Alive

Dancing on my fingertips was the last ray of my life ready to leave my body when everyone around me was struggling to keep me alive. The doctors, nurses, talking and moving swiftly like blowing breeze with their faces full of fear, fatigue, and disappointment.

I couldn't make out the words they were saying as my hearing was limited only to the beeping of a machine which was supposed to tell if I'm alive or not.

In that moment I felt nothing, no love, no pain, no longing. In that moment I didn't have a name, my being depended on the sound of a machine. There was only one question that mattered. 'yes' or 'no'. Is it the last sound I'm going to hear? Or the last image I'll ever see. I wasn't scared of death or aching for life. In that moment, I just wanted to know. 'Yes' or 'No'.

While my mind was busy with the traffic of incessant 'yes's and 'no's. calculating my chances of living, I felt a hand over my face that slid my eyes shut. I couldn't see the person to whom those hands belonged but I've cultivated a strange hatred for those hands, their fingers and their skin and nails, hairs and pores.

Because after they shut my eyes, I couldn't open them again. As if I had no control over my eyelids as if they didn't belong to me anymore. And the darkness was too much to take. I was lost in the blackness and the nothingness. There was nothing I wanted more than to open my eyes somehow. I wanted to use my hands but couldn't lift them. Paralyzed and helpless, I wanted to cry but then again I couldn't. Then I decided I should sleep but that too seemed impossible.

There would be no peace, no sleep, no comfort for me again, I thought. But that wasn't enough as the next thing I experienced was fear not of the darkness but the hands that gripped my arms and legs.

Something worse would happen. I might be burnt in a scorching fire till I turn to powder and just as I feel these hands around me, I will feel every flame, of the fire as long as it takes to tear me apart.

But instead of the fire, the next thing I felt was moisture, a head laid on my chest leaking some liquid that wetted my dress. I hated the weight of it but considered it a hold up for the fire and relaxed.

Time had no pattern, no image, no shape. I couldn't count time or calculate it. There was no way to tell time and the fire was certain. I started concentrating on the sounds, wailing, screaming, shrieking. It scared me and horrified me. I wanted them to calm down but there was no way I could convey my message.

They must be crying for me. They must be in pain. But to me, nothing mattered except the fire, the darkness, and the fear. I had no friends, no family, no love. My life was a black ball full of screams and the fear of fire.

Is it possible that I could ignore the fire as long as I don't see it? Turns out I couldn't.