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N A N D I N I

The one thing I have always wanted in life was for it to come with a manual— an instruction booklet to make everything perfect, just the way I like it.

Needless to say, I was a control freak.

But life doesn't always go on the way you want it to.

I loved making my own choices, but sometimes, they just didn't get implemented the way I liked it.

The last time I got this helpless feeling was when my high school crush Manik Malhotra proposed to my childhood best friend Aliya and she said yes. It was as if I felt a part of me shatter inside, and I didn't really know whom to blame.

I was a reserved introvert, and Aliya was the only person I ever opened up too. I told her everything about myself, except that I crushed on Manik since the day I entered high school. I grieved for days, didn't talk to her at all, but finally came to accept that this was what fate wanted.

I came around her, and told her it was just PMS making me bitter for a few days. There was no chance I was accepting my feelings to her about her boyfriend, so I suppressed them deep inside me.

He was my best friend's boyfriend. And that's all he'd ever be.

The reason I told you this whole story was, today, I felt this feeling again. One year later, I felt this helpless and soul shattering feeling in my heart again and once more, nothing made sense.

It was an absolute fine everyday morning, I woke up to snow outside my house and my mom and I decided to pay a visit to our Aunt, who lived an hour away from Folks, the town I lived in.

I closed my eyes nearly ten minutes after the ride started, planning to take a quick nap. The soft music in the radio played and I hummed to it until it faded away and sleep greeted me.

But when I opened my eyes next, nothing was the same anymore. There was a spinning and bright lights flashing everywhere and some absolute pain in my abdomen which made me feel like my body was tearing apart. I could feel warm liquid which I suspected as blood flow right from my head to my hands and I could feel myself being thrown outside the car.

A large truck had dashed into us from my opposite side, and my mother had taken it on herself. The impact on me was still so painful and coiling that I couldn't begin to think what it did to my mom.

But what was the worst part?

After a few minutes that felt like a bag of hours, the pain subsided. My body felt numb and every fear I was feeling just contracted and vanished.

And then my eyes opened.

I was still on the ground. As I got up, I didn't feel tired or hurt. There were no blood stains on me and I was just as I had left Home in the morning, wearing the black woollen sweater with a red checks skirt and black stockings underneath it, with brown ankle length boots. My hair was unmoved behind my back as if freshly combed and the baby pink scarf was still on its place.

I smelled like a fresh bouquet of flowers, and not someone who had just been in an accident.

My car lied a few feet away from me, like a cramped piece of metal, it's white colour scrapped at a few places revealing the silver metal underneath, gas leaking from a corner into the snow.

I walked towards it slowly, afraid.

"Mom?" I called, loud. My voice resonated back to me from the trees. And then I saw her. There was blood all over her face and hands, and shattered glass had pierced her forehead and right cheek. She was pale and lifeless, her lips cold and blue.

I covered my mouth in shock, falling behind. I waited for the reality to hit and tears to emerge, but that never happened as I sat on the ground staring at her in horror. My mom was the only family I acknowledged.

When I had just taken in her fallen body, I realised I wasn't crying. I couldn't feel the heart break or the pain I should feel looking at my mother struggling to live.

It was as if I didn't have a heart anymore.

From the wideness, I saw an ambulance approaching and a team of doctors and nurses rushing in with the stretchers in their hands. They all rushed to mom, putting her one a white stretcher that immediately sucked her blood and the white turned into red.

I looked away, waiting for help to reach me and remove me from the trauma I was in, but that never happened too.

Instead, they rushed to my car and the truck that was responsible for all of it, half of them plucking out an unconscious driver, and the other half surrounded my car, extracting another body out of it.

My eyes widened in nothing but pure horror as I saw my body being pulled out from the car's window, covered in blood and dismantled like I had expected myself to be.

Was I dead?

Was I in the transferring period, when my soul entered the after life?

Would there be a bright light now, and the dead of my family come to take me with them?

I waited for something, for anything— but nothing happened.

I followed my body into the ambulance, softly sitting beside the team of people working on me. They connected tubes everywhere they could, inspecting wounds and plucking out glass pieces.

I was invisible to all of them.

"She's alive," the lady doctor exclaimed. "The pulse rate is low, but it's present. We need to get her to the hospital before we lose her. She's in Coma."

And now it made sense. Everything suddenly made so much more sense.

My family, although we live in London, our routes belong in India. I, just like my grandmother, had so much interest in mythology and learning more about my religion. She had once told me, that Coma is also known has half death in some books. It's so called because our soul get's detached from your body. You can hear everything that happens around you, see the people, feel it, understand it, but not respond— because your body lies still, but your soul doesn't.

All my childhood, this had fascinated me a lot, maybe because I was convinced that this was nothing more than a myth, and science could never prove what actually happens when you're in Coma. All they'd say was that your body would be paralysed but your mind would be active.

They were wrong. My body was paralysed, but my soul was active.

I spent the next ten minutes to the hospital, amusing myself. I felt like a ghost. I would touch people but they wouldn't feel me. I would put all my strength in trying to move something as light as a feather but nothing happened. All that separated me from being an actual ghost was that I couldn't fly through walls, and nothing I could do would make them see me. I followed my body, jogging to keep up as it was taken in the OT. I stayed out.

It must sound crazy how my body was fighting a war between life and death and I was out here, looking at the hustle and bustle of the hospital.

But suddenly, everything started darkening. There could be two reasons: one, that I was dying. Or two, the link between me and my body was breaking.

I had read in a mythology book, that the link couldn't extend for more than a few kilometers. And I was barely twenty feet away. But I hurried back, cause if the link broke, I would be living in a dark world forever.

As I reached outside the OT, I waited for someone to open the door so that I could get inside. It didn't happen for the longest time, and the darkness disappeared, so I simply sat in a corner.

I was helpless.

I still wasn't being able to comprehend what was actually happening because what I had read just in books, was happening to me.

This felt like a huge nightmare and I would probably get up in my bed screaming and then go tell Aliya and Cabir all about my silly dream. I wouldn't tell Mom ofcourse, because the idea of me dying would freak her out.

I wanted to check on Mom. I wanted to see how she's doing. But here I was, again, helpless.

"How's the kid doing?" I heard a familiar voice. My head snapped up to see the lady doctor, talking to another man. I walked there fast, wanting to hear about myself.

"Okay, I guess?" The man replied. "She's into Coma. Her hand has been dismantled a bit, and she has a few broken rib cages— four to be precise. We've had to put in a pipe to continue her breathing, the brain damage is intense."

"Oh," the lady doctor was sad, and I knew I liked her instantly. "Have we located her family?"

"Hmm," the man doctor replied, his batch read Dr. Parker. "There aren't a lot of Indians living in Folks, locating was easy. She has an Aunt, who's already on her way here. She had a few friends, driving here. One of them just lived on the across street, he's in the waiting area."

"What about her mom, Dr. Stella?" Dr. Parker asked. "Critical," the lady, who's name
I assume was Stella, answered.

Although I didn't feel any emotions anymore, I felt something sinking deep inside me. I desperately wanted mom to be okay, she was the only family I had after Dad left us for someone else and my grandparents passed away. I couldn't imagine a world without her, and I needed her to be okay, for me.

"The operation was successful. We've successfully got her hand back in place, just leaving a few stitches. We're shifting her to room 210, under the strictest observations from the best doctors," Dr. Parker informed. Stella nodded, and they both walked different ways.

I spent the next seven minutes trying to find room 210. I thought it must be on the second floor, but it wasn't. It was right beside the OT. My soul could be dumb too.

I swiftly entered the room through the door when a nurse was entering, and was remained stunned with what I saw. The room was white, everything in the room was white—from the curtains and doors and bed and it's sheets. There were cameras on all sides, not CCTVs, but monitoring cameras.

In the middle of the room was a bed, which was a little bigger than a single bed. It had monitoring machines on both sides, and I lied on it. I didn't look like myself.

There were uncountable tubes passing through me, small ones right through my nose that helped me breathe, one in my stomach that helped me feed, one connected to my urinary system to let me pee, some directly into my veins to keep me hydrated. Lucky for me, they weren't all visible, only the one attached to my vein was. There was a plaster on my right hand and my forehead was covered in bandages too. My eyes were closed, all the blood was wiped off my pale skin, my earring were removed and I was changed into a hospital gown.

My face was still me. My body was still me. But internally, I wasn't me at all. I was a girl on life supporting systems, going to give up anytime.

"Five minutes, not more, not less," I heard the nurse who had entered inside with me talk to someone. I turned around, surprised to see the man I was least expecting to.

Manik Malhotra.

"I promise ma'am, thank you," he pleaded, before rushing in and sitting by the visitor's chair on the left of my bed, while I sat on the one to its right, opposite to him.

He couldn't see me, the actual me— but I could. He had worn his football jersey with jeans and put on a leather jacket upon it. I assume he must be at practice when he received Aliya's call and had to rush here to check on me. For her.

"Hi Nandini," He whispered, "I know we don't each other except that you are Aliya's best friend, and me, her boyfriend."

Oh Manik, only if you knew.

"I got a call from Aliya about an hour ago, she was crying, freaking out. She was so scared, you know... the only thought of losing you was making her crazy. She wanted to rush in here, planning to complete a thirty minute ride in thirty seconds. I couldn't let her drive in alone, I'm sure you didn't want her to end up on a bed beside you, right? I sent Cabir to get her, promising her to stay right by your side until she arrives. So don't be mad at me, okay? I'm sticking around whether you like it or not."

I wish I could tell him right how much I'd love it. But the truth being, he was staying here for Aliya, to make her happy. If not for Aliya, he didn't give a damn if I died or survived this.

"But just 'cause I don't know you a lot, doesn't mean I care any less about you," His shivering hands held my left hand cautiously, as if afraid he'd break me.

"I've heard so much about you from her. Hell, I could even write a book on you. I know who live with your mum, that you've had a tough childhood, that you love reading books, you love writing, you love interior designing, you love black and that you've never been in love," He chuckled.

The last part was wrong, but except that, he was doing fine. That is the most about me that anyone has ever known, but he got all these facts from Aliya and Aliya knows every single thing about me, so I shouldn't be surprised. But what actually amused me was that he remembered. He didn't just listen to his girlfriend randomly ranting about me and then forget it the next day.

Two possibilities: either one, he really loved her and never forgot a single word she told him; or two, he had this amazing memory of a robot. The first did seem more practical though.

"But let me tell you a secret. I always wanted to be your friend long before I got to know that you were Aliya's best friend. I and you went to the same college, if you'd remember.... and I really liked the way you didn't care about the world. You didn't want to be the next head cheerleader of the boys' soccer team, you just wanted to be left alone on the last bench with your book. That has always amused me, you know. You're amazing, Nandini Murthy, please don't give up. The world needs more people like you," he said.

I was stunned, speechless. I wanted to move across, take his hand in mine and hug him and never leave him, no matter what. But our realities were so different.

"Your five minutes are over. Up and out now, please," the nurse reminded, breaking my bubble. Manik nodded, taking in a deep breath as he kept my hand where it was and I missed his warmth, when I didn't even know how his touch felt like.

"Aliya's always told me you're the strongest person she's ever known, it's time to prove that," he whispered, getting up.

"Please come back, I— we'd be waiting," he whispered near my ear, leaving, without turning back to give my lifeless body another glance, also leaving me in a pool of emotions.

I wish I could come back, Manik.

That's all I wanted now, more desperately then I wanted a father when I was seven, looking at all my friends having a complete family.

I wanted to come back to my mom, to Aliya, to Cabir, to my Aunt, to the world, to my world— to him.

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Medic terms:

A coma is a prolonged state of unconsciousness. During a coma, a person is unresponsive to his or her environment. The person is alive and looks like he or she is sleeping. However, unlike in a deep sleep, the person cannot be awakened by any stimulation, including pain.

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Questions:

1. Did you like the update?

2. I hope it's not confusing? (If so, please let me know your questions and I'd patiently answer them all)

3. Did you expect something like this after the Prologue?

4. Manik is Aliya's boyfriend. Thoughts?

5. Your favourite part of the chapter?

6. Do you think Nandini will survive this?

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love and love,
Heer. xx