25 minutes.13 km to cover. I was driving fast. Very fast. It was chilling cold. 8 degrees cold and I had rushed out of my house on a scooter without a pair of gloves. While I could feel my hands getting cold and numb, somehow the thought of them getting cold did not come to my mind that moment. I just steered through the blank roads.
I felt my phone vibrating. I touched the phone and I could sense the chillness on my jeans. There was another message. “I feel terrible. Pls come fast.”
I felt cold. Yes cold. Not the winter cold. That cold was different. The winter cold freezes your body, this cold freezes your soul. I remember I was in a situation where I could not decide what was the next thing I should be doing. Somehow reached her place.
There were a few people outside her house and an ambulance standing with the doors open. Before I could comprehend anything, 2 females carried her inside the ambulance. She lay unconscious. I just stood there.Silent. Speechless. I had been wanting to ask her since the night before – if she was sick. I was constantly getting a gut feeling she is sick, even when we were not at the same place and we did not talk for those two days, somehow I was getting a gut that she wasn’t well. I texted her a few hours before and she told me she wasn’t well. She had been deteriorating ever since.
The light of the ambulance when amalgamated with a dark cold night is a horrific thought in the first place. All I could hear was the emergency beacon and all I could see was her face.
I followed the ambulance to the hospital. Suddenly, the doctors ran up to me, and held me up by my collar and scuffed me for not asking of her wellness even when I had the thoughts that she was ill. I kept trying to make them understand that it was just a gut feeling and I should have had responded to it because it concerned her health. I rebuked them for holding me and attending to her. They told me there were less chances that she would survive.
Somehow, they were not at all willing to take her out of the ambulance. I do not know why. They told, we are not going to attend to her, because she is here because of your negligence. It seemed as the whole world was shouting on me for not asking her health out even when I had gut feelings about the same. I tried to force cover my ears with my cold hands, with no effect. I saw people all approaching me pointing fingers.
“You killed her.”
“Your negligence killed her”
“You could have saved her”
“You had the prophecy”
“You killed her, you killed her”
The noises were so loud and squeaky, it nearly deafened me. I closed my eyes, but it did not help. The voices kept coming near and near.
I felt the sweat on my face. I felt a little warm below my waist. My eyes opened. I saw the red light in my room – the zero watt night bulb. It was shining red and bright. I checked for people around. The noises were still echoing. I could hear myself panting. I reached out to the water bottle and had a few gulps of water. I managed to somehow sit down.
I looked around again, just to check.
Did I really have thoughts of her being unwell since the past two days, or was it just a part of the dream? It took me a couple of minutes to realise it wasn’t just in the dreams. I was actually getting this gut feeling.
I took out the phone, opened the conversation only to realise it was more than 11 months since we talked last. Should I? Should I not?
“Are you sick?” I typed. It was 4:19 am.
And then slept. I woke up to a text saying, “NO” It was 9:45 am then.
Indeed it was a dream and not all dreams turn true.
Always Ranting, Rantzaada.
The 11 o' clock diary 