Claustrophobia.
On Saturday I had to pronounce a guy dead.
Pale as the sheet that already covered his head when I walk in, his family looking more relieved than sad, on the phone, calling relatives, discussing funeral arrangements. And all the time I think, she'll be like this, there'll be some intern pulling out her stethoscope, maybe even a girl I went to primary school with, looking at her pale face, with the nose that I inherited, and she'll feel just as cold, no breath sounds, no heart sounds, pupils fixed and dilated. Check, check, check, time of death this many hours, cause of death this type of cancer, sign here, date there, and off we go.
Where is his soul now? Is it in heaven or hell? I think this as I listen to the sound of nothing on his chest.
In my dinner break I consider where she is now. In a hospital, like me. Alone, like me. Thinking about her death, like me. What else would you be thinking of? I curse myself for the pathetic preoccupations that ever pained me. I curse myself for the things I still do in enjoyment. The guilt. I am well and she is sick. I live my life and she isn't going to soon.
I feel queasy and I can't breathe. I don't want to go there. But I know I have to.
The sky.
Indigo-lilac-blue.
The colour of the winter sky, though present every day, is rarely seen. Its observation is always paired with events of significance, little landmarks in our lives. For why else would one be awake, thinking, moving, at this uninhabited hour of dawn's break? It is the backdrop to quiet dramas, hospital rides as waters break and babies arrive, tiptoes into the house after dancing and dizziness, all-night conversations about nothing to a new love.
As it is now, a silent car ride to the airport.
The traffic is quiet, houses dormant, burnt-orange street lights bow to sprays of wet rain puddles as cars glide by. Whooosh, whooosh. The sky beckons me to peer out the passenger window, to press my face against the cold glass, to marvel at its infinite horizon.
Anticipation brings on a heightened sense of reality, to the point where concrete becomes abstract. It is strange to think that some hours from now, a different land exists. The chatter is foreign, the pace frantic, the air heavy with smog. Being excused from one set of realities to enter another - one more raw and melancholic, more grown up.
Life stands still as the aeroplane pulls in. I don't know what to expect. What will I have gained in those suspended days? What will be going through my head as I make the reverse dreary journey on the drive home?
I am afraid. I look up at the sky, but it does not reply.
