The ICU

My eyes were groggy. Perhaps it's due to the night journey back home. Perhaps it wasn't proper to smoke that cigarette once I woke up early in the morning. My heart wasn't in good shape. And dad, a dying man in the ICU now looked at me once opening his eyes and said...Boy, take care of your health, wear the mask. 

I drove to the hospital where my father, now seventy seven, was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit, a bad fall, resulting in surgery and now urine infection and multiple organ failure creeping up through his entire system. Yes, I was slowly starting to accept that he would die eventually. 

Once I reached the hospital, as I parked my vehicle, I pulled out another cigarette and lit up. 

How strange it is, thought, I'm walking around in this body that I have, while the old man is dying. 

"Doctor, how's his health now?" I asked the physician who was examining the reports and the MRI plate of my Father. 

"Well....not much of an improvement. He's on life support, as you might be knowing well"

"Yeah..."

I sat beside my father's bed, held his palm and kept looking at him, his eyes closed, an oxygen supply mask over his face. He looked calm...as if now completely agreeable to his present condition, as if telling silently.....I am ready to go. It's just a matter of time.

As I sat there with the cold air from the air conditioning drying up my sweat I suddenly felt his hands quiver. 

"Dad....are you ok"....I whispered into his ear.

I was feeling his palms starting to clench mine, and was surprised at the way the feeble man on his deathbed could generate that much amount of strength. Or was he about to pass out...was this just the effulgence of that sudden spurt of energy that human bodies produce just before passing out...I wanted to rise up and call the nurses but my father was clutching my hand in a way I just couldn't let go of. Yeah, in his youth he had been a strong man, had been a cricketer too....but how is it possible for him to produce this much amount of strength in his present condition!!!

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked straight at me....eyes very very calm, so calm that they looked rather uncanny....paranormal, and he smiled. Very feebly with his other hand, he gestured to pull down the Oxygen supply mask. I did so, and he said in a voice which seemed to come from the end of a tunnel far far away....a strange hollowness abounding it..,.

"Son....why aren't you taking care of your health....you smoked again..…"

How did he know that!!!

I was stunned. 

I stood there for sometime, and suddenly I felt the doctor standing beside me...and he said...Sorry, we couldn't save your dad. You came here a bit late, he expired half an hour prior to that.

H..h..how is that possible doctor!!! I stammered....I was here, and I asked you how he was doing and you said he was on life support!!! 

I looked at my Father now....his body was covered , a white cloth over it, face included.

The doctor was gone. A nurse came and told me...the paperwork is done. Please go to the office and collect it. Just before passing out, your Father had asked where you were and we replied...your son is on the way, we called him.