KLARKE opens his eyes, and a sudden gush of blood explodes
through his veins making him suddenly feel the cold metal around his arms. As
his pupils dilate, everything seems so white and pure. The serenity instills a
hybrid emotion of beauty and enigma. He feels something beneath his nose - his
breath – being alive! As he takes in the alien cold air into his system, a
sudden curiosity shakes his inner foundations vehemently.
"Where am I?"
He wants to feel his arms and legs, but the force pulling
him down is too strong. He blinks his eyes furiously to gain vision - desperate
to push away the ghost of ambiguity clouding his consciousness with patches of
fear and impatience. A 'tick tock' sound synchronous with his heartbeat catches
his attention, and he looks up to see a blurry huge ball of light suspended
over his head, with a bottle of medicine suspended up on his right, and a meter
beeping some vital stats in electronic signals. His mind works out the
equation, and he has no idea how he ended up being there - in a hospital.
He wants to feel his feet, his legs - to stand up and walk
and explore this place of which he has no evidence in memory. But his body
fails him badly, and he still feels heavily bolted down to the bed.
He looks towards the side, shuts his eyes hard, and opens
them again to look at a beautiful slim face enveloped in fair slim hands, with
long hair covering portions of her face seemingly possessive of that beauty.
Christine sleeps like a little fairy on the chair beside the hospital bed, her face
resting beside Klarke's left arm, as she seems to embrace his left hand and
sleeps with her mouth slightly open like a little girl. Klarke smiles, though
even smiling takes up a lot of effort. He moves his fingers and suddenly feels
her soft lips. He forgets why he is there, and just keeps looking at her.
Exhausted with ecstasy, he feels the pillow behind his head and closes his
eyes, unable to take that ecstatic strain any more.
His hand leaves contact and he looks up to see Anastasia,
who seems to have a complicated emotion spread across her face. Her eyes gleam
with tears of happiness, but her forehead shows signs of pain and grief. But
Klarke doesn’t want to think about this, and he smiles at his cute little
angel, and remembers how she still takes care of him like good old college days.
But he’s so angry at Christine for suddenly going somewhere and leaving him
alone. He tries to gather energy to ask, but neither his body nor mind seems to
have the strength to do that.
Anastasia embraces Klarke’s hands and goes out to call the
nurse. The nurse enters and starts preparing an injection. Anastasia whispers
close to his face – “Everything will be alright, Babe” and with a beautiful smile spread across her face still so full
of worry, she silently leaves when the nurse indicates her that the patient
needs complete rest.
It’s a warm sultry evening when Klarke wakes up to find the
doctor standing beside him examining his Medical Record file while noting down
readings from the beeping instruments. He has been unconscious for two days
after the injection, the doctor says. Klarke can feel his strength come back to him in bits. Anastasia sits beside him, looking extremely exhausted. But
even with that she manages to carry on her serenity and gives a strange comfort
to Klarke. But the coldness of her face brings out a lot of unpleasant questions in his mind.
The doctor suddenly speaks up. He asks Klarke if he remembers
anything before the ‘accident’.
“Accident?”
He lays there in shock, in misery and pain. As his
consciousness is less cloudy now – he uses logic, he shakes in agony, looks
towards Anastasia and whispers -
“Christine?”
Anastasia is choked with tears and grief. She turns towards
the doctor, who silently looks down and says –
“I’m Sorry.”
