps." He replied.

"I know. Mr. Doctor. But why don't watch some movie? Some entertainment." She advised.

"Not again with movies. Why will an educated doctor like me waste their time on movies? Animal Planet, Discovery, Nat Geo. You should watch these. They inform about nature. Nature of the universe we live in. Its better than some laughable entertainment that just wastes your time." He argued.

"All right. All right. Mr. knowledgeable. But do you think the knowledge that has no use to you is worth having." She argued.

"Just stop calling me Mr... or whatever. I just think tha..."

"Papa, Can you tell me what is sex?" His daughter, Ishi, 8 years old, interrupted him with enthusiasm while she was lying on the couch behind the dining table with a wheelchair beside her. Her round face with beautiful brown eyes melted the hearts of the strongest people. Her healthy hands helped her to overcome her slender and wasted legs with skin attached to the bone, but still the hole in her heart formed by that terrible accident was still empty. Wife laughed but controlled her voice as she continued washing the dishes to avoid this conversation.

"Why don't you ask your mom?" He replied.

"I am not the doctor here." She replied.

"Sex is... when two people fall in love, like me and your mom, and... they want to have a child like you, So they..." He answered with carefully chosen words as his phoned rang and stopped him from answering.

"Saved by the phone." He said to himself as he picked up the phone.

"Sir, its Aman." Aman said on the phone. His voice gave away the fear, disturbing his teacher like that in the middle of the dinner.

"Yes. Is there any problem?" Neil asked calmly. Aman looked confused. "Why is not the sir angry?" He must have thought. Normally, when a phone from the hospital disturbed his eating, he went mad. But not this time. Because this phone call helped him avoid the "sex-talk" with her daughter. He will have to go through this conversation one day, but at least not today.

"Sir. The patient Raman Doshi, who was in the ICU and put on the ventilator yesterday, just died 5 minutes ago. I performed chest compressions and gave shocks of defibrillator but it didn't work. He just stopped breathing." He said with a shaky voice...