“Promise
me that you will love her?”
He
couldn’t speak for his grief had paralysed his tongue still. There were only
tears as he tried to keep his eyes wide open as he took mental snap shots of
the few moments he had left with her. He finally nodded to her plea.
“Promise
me Scott! Promise me! I want to hear you say it!”
“I
promise, Mohini...”
“You
and this baby are most important people to ever come in to my life. I love you
so much! Nothing can ever change that.”
“I
know... I love you too...”
Barely able to keep her eyes open, Mohini
started to close her eyes. Every breath she took thereafter became shallower
and more laboured. Her grip of Scott’s hand was losing vigour but Scott held
her hand tighter with every passing second. As an eerie silence crept into the
room, her skin grew pale with pallor under the moon light from the window just
above the head of the bed. He kept staring at her face, wiping off tears she
had cried while mumbling words of comfort in her ear.
The
doctor walked in with an awkward stance, knowing of the dilemma he was about to
face.
“Mr
Richards? We need to do some paper work and... We need to move Mrs Richards
from this room.” He uttered these words with much fear as he was young and the
only physician for miles in the rural town of Trinco. As Scott turned to address
him, he noticed a soupcon of shame in his face. It was clear to him that he was
only an intern. With the two nurses at his aid, there was only so much that he
could have done. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t angry with the staff or why
he felt so numb.
“What
time is it?” he asked the man wearing the white coat, who was shivering with
guilt as he started to tear. Scott could see that he was simply not capable
enough to deal with his situation.
“It’s
been 5 hours since... Mrs Richards... passed away...” stammered the medical
intern, he appeared as distort as Scott, as it was evident that it was his
first unaccompanied experience with death. Scott stood up from the chair as it
screeched and kissed Mohini’s forehead. At that moment there were only tears,
his eyes closed for what seemed to him like seconds, lasted minutes. Her hand
was no longer a fugitive of his. Scott turned away and walked out of the room,
denying his urge to turn back and embrace his wife. He found a chair by the
corridor where the lights flickered possibly due to the bad condition of the
clinic itself. By the dark corridor, Scott found himself completely broken. He
felt an intense emptiness in his gut, with so much pain. He knew not where it
was coming from but he was aching for the one person, he would never feel
again. As he sat in the crippled chair, with his legs up against his chest and
his face immersed against his thighs there continued to be only silence.
Enraged for a moment, he threw himself back against the wall, hammering his
occiput against the crumbling partition.
Sobs
were starting to fill the stillness and he embraced himself in a fetal
position, as he tried to console himself by rocking himself to a potential
peace. Footsteps had suddenly sneaked up on him from the aisle, it was the
midwife who aided in the delivery of his child. As Scott looked up, he saw a
bundle of blue cloth cradled against the women.
“Sir,
would you like to hold your baby?”
Emerging
from beneath his fingers, barely clearing his nostrils he glanced at the women
and said “What!?” in a rather loud irritable tone. She was barely able to
comprehend him, his voice muffled by his blocked nose due to the tears.
“Sir,
this is Baby Richards. We are ready to discharge her to you...”
“Ok”
is all he said. As the baby was placed in his arms, there was barely any
emotion painted on his face. He stared at her for a while before a single tear
trickled down his cheek. He finally got up and started to walk towards the exit
of the clinic. He placed his baby in the infant seat of his car while he had
constant flashbacks of how he and Mohini picked up baby furniture. For a moment
there was a hope of a smile on his face. As he sat down in his car and started
the engine, all he could think of is how to deal with the future. He finally
began to drive home with little passion for what could be. He stared at the
road while driving, but ever so consumed with so much thought. He thought of
all the things that meant so much to him, back home. All the things that would
remind him of her and the life they planned on living.
To
his dismay, he ran a red light at the intersection and suddenly all he saw was
bright lights engaging him from the rear. The car was thrown off the street to
be entwined around a light post and for only a minute were there mourns, sounds
of a crying baby and barely audible pleas for help. Within moments there was
stillness, all life that was in the car was no more. Only smoke escaped the
rubble that seemed to gush out blood steadily to form a pool on the graveled
road.
The
truck involved in the accident didn’t stop to aid the passengers of the car. A
middle aged driver who reeked of beer and cigar smoke woke up from his half
drunk slumber at that very moment of the accident. The adrenaline didn’t make
him think clearly and he was far from making any sound decisions. He could feel
his heart beat violently, almost like it needed to escape his chest. Afraid of
the repercussions he continued to drive, unknowing of the grave consequence he
was about to face as a result.
A
few miles ahead of the truck, a woman emerges from the woods surrounding the
poorly lit up road. Dressed in white and hair so long and dark, she seemed
peacefully at bliss. But she was pale as if all her blood was drained out of
her slender body. And she was holding a baby in her arms who was as quiet and
motionless as a plastic doll.
She
whispered to the baby, “Don’t worry sweetie, you’re going to be just fine. Soon
you, your Daddy and I are going to be very happy together.”
Within
seconds the trucker approached in his partly bruised truck. The headlights were
not structurally intact and scarcely glimmered any light. He could barely see
the road and as he approached the woman holding the neonate. He saw her in the
middle of the road taking little notice of the truck racing toward her. With
little time to react, he hit the brakes so hard that the truck almost toppled
and only came to rest in front of her with mere inches to spare. He found his
foot partly bruised against the brake pedal due to this endeavor. It only then
came to his attention of the bruise on his forehead from the accident that
occurred moments ago. He was distort, especially after the accident and still afraid
of the consequences of the hit and run. After stopping the truck, he
immediately got out of the vehicle to see if the lady was alright. As he opened
his door, the woman just stood there in front of his door.
“I
need to get to the hospital right away, my baby is not breathing... She’s not
breathing!”
“Ok
ok ma’am! Get in, I’ll take you to the closest one!”
They
got into the truck and he immediately started driving toward the nearest clinic
which would unfortunately take him back to the site of the accident. Maybe it was his heightened senses but the
bloke became suspicious of the young woman. She was no longer anxious or
worried, as if all she wanted to do was just get into the truck. She kept
rocking her baby to sleep, comforting her with a lullaby...
“So
ma’am, is your baby alright now?”
“NOOOOO!”
she screamed in a hollow voice. Her words were loud and cold, he felt frozen in
his seat, afraid of what she might do next. She no longer seemed as brittle as she
initially did, she seemed calm yet engaged with much hatred and anger. Attempting
to take the conversation in another direction and possibly soothe the woman’s probable
distress, he decided to ask her a few questions.
“So...
Hmmmm... Ma’am? What’s your name?”
She
turned towards him and smiled, like she felt sorry for the poor bugger. The
smile was dark and drooling with eager vengeance.
“My
name is Mohini...”
By Yoshith Perera
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