A Calling in The City of Dreams

Prologue

It is a battle. The most dreadful one you can ever imagine. The enemy is invisible. You sense it only after it starts attacking you. You think you will get help. And you will. You get a whole mechanized army. The best in the world. Your heart starts firing like never before. The enemy retreats. Yet, a cloud of thought hovers over: “Is this just a calm before the storm?” At dawn, the nemesis emerges from the shadows. Your armor is still strong, and you fight it with all valor. Time races. The enemy snaps. You feel as if you are losing the ground beneath your feet. The army is drained out. Your innate ammunition is exhausted. You scream for help as the darkness lurks closer.

The Chapter

The clock struck for the umpteenth time that morning, waking me up to the monotonous coos of the pigeons on my windowsill. As I tried to evade the residual sleep and checked on the day’s notifications on my phone, a few faces sprung up into my memory. An 11-year-old boy who had come from his village to say a final goodbye to his mother. A 26-year-old engineer who felt estranged from his father, who was paraplegic due to cancer. A 65-year-old lady who had requested our palliative care team to not leave her side in the ward. Running behind schedule, I tucked the memories away as I prepared myself for the day’s hassles.

I paved my way through the crowded corridors into the clinic. There was an abominable lull hanging in the air. People gave stares at the staff and other patients waiting for their turns, making their sense of incertitude palpable. In one corner, my colleague was attending a patient who was moaning in pain. A gloomy face caught my eye, and I wondered whether she was crying too—on the inside. There were innumerable questions written on every face: Why me? Why am I here? What would happen to my family while I am gone? How am I going to face my dear ones’ death? Will the doctor suggest a better solution for my pain now? Will the doctor be angry because I didn’t take the medicine properly? When will this end? Where will I go from here? Does this mean that I have reached the end of my journey? Too many questions without answers.

On the other side, there were feel-good stories too. Those who had slept well after a long while because their pain got controlled or because they had talked their heart out to someone for the very first time. People who had a sense of safety and certainty because they felt they had a place to come back to, a place where they will always be taken care of. For some, it was better than the streets outside, where they were forced to live and count their days.

The ward atmosphere was even more profound. It was difficult to process everything as I joined the rounds, keeping all sorts of emotions beneath the surface. Reversing opioid toxicity on one hand, decompressing an obstructed bowel on the other; managing a pain crisis in one patient, breaking bad news to another; explaining what palliative care is to a perplexed family member. One patient who initially told he was completely fine despite being paraplegic revealed a chasm of existential distress with a simple question about his sleep. Breaking bad news had become a daily routine.

Finally, we reached the bedside of a 12-year-old girl. Her mother was sitting on the floor near her bed. As we went near, she looked up with eyes of exhaustion and despair. The child was in a stupor and had visible signs of pain. Before I could tell her anything, she told me the history from the start. How the tumor had struck suddenly, and her child started slipping away in front of her eyes within a very short span of time. As the floodgate of tears opened, we just sat there by her side. None of us could speak anything as she repeated this question: “How can a mother ever witness her child in this state?” As she continued her story, her words bespoke the sense of guilt and fear that she felt because her family and villagers had apparently put the blame on her. After adding the necessary supportive measures and staying with her for some time, we left the wards.

As I felt the wave of emotions churn inside me, my teacher’s words echoed in my ears: “Go home once your work is done. Do not carry with you the conversations you had with the families or patients. Leave all that at work. It is important for preventing you yourself getting burned out.” I checked my watch; we had a team briefing followed by tea, and we called it a day.

Night had set in when I returned to my room. I checked the deadlines for my projects on my wall and sighed in exasperation because everything seemed insignificant in front of the myriad questions that were looming large in my clouded mind. As I tried to solve the day’s wordle, I felt sleep seeping into my body. Once again, the day bid me goodbye amid the bustle of the never-ending traffic in the city of dreams. Meanwhile, in the ward across my window, a couple cuddled around their daughter as she slipped away from her suffering and slept in peace. A light wind blew as the moon beamed from its realm above.

Epilogue

A few forms emerge, a sliver of hope in the darkness. They run, encroach your new enemy—this time in the apparition of terrifying pain. They return to hold your broken soul, reassemble the lost pieces of your existence, and restore your identity and dignity. As the dusk draws closer, above the crimson horizon, there appears a palette. As the hues form an array, you see the avid life you have lived. You discern the stronghold of your ties and relationships. Far away, the sun starts sinking into the sea. The swallows start returning to their nests. For a moment, your soul cherishes all your memories. Through half-open eyes, you see the first star of the evening. Bliss sets in as your soul sets sail towards eternity.