The Unseen

How long?

The pain bled through her skin. The needles and pipes and the nausea by the second, the spinning head and its heaviness. How long?

The world up here was surreal and deluded. It contained no atmosphere no force of existence. The blurry wave and the liquefied visions. Sometimes words are heard- like screams and cries. And the continuous babbles in the background. The fog will not cease and the scent of narcotics. Maybe, it was meant to last forever.

*********

She draped the bed sheet over the lining, clipping two cloth clips on it and lifted the empty bucket. All done. Her eyes winced away from the flicker of an arrogant sun. She sighed. Ukio bred its own sun she felt. A sunless day is a rarity. She heard of the mighty storm that hauled onto the city she left and the village’s and farmlands further on the edge. Ukio however, just experienced a rash of it. No thunder growled, no lightning dared. But there was the wind-aggressive and entertaining and cool as spring. The wind played along with her hair, making them fly into the air and fall down again. She wondered if the children were out that storm. What were they doing? How many of them were there? She wondered about the cafe she left- Cherry Coffee Cafe. We’re the girls doing fine? Did it shut down because of the storm? Who knows? She doesn’t call them. Neither do they. It was too early for contact anyway.

Besides, she thought, they really didn’t care.

**********

“Would you check inmate 53′s blood pressure nurse”. The doctor wore glasses with his blue eyes looking at inmate 53 and scribbling away. He was the doctor with the permanent frown. No rather it was concentrated inquisition. He watched inmate 53 in his CC TV and made frequent visits to his room. He would be often alone seldom bringing a nurse but when the nurses do arrive, they also bring him doses of varieties.

Some of those doses made him heavy sleeper-sleeping for eternity. Some made him active and euphoric. Most didn’t help. He didn’t really have any mental sickness. It was impossible to explain it to others. He devised a plan. He will act perfectly fine and get his pass out of this mental asylum.

“How are you doing?” The doctor asked.

“Fine” he answered grumpily.

“Look at me” the doctor commanded. He turned his head to look into his ridiculous glasses. “I know you love your beers but we can’t allow you any. This is a hospital after all. You have been a heavy drinker weren’t you?”

He grunted in reply. He didn’t know how much drinking one needs to be a heavy drinker. “You need some pacifism in your life.” The doctor stated. “Your kind of violent with high level of testosterone in your blood. You can easily dent the peaks by relaxing and meditating.”

He stared into the doctors eyes.

“And about your hallucinations...its not quite what it is, is it?” The question lingered. “Tell me... when did you start seeing them?”

**********

He slammed the papers on the table. The other man on his chair looked up from the phone. He put it down and took the papers in hand. “Whats this?” The man inquired. “I asked you for a juicy story did you get one?”

“Yes. I have something from the storm”

The editor sighed his exasperation. He pushed the paper’s away with a finger. “Anything other than the storm?”

The twenty three year old journalist took a seat. “Its a true story. Teenagers and drunk youths would love it.” He assured. His editor took the papers and read it through.

“Is this a true story?” His eyes surprised. “But anything printed on our magazine is always a scam...” The editor regretted.

“It certainly is.” He chimed. “I even mentioned the witness. And here’s some photos.” He slid some photos in the editors direction. He looked at them. “Its just a white rose.”

“Yes” he assured. “A white rose that survived the avalanche-unscathed”

***********

The fair ground bustled with people of all kinds. It was the “farmer’s fair” and giant size pumpkins and watermelons and cucumbers were for show. Older women and children astonished themselves with the giant vegetables. There were other activities. For instance the kite flying contest was popular among the kids and teenagers tried out the pin ball games. She was having none of that. For she stood by the grill and cooked away skewers after skewers of lamb kebabs. Her grandmother’s recipe and always a fair delight every year. Her brother and mother managed the grills on the previous year when she was working in the city. This year, her mother graduated her to the barbecue pits.

Her lamb kebabs sold in numbers. The permanent crowd around her stall made her anxious as much as happy to attain this volume of customers. If she failed, her brother would fix it and everyone in the crowd seemed to know him well like their neighbour and didn’t hesitate to ask for small favours.

“Coat my kebab with extra butter.” One lady asserted.

“And cheese? I know you love your cheese melted..” Her brother added being a good sport.

“Yes boy that too. This kid knows too much about me....” the lady complained smiling broadly. It was odd knowing how much these random people truly connected with one another, passing remarks like breaths. In the city this kind of gestures would have earned her curse words.

“Girl! You should better know how much chilli I like on mine” an old lady in her eighties told her. She smiled and tossed peppers into the next kebab. Maybe, her dad was right after all.

************

“I don’t remember.”

The doctor studied his face for a slight second. “Don't stress it.” He advised, fixing his glasses on top of his nose. “Its good to know you realize that they are hallucinations. We have such patients a lot here, some with more complicated cases.” The doctors blue eyes fled him. The focused on the report on his hand. The doctor was playing him into spilling the beans. His greasy mind knew better.

“May I know what you see when you hallucinate. It could be a memory from the past. I understand from your behaviours that they do not strike fear with you. Rather...The opposite. Is there someone your angry at, someone you resent?”

“My dad”

The doctor moved away his gaze. “Family feuds are half the reason why this place exist. He left you as a child and you barely saw him. You hated to see your mother toil to raise you. And sometimes...Her frustrations were aimed at you. Maybe as a child you hated your poverty. Never had the same toys as the other kids. And I presume you were shunned in general by them.” The doctor needed no affirmation of what he said. They were full truth. His profession made him highly experienced.

He looked into the doctor with awe he thought he could never show anyone. His unmoving expression further confirmed it.

He continued with the drama. He only needed the release permit.

“Yes. You are correct. I hallucinate those ugly haggard boys and the father I barely knew and start fighting them. That's all. Even though I know they aren’t real.”

“Yes the high level of testosterone in your blood says so. But again...it’s not your father or those boys. It’s something else and you can’t control it.” Again it was a statement and no affirmation needed and he hated that the doctor was so accurate.

***********

The words weren’t paranormal noise anymore. They actually had an edge to them. And they became clearer by the second. The fog around her self wrapped itself and she stared into the blazing white that followed. Her eyes sore from its brightness. Heaven? No for the aching intensified and her body seemed to be in a tight leash. A black blob appeared out of nowhere. The random Buzz like voice! It was tuned into something much more pleasant- true clean words.

“Her vitals steady so far...”

She hurled her head to look up. The nurse’s surprised look dissolved into a sigh. “She’s awake!” She called out. A female doctor hastily approached her and took her palm into hers. “Its okay...your fine.” The doctor spoke in her reassuring tone. In response, her grey eyes searched around her. She attempted to sit up but the tubes and IV drips stopped her. She winced in pain.

“Its okay. Your in the hospital. It’s been two days since you were rescued from the graveyard. Do you remember?”

She blinked her grey eyes.

“That's alright. The head goes a little blurry at times like this. Don’t try so hard to remember.” The doctor recommended and pulled the blanket over her body. “The storm claimed many lives. Be glad your not one.” She gave her a wide lipstick smile.

She didn’t know how to feel. She heard the howls teasing the air. Her children needed her.

**********

The magazine had the photo of that one white rose. Such a cliche story for the month. All sorts of newspaper and magazines were publishing away heroic survival tales from the storm. A single white rose could never compete with their strength. But it was published. The graveyard guard bought the first copy knowing his name was mentioned as ‘witness’ and he advertised it more than anyone. He went and made a little protective fence around the rose to help it stay intact. The very same white rose he now shadowed. His shadow moving ominously when a head peeked out to see him. The white ball like eyes stared hungrily.

He observed the rose instead. A week has perished and it still suspends in health. People may call it a scam of an article- the miracle of a never aging rose. False and truth combined, it was still a miracle. Though he knew better.

“I see you’ve been protecting this rose.” He told the boyish shadow creature by his foot. “How long can you do it?” He asked. He knelt down and looked down onto the creature’s eyes. “Tell me...You can heal others to some extent?”

The creature watched him. Only silence. “Its not even that. To be more exact, as shadows you have some domain over the time flow of a region or body. So is that what happening now? Did you slow down the flow of time?”

The creature couldn’t have been more aggravated. It nodded its head. “I knew it!” He exclaimed. “I knew it! ” his delight knew no bound.

************

“The pill will help with your aggression” the doctor swooned away, his final steps past the door. The nurse who accompanied him prepared his medicine. All the while he looked wary.

“Yes. My imaginations. The creatures that haunts my dreams. Their faces sometime resemble the kids and sometime the face I expect my father to have.”

The doctor absorbed his every word. “You know we have records of you admitted to a mental hospital at the age of nine. Then there are the police reports on you...” The doctor turned a page. “...You were a reckless citizen yet you were no part of any gang. You like to be solo knowing that’s how you grew up.” The doctor shook his head. “It has to be loneliness. All these hallucinations, these resent and adrenaline wave- all an expression of your loneliness. You don’t know how to react so that’s what you do.”

"You're much better than our other inmates. It’s only been a week and I think your better already!” The doctor intended to compliment but it strangely sounded like sarcasm.

“The police charges against you will be dropped if we can produce a report stating clearly of your mental illness.” The doctors blue eyes found his. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell them I’m mentally unstable and it is a chronic illness. And I’ll be fine on my own”

The doctor laughed. Irony. “You're clever. A mad man wouldn’t have said that. Do I guess it’s official now...You are fine. With the pills that I’ll assign you, it’ll keep your hallucinations at the bay. And of course...it’s time you socialize and beat that loneliness.”

The doctor was walking away. He waved at the nurse who was triggered into sudden exuberance. This move made him suspicious.

“The pill will help you with your aggression” the doctor swooned away, his final steps past the door. And that’s how it started, making him wary of the nurse’s activity. He didn’t expect the doctor to be convinced on attempt one. There is definitely something about this geeky man.

“We will formally announce your release. Don’t worry...Adios to your old cranky life” the man was gone. He remained frozen. The nurse plunged the syringe down. Only then he felt the needle bite. She gathered her things and trotted away, the lights in the room becoming greyer. The next moment it was just the sleep.