Between Life and Death
THE NEW maid Inday had been terribly ill, too ill that it kept her completely unable to do anything but lie down the whole day she couldn’t even pull herself out of bed. She was throwing up all over the place, spilling out the contents of her guts, her eyes at times bloodshot and at times glassy, her body seemingly threatening to burst into flames because of a horrendous incomprehensible fever. But the thing that disturbed Mabel the most was her vital signs. From years of experience as a former nursing attendant, she has yet to encounter anything like this, that’s why it’s difficult to explain the events she observed during the last couple of hours.
She would take her pulse and find great trouble detecting anything. And then at last when she did feel the very faint beating, it was like electricity would flow through her, draining her energy. And afterwards, a few minutes of not feeling anything would transpire before yet again, a strange sensation comes creeping in. It was weird. Simply weird. Mabel would have liked to continue checking the maid’s pulse at regular intervals and then perhaps clean up the mess but she started feeling dizzy herself, her strength beginning to ebb. It was physically draining.
To make matters worse, all the phone in the house just went dead and so with all the lights. There was no way to call for help in this bad weather and terrible situation, considering the distance between their new town house where they have just transferred last week, and the nearest occupied unit five blocks away. She didn’t like the way the ailing maid looked at this stage, like the blood had been systematically drained from her frail body but at least Inday had already fallen asleep although she was still breathing heavily and with apparent difficulty. The medicine she administered was hopefully beginning to take effect. Mabel wondered to herself when would Paolo be coming back?
She left the maid’s bedside and carefully walked into their bedroom to catch her breath and wait for her husband there. But she too fell asleep. The hours passed. A slight drizzle had started again, the wet pavement glistened under the moonlight. The grass on their lawn gathered dew as the hours passed while a stray dog howled at the moon from faraway... (To be continued)
