Lesson at Midnight
a soliloquy outside the ICU
It was a loud, heart-rendering wail which went piercing the thick glass doors of the intensive care area and impaled the dark stillness of that night on it. I had stood rooted to the ICU floor beside his bed when a chorus of laments that followed the wail jolted me out of that momentary inertia. The reality of another mortality had dawned upon me too, like lightning and thunder flashing on the dark horizon. Just a little while ago, having seen the persistent flat line on the head side monitor, I had signalled to call off all attempts at resuscitation.
Vanquished? I quietly accepted it. Having acknowledged my inability to assist in the further continuation of the life process for that patient, I walked out of the ICU only to pause a few moments later. What was it? This momentary pause had eternity nestling in its confines. It brought me the echoes of another wailing drifting in from the opposite end of that long corridor. Those uncontrollable laments, inconsolable sobbing or unanswerable questioning from the ICU did not follow it. And neither did I need straining my ears to decipher the event. Years of medical training and practice had made it easy for me to recall the oft-repeated scene ushering the dawn of a new life within the confines of the labour room. A little later the obstetric nurse would have placed the baby in the caring embrace of the new mother and then in another corner of the same premises some cheer would have spread like a ripple on the deceptively mysterious calm on the surface of a lake.
Alone and having come out by that time, I gazed at the frosted glass panes guarding the dark solitude of the most brightly lit and active part of the hospital premises. The corridor, its loneliness with its wailing and crying, tears and smiles, sobs and glee had antedated me and all those whom I had succeeded. It must have been a silent witness to God knows how many more of such departing and welcoming and, the most intense flurry of medical action all through day and night day after day and week after week.
It was much beyond midnight. A pall of dark stillness descended all around. In that darkness, did I see the silhouettes of my thoughts concerning life getting extinguished and kindled at the same time and same place? It must be a similar scene, getting repeatedly enacted all across the globe and across all timelines. Irrespective of their physical distance and the emotional reactions generated by these two events, they appeared like pillars, resting on which a bridge spanned an endless chasm. Soon this darkness would also melt away as it had done night after night since millennia and the routine hustle-bustle of the hospital would emerge out of this stillness.
A relentless continuity stretches unabated all around us. It contains within it innumerable ends and beginnings. Wave after wave the ocean continues to emerge out of its depths only to return after having gifted some shells or maybe some pearls, drawn some wavy patterns ever drenched yet ever parched sands. And of course, while retreating, the waves carry away the rows upon rows of trailing footprints bequeathed to the seashores by unknown sailors and voyagers. This interminable continuity, punctuated by inevitable pauses, plays its act all around us for us to see and savour, dwell and discover, participate and partake.
I got transported to the realms beyond shadows and lights. There is this one invisible thread that connected all of us, running through our beings. I wondered at the destiny of the land segment which housed the hospital and that of those like me in places like this all across the globe. Night had matured, and it crept right up to me. Was it reading my thoughts? Just one among many functionaries in that medical organisation, I was also a contributor to the enormous effort of discovering the existence and the strength of this invisible yet much tangible thread that binds as well as liberates. It does so by making an opportunity available to us to delve deeper into the essential processes of life.
From centerstage to periphery, from performing the act to witnessing the show; shifting between assigned and assumed roles all of us are continuously making our offerings out of all that the existence bestows upon us. This endless play is being hosted on an infinite stage. Shifting between roles we perform as well as witness this play, and it continues on and on. This was the thought that put me at rest that lasted a brief period till the beeper came alive yet once again!
