This story was written by me in 2005 when in 1st year of my B.E. programme . I wish to share the story. No presentation of this story and any of it's part is allowed. I also can't be held responsible for any misconception.
-Shashi Shekhar Vyas
What was that ???
Was that a dream???
Dream or truth???
Or a trip in real???
“Mr. Samuel Vatmore?”
“Yeah! We are here.”
“OK, fine you are next.”
“That’s fine.” Answered my uncle as I was looking and gazing around the hall. Everyone seemed tensed, worried running here and there; atmosphere of tension all around. And, those white apron wearing nicely built up doctors seemed to be quick, but relaxed. Such an attitude of doctors flashed my brainwaves taking them back to classroom full of students biting nails with their hair standing at the top and facing them is a teacher correcting papers quickly, as if habitual of it as ever. Signing those big heap junks of papers with scribbling all around was never easy for anyone except them.
My uncle and me were at the main surgery Dept. at St. Georgia Hospital, the name every local passer by knew of.
I was living with my uncle and aunt at Baker’s street, north of town. My uncle, a cool head just like my dad. Now that’s obvious. After all, he is my Dad’s younger brother. And my aunt? The deadliest lady ever born on planet earth. When she used to stare me with those big eyes of her; oh! I could get burnt inside for sure. And more to that she used to teach me in my college and it was quite difficult not only for me but anyone to raise their head in her class. She always made me feel, how much I really missed my mom.
My mom, she was a damsel by heart, as gentle as dew running down a red-rose petal at a wintry dawn. But, she was living far away in a county-side with my dad back home in India. That place was heaven’s paradise; seemed like Almighty took every care to make each corner of it by his own charming hand with a delighted heart!! I missed my family a lot, had it not been the higher grade of my academic education, I would have been with my sweet family back home in India!
But, why the hospital and that too a surgical Dept.? A good question to ask. Actually, I injured my right wrist in a local football match. How? No comments anymore.
I was to be operated soon as I hurt my right wrist quite badly. Though, a small surgery, but it was my first surgery from the time I was born on this planet. But, I wasn’t tensed, and, thanks to (Mrs.) Dr. Muswell, head of the surgical Dept. in St. Georgia Hospital, Westwood County. And also, credits to my uncle, who never made either my mother or dad, get worried over the whole process.
In fact, he prepared me in such a way that we were kidding and joking just few moments before the weird thing ever was going to happen with me. We laughed and giggled at a person with a fractured shoulder who looked fit and was not walking to the operation theatre on his own, but was carried through hospital stretcher but he came back quite unconscious and that’s why probably he needed that wheel-bed for sure.
“He’s given with anesthesia” --- My uncle told me calmly. I asked anxiously then, “What’s anesthesia?”
“Oh! That’s a fluid injected to your body before you are to be operated, so that you become senseless and don’t sense pain during the whole process.”
“Will even I be?”
“Yeah! Even you.”
Oh! Sigh, I hate only two things of the whole medical system; one those chemical tasting, sour, bitter pills, which are like thousand needles injected to your tongue and other, the injections!
My heart sank of thinking those needles pierced into my body “Mr. Samuel, do you need a wheel bed?”---a sugar-coated voice gently inquired my ears. I looked up and fell in love with those deep blue eyes. She was a beautiful maiden, whom I recognized as a sister or nurse.
“No, Thanks!”---I replied back, trying to prove myself a gentleman, to show her how gentle I was.
“Mr. Sam Vatmore, do come in.”
My uncle looked deep in to my eyes and waved me off, as if I was to be going on front against the Nazis.
“Name?”
I was surprised, he himself called me in by my name.
“Ah! Samuel Vatmore.”
“So, Sam, you seem to become a wrestler or Schumacher or something, don’t you?”
“Nah! Just got myself jogged and dodged in a local football match practice, that’s it. ”
“That’s fine. Turn right and you will find yourself in the operation theatre.”---He said by handing me over a paper-bag, seemed to be full of bottles probably of glucose, and few other equipment.
As my feet turned around, my ears started getting red. I was nervous; my heartbeats were soaring high. I was to be in a surgery room for first time and I could see it with my dark eyes.
I entered the room. The room was dark with only and only three lights flashing round on the bed kept exactly at the center of that room, say large room. The bed, yes, the bed. This is where I’m to be ‘dissected’ today.
I remember myself dissecting dogfishes cruelly at college. But, they were all dead! How could god do this to me? Now, It was I, alive! I could only hope ‘they’ were not as cruel as I was.
‘They’, they were those nicely built up humans tapping their feet on the floor with some sorts of weapons around them. Only, they had their faces covered, probably, to keep themselves unrecognized in case they could do something wrong to me.
The room was quite dim and I felt like a poor chick at a butcher’s shop.
“Get in here.”---Said one of those butchers pointing me towards the bed where I was to be dissected.
I moved slowly towards the bed and they covered me all over. Pushed me tight on the bed, one of them putting my right hand on a stand next-by. He caught my hand tightly and moved out a needle I was most afraid of.
I pushed him off quickly in fear. Then, a beautifully made-up voice, not as good as that nurse’s calmed me up.
That needle was pierced in…and…s.l.o.w..l..y…..
“Name?”
“Samuel Vatmore.”---I replied automatically.
What the hell? Why was I asked my name again? And, wait, what happened to that dark room, those butchers?
I looked around, every one in cool white outfits with gold rings on top of their head, just like a fairy dream! Oh! Hell, Holy cow! Just another dream I seemed to be in.
“No, Sam, no dreams anymore.”---Came a voice which was like enchanting strings of my heart. “Come along.”
That white fancy man took me to a comfy office, one of the biggest I had ever seen. No walls, no doors, just white glittering fog all around. Oh! Wait, take that back, there wasn’t a floor!
After a few walks, the most memorable, I can never ever forget in my life, I was at a reception, a sort of I had never ever seen before. It was so unusual; so much of a fairy.
A person with a smile, seem to have glued on his face, frowning & running down his finger down a very, very long list. I heard him mumble something but, his dress-up took my attention. He looked just like an Indian mythological hero from a series on sacred drama. A gold crown covering his head with head curling out from it, gold pendant swinging from his shaved-looking chest.
But, suddenly, his facial expressions changed completely, no more glued smile.
“So….err… Mr. Samuel Vatmore? Mr. Sam… we oh, sigh, Mr. Samuel Vatmore, we weren’t expecting you so soon. You were supposed to arrive on 31st June 2075 at 13:06:43 PM.”
“Oh!” That’s all I could think of to say. Here’s me wrestling with a weird-looking hospital gown because I must say there was quite a draught from up here, and unfortunately you weren’t allowed knickers in that hospital for some strange reason. Now, I come to think of it I couldn't really remember why the hell I was in the darned thing in the first place.
My head spun around and I took a guess where I was “Am I dead?” I asked in a whisper.
That man who guided me to the reception nodded apprehensively from behind and winged. I took that as yes.
Turning slowly around, I felt was in the twilight zone for the goodness sake. This was just plain silly, I was only 19! I stared at various people in the evergreen single line behind me. There was this one woman who looked as if she had been on earth since the beginning of time, the earth was born. How she managed to shuffle her feet forward every once in a while was behind me. She didn’t have the average amount of wrinkles but she was made out of them! Then, there was a young boy of about 7, I would guess, he was twisting a piece of thin straw between his teeth nervously. He kept closing his eyes tight and then opening them again only to gawp at everyone else’s. Kind of, like me, I guess.
His dark silky hair was getting in the way of his eyes from under his red cap because he kept pushing it back.
I took a glance at the… um… receptionist who was the mythological hero, though, he seemed to have never ever had hair on his chest or something. Cool-looking dude. On earth, he probably would have been the next fashion icon!!
“Ah-elm.” That same old middle-aged man who guided me here was looking at me intently with the dullest eyes I had ever seen. They weren’t only grey, but off-white really. Quite annoyed, he looked.
“I’m afraid, you’re scheduled to go back now, Mr. Samuel. Sorry for any inconvenience, this may have caused you.” He spoke in a quite vital tone. But, now his face changed quite completely, staring at me with hollow eyes. Coming into my eyes, he spoke “But remember, if you speak about this whole event ever to anyone, then, you know you have to come back here.” “And, it might happen, you may be called quite badly, in the most dreadful way, your earth had ever seen.”
Before I could say anything it was all fogs around and in no time he ticked his fingers. And then, I felt being carried hurriedly somewhere out and could smell disinfectant and something like rotten eggs.
“Samuel? Doctor! He’s coming around!” I heard a familiar worried human voice shouting. I could not believe what had just happened. Nor, could I remember. What had happened before it. That was stressful, I was quite unconscious.
“Samuel, sweet heart? Can you hear me?” Well, of course, I could as he was about an inch from my face.
“Oh gawd….. Was that garlic this fellow had in his lunch, bleurgh.”
I murmured something under my breath which even I think, I couldn’t have understood, but that garlic-lover doctor did. He seemed to take it as a signal, I was awake.
“He’ll be alright now. Just getting conscious against anesthesia.”
“But, we would like to run few tests if that’s ok? Bholaram, get him to the ward." Then, he seemed to say something again to my uncle; “You can take him home tomorrow morning, if that’s fine.” That was all garlic-breath talking.
“Yes, doctor, that’ll be fine.” I think, I again felt fast asleep. When I woke up, I found something soft under my head. But this time no garlic and no more human sweating smell resembling to those of rotten eggs and discarded standing socks.
But, I got to remember the dream; wait a minute, was that really a dream or a?
Months and years have passed by, but I still try to remember that dream and wonder was that true? Still confused.
But, that has changed my life for sure. I now know every one has to pay for his deeds here, so my new Mantra for life… Be good...Do Good deeds & that’s how I live my life now! Visiting orphanages, old-age homes! In other way round, I seem to have found the real sense & motive of life!!
Even today, when I stroll down a lonely street, pass-by a meadow or lake or walk along the green woods, I still try to inquire myself- Was that a scary dream or a sacred truth, which I can’t share with anybody!
What was that ???
Was that a dream???
Dream or truth???
Or a trip in real???
“Mr. Samuel Vatmore?”
“Yeah! We are here.”
“OK, fine you are next.”
“That’s fine.” Answered my uncle as I was looking and gazing around the hall. Everyone seemed tensed, worried running here and there; atmosphere of tension all around. And, those white apron wearing nicely built up doctors seemed to be quick, but relaxed. Such an attitude of doctors flashed my brainwaves taking them back to classroom full of students biting nails with their hair standing at the top and facing them is a teacher correcting papers quickly, as if habitual of it as ever. Signing those big heap junks of papers with scribbling all around was never easy for anyone except them.
My uncle and me were at the main surgery Dept. at St. Georgia Hospital, the name every local passer by knew of.
I was living with my uncle and aunt at Baker’s street, north of town. My uncle, a cool head just like my dad. Now that’s obvious. After all, he is my Dad’s younger brother. And my aunt? The deadliest lady ever born on planet earth. When she used to stare me with those big eyes of her; oh! I could get burnt inside for sure. And more to that she used to teach me in my college and it was quite difficult not only for me but anyone to raise their head in her class. She always made me feel, how much I really missed my mom.
My mom, she was a damsel by heart, as gentle as dew running down a red-rose petal at a wintry dawn. But, she was living far away in a county-side with my dad back home in India. That place was heaven’s paradise; seemed like Almighty took every care to make each corner of it by his own charming hand with a delighted heart!! I missed my family a lot, had it not been the higher grade of my academic education, I would have been with my sweet family back home in India!
But, why the hospital and that too a surgical Dept.? A good question to ask. Actually, I injured my right wrist in a local football match. How? No comments anymore.
I was to be operated soon as I hurt my right wrist quite badly. Though, a small surgery, but it was my first surgery from the time I was born on this planet. But, I wasn’t tensed, and, thanks to (Mrs.) Dr. Muswell, head of the surgical Dept. in St. Georgia Hospital, Westwood County. And also, credits to my uncle, who never made either my mother or dad, get worried over the whole process.
In fact, he prepared me in such a way that we were kidding and joking just few moments before the weird thing ever was going to happen with me. We laughed and giggled at a person with a fractured shoulder who looked fit and was not walking to the operation theatre on his own, but was carried through hospital stretcher but he came back quite unconscious and that’s why probably he needed that wheel-bed for sure.
“He’s given with anesthesia” --- My uncle told me calmly. I asked anxiously then, “What’s anesthesia?”
“Oh! That’s a fluid injected to your body before you are to be operated, so that you become senseless and don’t sense pain during the whole process.”
“Will even I be?”
“Yeah! Even you.”
Oh! Sigh, I hate only two things of the whole medical system; one those chemical tasting, sour, bitter pills, which are like thousand needles injected to your tongue and other, the injections!
My heart sank of thinking those needles pierced into my body “Mr. Samuel, do you need a wheel bed?”---a sugar-coated voice gently inquired my ears. I looked up and fell in love with those deep blue eyes. She was a beautiful maiden, whom I recognized as a sister or nurse.
“No, Thanks!”---I replied back, trying to prove myself a gentleman, to show her how gentle I was.
“Mr. Sam Vatmore, do come in.”
My uncle looked deep in to my eyes and waved me off, as if I was to be going on front against the Nazis.
“Name?”
I was surprised, he himself called me in by my name.
“Ah! Samuel Vatmore.”
“So, Sam, you seem to become a wrestler or Schumacher or something, don’t you?”
“Nah! Just got myself jogged and dodged in a local football match practice, that’s it. ”
“That’s fine. Turn right and you will find yourself in the operation theatre.”---He said by handing me over a paper-bag, seemed to be full of bottles probably of glucose, and few other equipment.
As my feet turned around, my ears started getting red. I was nervous; my heartbeats were soaring high. I was to be in a surgery room for first time and I could see it with my dark eyes.
I entered the room. The room was dark with only and only three lights flashing round on the bed kept exactly at the center of that room, say large room. The bed, yes, the bed. This is where I’m to be ‘dissected’ today.
I remember myself dissecting dogfishes cruelly at college. But, they were all dead! How could god do this to me? Now, It was I, alive! I could only hope ‘they’ were not as cruel as I was.
‘They’, they were those nicely built up humans tapping their feet on the floor with some sorts of weapons around them. Only, they had their faces covered, probably, to keep themselves unrecognized in case they could do something wrong to me.
The room was quite dim and I felt like a poor chick at a butcher’s shop.
“Get in here.”---Said one of those butchers pointing me towards the bed where I was to be dissected.
I moved slowly towards the bed and they covered me all over. Pushed me tight on the bed, one of them putting my right hand on a stand next-by. He caught my hand tightly and moved out a needle I was most afraid of.
I pushed him off quickly in fear. Then, a beautifully made-up voice, not as good as that nurse’s calmed me up.
That needle was pierced in…and…s.l.o.w..l..y…..
“Name?”
“Samuel Vatmore.”---I replied automatically.
What the hell? Why was I asked my name again? And, wait, what happened to that dark room, those butchers?
I looked around, every one in cool white outfits with gold rings on top of their head, just like a fairy dream! Oh! Hell, Holy cow! Just another dream I seemed to be in.
“No, Sam, no dreams anymore.”---Came a voice which was like enchanting strings of my heart. “Come along.”
That white fancy man took me to a comfy office, one of the biggest I had ever seen. No walls, no doors, just white glittering fog all around. Oh! Wait, take that back, there wasn’t a floor!
After a few walks, the most memorable, I can never ever forget in my life, I was at a reception, a sort of I had never ever seen before. It was so unusual; so much of a fairy.
A person with a smile, seem to have glued on his face, frowning & running down his finger down a very, very long list. I heard him mumble something but, his dress-up took my attention. He looked just like an Indian mythological hero from a series on sacred drama. A gold crown covering his head with head curling out from it, gold pendant swinging from his shaved-looking chest.
But, suddenly, his facial expressions changed completely, no more glued smile.
“So….err… Mr. Samuel Vatmore? Mr. Sam… we oh, sigh, Mr. Samuel Vatmore, we weren’t expecting you so soon. You were supposed to arrive on 31st June 2075 at 13:06:43 PM.”
“Oh!” That’s all I could think of to say. Here’s me wrestling with a weird-looking hospital gown because I must say there was quite a draught from up here, and unfortunately you weren’t allowed knickers in that hospital for some strange reason. Now, I come to think of it I couldn't really remember why the hell I was in the darned thing in the first place.
My head spun around and I took a guess where I was “Am I dead?” I asked in a whisper.
That man who guided me to the reception nodded apprehensively from behind and winged. I took that as yes.
Turning slowly around, I felt was in the twilight zone for the goodness sake. This was just plain silly, I was only 19! I stared at various people in the evergreen single line behind me. There was this one woman who looked as if she had been on earth since the beginning of time, the earth was born. How she managed to shuffle her feet forward every once in a while was behind me. She didn’t have the average amount of wrinkles but she was made out of them! Then, there was a young boy of about 7, I would guess, he was twisting a piece of thin straw between his teeth nervously. He kept closing his eyes tight and then opening them again only to gawp at everyone else’s. Kind of, like me, I guess.
His dark silky hair was getting in the way of his eyes from under his red cap because he kept pushing it back.
I took a glance at the… um… receptionist who was the mythological hero, though, he seemed to have never ever had hair on his chest or something. Cool-looking dude. On earth, he probably would have been the next fashion icon!!
“Ah-elm.” That same old middle-aged man who guided me here was looking at me intently with the dullest eyes I had ever seen. They weren’t only grey, but off-white really. Quite annoyed, he looked.
“I’m afraid, you’re scheduled to go back now, Mr. Samuel. Sorry for any inconvenience, this may have caused you.” He spoke in a quite vital tone. But, now his face changed quite completely, staring at me with hollow eyes. Coming into my eyes, he spoke “But remember, if you speak about this whole event ever to anyone, then, you know you have to come back here.” “And, it might happen, you may be called quite badly, in the most dreadful way, your earth had ever seen.”
Before I could say anything it was all fogs around and in no time he ticked his fingers. And then, I felt being carried hurriedly somewhere out and could smell disinfectant and something like rotten eggs.
“Samuel? Doctor! He’s coming around!” I heard a familiar worried human voice shouting. I could not believe what had just happened. Nor, could I remember. What had happened before it. That was stressful, I was quite unconscious.
“Samuel, sweet heart? Can you hear me?” Well, of course, I could as he was about an inch from my face.
“Oh gawd….. Was that garlic this fellow had in his lunch, bleurgh.”
I murmured something under my breath which even I think, I couldn’t have understood, but that garlic-lover doctor did. He seemed to take it as a signal, I was awake.
“He’ll be alright now. Just getting conscious against anesthesia.”
“But, we would like to run few tests if that’s ok? Bholaram, get him to the ward." Then, he seemed to say something again to my uncle; “You can take him home tomorrow morning, if that’s fine.” That was all garlic-breath talking.
“Yes, doctor, that’ll be fine.” I think, I again felt fast asleep. When I woke up, I found something soft under my head. But this time no garlic and no more human sweating smell resembling to those of rotten eggs and discarded standing socks.
But, I got to remember the dream; wait a minute, was that really a dream or a?
Months and years have passed by, but I still try to remember that dream and wonder was that true? Still confused.
But, that has changed my life for sure. I now know every one has to pay for his deeds here, so my new Mantra for life… Be good...Do Good deeds & that’s how I live my life now! Visiting orphanages, old-age homes! In other way round, I seem to have found the real sense & motive of life!!
Even today, when I stroll down a lonely street, pass-by a meadow or lake or walk along the green woods, I still try to inquire myself- Was that a scary dream or a sacred truth, which I can’t share with anybody!
