PANDEMIC LOOP

Eyelids, adapted the lazy mannerism, opened and closed and followed this mechanism with a repetitive gesture. Then a blurred figure in green appeared to be approaching me. By the time I Sherlocked it out that I was in a room of some hospital and the approaching figure must be some staff. 

"You are more than lucky to get a bed in these times, you know," she said, maintaining some distance from the bed. I was trying to deduce the subtext in her just said lines but then she uttered again, "They are here, your results." 

"Am I positive?!" I asked with some due hesitation, to which she nodded after waiting for a couple of seconds. 

I sighed deeply. Her statement made me devastated and I just assumed it's the end of the world for me. Wouldn't you?... If you were due for a birth, and just had some symptoms in collaboration with the corona virus which was dooming the world and a staff of the hospital just came to you and made your fears come true, then you would have lost it too. Your whole life would have been montaged in front of you in which the last shot would be of your loved ones gathered at your funeral which would also have been too limited due to this pandemic. And of course you would be thinking about being in the closest vicinity of your loved ones but you must have done some wrong deeds in your past because your wish couldn't be approved as you are corona positive. Besides, you are going to give a birth to a baby is the cherry on the cake! What a wonderful definition of life, isn't it?!

"Nooo!!!...Please!...Please take my son," cried a woman who could be seen outside being dragged away by two PEP'd up persons.

"This place can't fit any more shit, I guess," said the nurse.

"Who was she?!" I asked.

"As I said, you are more than lucky to get a bed in here," she replied. It appeared as she was taunting me for being rich. Yes, I am rich and you could put my husband at fault for this. May be she was trying to scorn me and say that poor people are being hit both the ways, through virus and through capitalism at the same time. You bet she said the same, I saw it in her eyes and in her sarcastic smile.

My hands were in pursuit of my mobile phone, but their efforts were rendered useless as my phone was not in my vicinity. I pan-chased the whole room but there was nothing but a few closets and huge pile of files lined up in every corner of the room.

"Where is my phone?" I inquired.

"Please relax... Just calm down," she said.

"Is this any kind of store room?" I asked again.

"There is no room in the hospital, that's why I told you that you were lucky," she said.

I squinted at her reply and asked her,"What do you mean by I am lucky?! If this room was occupied, would you guys have put me in the restroom?!" And my hand reached on my belly subconsciously which really threw me for a loop because it was flat now! Yes... I was not pregnant anymore!

"Oh my God!... Did I already deliver?!..." I asked hysterically.

The nurse was standing there and was doing a perfect job as a mannequin.

"Are you going to tell me or not?..." I asked her again.

"Calm down, you delivered and the boy is fine. He is totally fine," she gibbered.

"He?... I had a boy?!... Where is he, I want to see him, he's supposed to be with me, where is he?" I took it out on her all at once.

"Well you can't meet him coz you are positive and he is also under observation," she said.

After all these months of sacrifices and struggles and pain I had a baby and now they were saying that I can't see him. God can't do this to a mother, hell no! For an instant, I thought that all of this must be happening in my head, like a dream because I was not able to make a sense out of it.

"I want to see him now," I insisted.

"I am sorry, you cannot," she replied.

I knew I had to create a scene to overawe her. So I took a deep breath and I roared at her with all the energy I could. "I want my baby... I want my fucking baby, did you get it?!"

She called for help and in a couple of seconds, two more of the prepped up staff were there manhandling me and the nurse sedated me and in a jiffy my senses were drowning, so as my craving for meeting my son and just like that, I blacked out.

After some time I woke up, it was the same room. My hands bolted towards my belly and the bulge was gone. It was not a dream. I closed my eyes in despair as I would have given anything just to make that nightmare a dream. The door unlocked and the nurse approached me and said,"You are more than lucky to get a bed in these times, you know."

"Is parting with your baby considered lucky?" I chuckled.

"The test I mean... You are positive," she said.

"You already told me that," I replied.

"How could I have told you that? This is the first time I am talking to you," she said.

I was baffled. I thought that they were trying to pull some kind of trick on me. Because around couple of hours back this bitch successfully doused me off and now she was saying that she was talking to me the very first time?! Then the notion of Deja Vu crossed my mind for a second. "Could it had been that?!" I asked myself.

"If you are talking to me for the first time, how could I know I delivered a boy?" I inquired.

"You are right about the boy. A good guess perhaps," she replied.

"Is this some kind of game?" I asked.

"I didn't get it?" she replied.

"I want my son back," I insisted.

"I am sorry this cannot happen for now," she said.

I didn't know what to do so I did exactly what any normal helpless mother would have done. I panicked. "I want my child back! Did you hear me?!"

And again she called for back up and two people came in prepped up and took hold of me. The nurse sedated me and I blacked out... Again...

I came into my senses and it was again the same room, same closets, same piled up files and same flattened belly. Now I was anticipating the nurse's entrance and there she was, right in front of me, waiting to confront me first time again. Nevertheless, I was ready because I was left with no other option and after all it was for my son. And she said,"You are more than lucky to get a bed in these times, you know."

And I was damned as soon as I heard those lines. The whole scenario which was going to happen next flashed in front of my eyes. I would confront her, she would answer me back, I would panic and she would douse me off and I would wake up again just to be blacked out. I didn't know why it was all happening to me. It was like a loop, which was repeating itself over and over again, like an unbreakable cycle. I had to get out of the loop. I had to get out of that room and find my child. Maybe it could put an end to all of this. And I had to break the cycle. No matter whatever it takes.

But the question was............ Would I be able to break it?!

The End.

(Written by: Gunjan Kain)

(Photo Courtesy: Pexels)