"Why are you rude?"
The nurse was taken aback by her question but still composed herself professionally.
"What do you mean, Fatimah? … Are you sure you are okay?" she asked, gently placing her hand on her forehead.
"You have a mild fever. I'll go get the doctor."
"No…"
"No? … why?" the nurse asked again, confusion evident in her voice.
Fatimah, with her unfocused eyes, tried to keep her gaze on the nurse.
"I am already in heaven… right?"
The nurse froze. Seeing the expectant look on her face, she sighed.
For a moment, she had almost forgotten—this patient was suicidal.
And here she was, asking if she was already in heaven, as if it were a place she belonged.
"You are my assigned angel nurse, right?" her voice softened, almost hopeful.
"Where is my guardian angel? … I overheard the men in white say my guardian angel would be here soon. Where is he?"
She looked up at the nurse.
"I really need to settle down here fast… but firstly—" she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued, "—at last, I'm finally free."
At that moment, she looked like someone who had just walked out of hell and was happy to be free.
The nurse wondered what this young girl could have endured to make her want to escape this badly.
The joy on the pitiful girl's face—she didn't want to interrupt it, but the truth had to be told.
She was going to find out sooner or later.
She hadn't died. She had been saved. She was still breathing on this very earth—the one she desperately wanted to escape.
The nurse couldn't pinpoint the feeling that overwhelmed her as she watched the girl closed her eyes, savoring the air with her arms slightly spread.
She felt bad for wanting to pull her out of her reverie.
But as her nurse, she couldn't indulge in delusions. The truth needed to be told, even if it felt like a bitter pill. They would deal with whatever came after.
Delusion.
Reality.
Those words, when combined, were like a volcano erupting unexpectedly.
"Fatima," she called softly as she sat beside her.
"Fatima," she repeated, turning her fully toward her.
"Are you that happy?"
Fatima looked at her with a questioning expression.
"Are you that happy to be free? … Don't you have any regrets?" she asked, hoping to draw out a different emotion.
"I have never been happier… regrets? I don't think I have any."
Her eyes gleamed, but deep within them was a different emotion that didn't match her words.
Just as the nurse was about to press further—
"Bang!"
The door sprang open.
A middle-aged woman burst in. It was evident she had been crying, and the resemblance between her and the patient was unmistakable.
The woman rushed to the bed and pulled her daughter into a tight embrace.
"Why? … Fatima, why?" she sobbed uncontrollably on her daughter's shoulder.
"Mom?" Fatima called, her tone distant.
"Yes, darling…" her mother answered between sobs.
"Did you die too?!"
Her mother froze before breaking into fresh tears.
"Mom, why are you crying? We are finally free, aren't we?" she asked innocently, thinking her mother was crying tears of joy.
"Mom, it's okay now. Everything is okay now," she said, gently patting her back.
Her mother pulled her forward and looked straight at her. She thought, just what kind of hell had her daughter experienced to make her take such a drastic choice.
She shook her head while weeping and her entire body shook.
"Fatima, I didn't die. Look at me, I'm still full of life —flesh and blood," she said, knowing reality was about to hit her daughter —hard. But she can't allow her to continue fooling herself.
"And you too, my daughter ... you didn't die, you are still here with me". She looked at her with unending tears streaming down her face and saw what she already expected —disbelief, denial.
Fatima let out a dry laugh and said, "Mom, there's no way, ... I'm already here in heaven", she looked towards the nurse who had been standing still and watching the mother and daughter duo, to tell her she is right and her mother was totally wrong.
Instead the nurse just looked away towards the pen in her hand as if an answer was written there.
"I'm dead, aren't I!?" she shouted, startling both her mother and the nurse. She grabbed her mom by the shoulder, looking at her intensely.
"Mom, I'm dead, right? ... just tell me I am". Her blazing look slowly turning into a pleading one.
Her mother looked straight at her, her heart bleeding. She herself had been there before, and accepting reality that comes afterward was always the hardest. But she can't allow her daughter to continue fooling herself, this is real. Fatima needs to accept it.
She pulled her in a tight embrace.
She then held her by the shoulder looking straight at her daughter unable to hold back her tears.
"My girl, you are still alive and well—, she paused, her expression intense and pleading , "—don't put me in an unending pain by wanting to die again. Fatima, I am simply holding on because of you and your siblings, what am I to do if you leave your helpless mother alone in this world?".
Fatima looked from her weeping mother to the nurse standing behind her.
Her surroundings began to take shape. She began to notice the earthly things.
The faint beeping of a machine reached her ears—slow, steady, real.
It didn't belong in heaven.
Her fingers twitched slightly against the bedsheet, and she felt it—the roughness of the fabric beneath her skin.
Too real.
Too heavy.
Her breathing hitched.
She realized how the thick smell of antiseptic hung in the air.
How the white walls were not as pure as she had thought.
Alive.
She isn't dead.
She had been saved.
Resuscitated.
She shook her head, more violently this time, as if trying to force the thought out.
It can't be true.
She can't be back to the hell she fought desperately to escape.