" I’d never given it much thought earlier to how I would die – though I had every reason in the last few hours- but even if I had ..", I would not have imagined myself like this.
To die in place of someone else, someone you are deeply and madly in love with, is surely like a good idea. When all you know is sacrificing every breath of yours to keep your love breathing, and using every bit of warmth in your body to let that heart gain life, it isn’t much of exaggeration if you can think of giving up your life on the whole for that someone you love! But that’s how it is if you’re dying in place of, or better put, for someone you love! What if your death has nothing to do with this loved one? Did you ever think of how it feels to die, not for your loved one, not for yourself, but for the pleasure of someone, you never knew all your life, you never spent a moment with, and someone you don’t give a damn about! ? I’m sure the thought feels very fresh in your mind, perhaps it’s the first time it’s taken root there.
............ Those intermittent moments seemed to remind my otherwise lifeless body, to strive for its life. I tried every little bit of what I could, using every ounce of that little strength I had, to find light in the pitch blackness. Perhaps it was a black out, or perhaps it was a hit and run, I couldn’t tell. Everything was tar black, it was as if I was in a different world, where black was the only colour defined, and where all one could do was lay inert, and to fight against it was like trying to hide the sun, impossible. It seemed as if all the strength in my body was being used just to feel that I was getting closer to death, it only reminded me of my helplessness. I felt as if I was being sucked into a hole, a black hole, where nothing was defined, no feeling carried any meaning.
I struggled as I felt my insides ache, i felt like I had been beaten against a tree. My senses still seemed to carry some life, I could feel smells. It was a strange smell, and it took me some moments, or may be many hours, I didn’t know, I couldn’t count, to realize that it was the smell of rust. Slowly, I could feel the wetness, the thickness, the slime, it couldn’t be anything other than blood. As I thought, slowly, bit by bit, moment by moment,recollecting the past, it struck me, that was blood oozing out of a hole somewhere in my head, and instantly I could feel the soreness there.
I wanted to shout out loud, cry for help, but alas! I could not find my voice. It seemed to me that my words were buried deep under the sand, they carried no sound. I wish I never needed sound to let someone know that I was dying, that death was the least I wanted in my life, that I wanted to live, to go and hug my loved ones, to cry out my pain, to my heart’s content. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t do any of this.
I lay there, still, without any movement, just faintly breathing, which probably kept me half dead-half alive for a long time. I could faintly hear voices or sounds outside me, they were the sounds of moving vehicles, the sounds of horns blowing loud, blown by drivers angrily waiting on the road, obviously enraged by the disturbance I was causing , the scene I was creating unknowingly, on the highway.
But not once did I feel a warm hand on my body. All were bothered with their own jobs, none had time to spare for a dying person. I lay there still, trying to count the moments as they passed by, hanging on to dear life, praying every moment - let this life hang on till I find my dear ones, so that I can die in peace, in caring hands, feeling their love-filled touch.
Someone amongst those, who had a little of that which the others didn’t have, came over to the edge of the road, where I lay, to see if I was breathing, Yes I was. It felt like he heaved a sigh of relief, for I could feel that little bit of air about me, and it seemed to relax me a little, reliving my dying hopes. But alas, he must have shuddered at the thought of having to run about police stations, and trying to explain the scene to my family; I heard or felt no more of him.
I don’t know how much later, but now, I could again hear ‘voices’ outside me, not one, many, many, may be some tens of people’s, outside my head, they were surely not mine, because they were so many of them, all full of agitation, and terror, that could have possibly been caused by my out of this world appearance, my ghostly appearance. Thankfully, this time, my disoriented body was pulled into shape, and someone began to caress the wound on my head, and wipe that sticky fluid flowing out. I was carried in a van, to some place I didn’t know. It was a place where they blew air into my mouth first and later put masks on my face, masks which helped me breathe, where they wiped all the blood on my body, put some stitches here and there, thereby giving me back my life, the life I so badly wanted to live. I am in love with that hospital!
Little did people know the pain I had gone through, the battle I fought in those many hours (I later came to know) to keep it going, little did they know how precious my life was to me, how precious it was to my family. Perhaps it was a difficult thing for them to imagine how my family would weep at my loss, or how it would be to lose your loved one, to lose a part of yourself, or to lose yourself on the whole. Perhaps they thought I would do great help to the always increasing count of population in our country, by dying! Little did they know the meaning of humanity!
(This is completely a self-sketched narration of an accident that happened in my family recently)
