I’m dying

   I was sitting on a mattress along the hallway of the semi-restricted area of the Operating room, when I felt my phone vibrated. I picked it up and a female voice, the first time I heard it felt as if I’m inside a closed room, says, “Go out. There, he is waiting for you.”

“Cai,” I guessed who the speaker was, even though I’ve never heard her. I just felt like it was her. Her voice sounds like I’m hearing her in a quiet room. It was clear and virulent and full of conviction, it was something that clings to your ear like the scars of infection. “Who is waiting?” I asked her and she replies with the same tone of voice, “Him!”

…

Impossible, but I never really saw him, whoever we were both thinking of. As if the call was itself an illusion. I ran out the Operating room, leaving my classmates, leaving the staff, leaving the scent of true cleanliness. My instructor cried at my back, but I pretended not to hear him. I ran out. I sprinted down the stairs to the first floor, passing the nurse with a chart, the doctor with her pockets on her side, the construction worker cementing the edge of the stairs, the cat running away from the awkward helper. I’m just passing them by.

Until I reached the emergency room, I saw people of different cases. I’m wearing my scrub suit, my sterile dress in the middle of impurity and a pit of diseases. I lowered my mask down to smell the scent of blood, I removed my cap and hold it down. I saw him, not him whom I thought has risen from the death, but someone, a younger man, a staff maybe, a young intern, or maybe a visitor, he was trying to revive a dead woman. I can say she’s dead because I can already see the face of my dead friend, the same marks of distress.

And I was just there standing watching him, struggle for someone else’s life, someone whom he must have not known or should ever care of. He was trying to revive her, but his effort was useless to her deteriorating body.

And I was there. I was there watching. I was there thinking nothing. I was just there.

He picked up the stetoscope lying on the desk beside the bed of the patient. He checked the pulse, silently trying to count, but he couldn’t even start it. He looked at me. His face, pale. His eyes, tired. His temples touched with fervently sliding drops of sweat. He removed the stetoscope, still looking at me, he sighed, a thunder ampliphize to my ear, then he shook his head. I saw him. I was there. I was just there, can’t do anything, can’t help, can’t even move or think. I was totally helpless, I was worse than the dying. I’m worse than the dead. He walked towards me and then passing across me. I followed him. He’s gone. I’m in an empty room.

Then, I told my self, I’m going to be like him…