REALITY ON EARTH 2
"No!!"
"No!!"
"This isn't right, this isn't right". Fatimah yelled.
She pulled at her hair and looked toward her mother as if trying to prove something —anything.
She was sure she was dead.
The blank emptiness she had felt. The solitary, quiet peace.
They had to be wrong.
She pulled hard on the bedsheet, her eyes unfocused, her heart racing erratically.
She dug her nails in her palm and winced at the pain.
Why ... was she back here?
Why could she feel everything again—the fear, the confusion, the unbearable noise in her head?
Her fingers curled weakly into the sheets.
This isn't right… it can't be right.
She screamed —forcefully yanking the IV drip from her arm.
The sharp sting didn't matter to her.
Voices rose around her, urgent —panicked.
Hands restrained her —and she was given a shot.
Her vision blurred, and soon darkness enveloped her.
Her mother stood shaken, watching her daughter slowly losing her consciousness, this time around —into a forced sleep.
And her tears flowed uncontrollably.
Her lips quivered as she took a step forward, then stopped.
She didn't know whether to hold her daughter… or let the nurses do their job.
Fear rooted her in place.
"Please…" she whispered under her breath. "Fatimah, just please…"
***
It was already past dinner time.
Dark clouds covered the sky and the weather was gloomy. The breeze was blowing mildly, and threatened it might rain anytime soon. The forecast said it was going to rain, and most people are settling in for the night —some even getting ready for their weather for two.
None of these mattered to Jalal.
He strolled down the hospital ward after a long day, yawning deeply.
He looked to be in his late twenties, and had a face that seemed to assure you even when everything was wrong.
Still in his hospital gown, he knew he needed to get rest. He had taken over a nightshift duty for a senior doctor and had to work through the day shift without sleeping a wink.
It had been a habit of his ever since he was an intern, to always make a quick stroll through the wards after dinner time while checking up on patients he had grown familiar with.
Despite being always busy and on shifts, he never missed this routine.
His elderly patients kept treating him as their son and are always gifting him, in which he never hesitates to reject politely.
An elder had once promised to marry her daughter to him, without asking for a dime.
Another had promised to build his own hospital filled with up-to-date equipment. He had always jokingly turned all the offers down, telling them "When it's time for me to need your help, I would gladly turn to you,... and you must always do well to keep to your
promise" he would say winking at them —all smiles.
He would say what he needed from them —is to get well and not visit the hospital anymore.
"Even when most had lost hope, I would be a doctor that gives hope to his patient."
Those patients would laugh and tease him. "There he goes again —with his big mouth", but they all knew it.
He meant what he always said.
After his visiting escapade this night, he left the ward, and made his way towards the dormitory.
Then he saw her.
A lady in a hospital gown, walking absentmindedly —yet with a strange sense of purpose.
"Where could she be going at this hour?" he mumbled to himself. He knew she had to be a new patient, cause he knew almost all long term patients in the hospital.
He wondered what could have brought the pretty young lady to the hospital.
With his arm in his coat pocket, he stood at one side and watched her disappear through the main door.
Filled with curiosity, he entered her ward.
He moved toward a bed, the only one with a name tag.
NAME: Fatimah Iran
AILMENT: (;)
NOTATION: complete bed rest.
Those were the details on her bed tag. He frowned —wondering why was her ailment was filled in with a semicolon symbol instead.
He yawned tiredly and turned to make his way back to his dormitory.
Two steps.
Three steps—
He stopped abruptly —like someone getting a flash bulb.
The semi colon symbol (;)
Suicide watch.
He turned to look at the symbol on the name tag again.
His eyes widened. He had just seen the patient leaving the ward minutes ago.
A cold chill ran down his spine.
His fatigue vanished instantly.
"Damn it…"
He ran.
His footsteps echoed sharply against the tiled floor, his heartbeat quickening with every second.
Why didn't I stop her?
The image of her blank expression flashed in his mind.
That wasn't just someone taking a walk.
There was something wrong.
Very wrong.
Disturbed, he ran towards the door.
He pushed the door open harder than necessary and almost collided with a woman, —he guessed in that fleeting moment, would be in her forties.
The woman stumbled —struggling to regain her balance. He caught her hurriedly.
"Sorry" both said at the same time.
His eyes darted past the woman, searching.
His grip loosened almost immediately.
"I'm sorry," he muttered again, already stepping away.
Every second felt like it mattered.
And he was wasting it.
As he left the woman, unease gripped him.
Deeply worried, he hurried towards the entrance he last saw Fatima exiting.
He quietly prayed in his mind.
Please...don't let me be too late.
He quickened his pace, almost breaking into a sprint again as he approached the exit.
The corridor felt longer than usual.
Too quiet.
Too empty.
His eyes scanned every corner, every shadow, every possible turn she could have taken.
Nothing.
His jaw tightened.
Where did she go?
For a split second, a terrifying thought crossed his mind—
There was another way, it didn't lead out or down —it led up.
What if ... he was already too late?
***
Fatima's mother was wondering —where could the handsome young doctor be rushing off to —he almost knocked her down.
She frowned slightly, arranging herself. Then turned towards her daughter's bed raising the food packs in her hand.
"Fatimah, I brought..." before she noticed she was talking to an empty bed.
Frenzied, she dropped the food pack in her hands and rushed out of the room.
She stopped a nurse she met at the corridor and asked whether she had seen Fatimah.
But before the nurse could answer, an alarm ring went off in the hospital accompanied by a voice over the speaker.
"Paramedics are to make moves as there is a suicidal patient,a young lady speculated to be in her 20s trying to jump over from the rooftop."
The nurse abandoned the frenzied mother and left in an hurry.
The mother hearing the repeated announcement, blasting over the speakers —kept telling and assuring herself.
"No!, ... that lady can't be Fatima, Fatima shouldn't take drastic decisions like that, ... no she mustn't!, no! ,no!".
She burst into hot tears as she went flying toward the elevator to the rooftop.