It was a mysterious place. Semi-dark and narrow. There was a ladder, slippery and flooding with water flowing down from an open space on the ceiling as if it were a falls. The only light present in the room was coming down from the opening. Otherwise, the room would be dark and desolate.

I was trying to climb up the ladder, but I was afraid of being wet in the water. Therefore, I was evading the water-flow hiding myself under the ladder. I wanted to climb up the ladder anyhow so that I could leave that dreary place behind.

Suddenly some water that dropped from above splashed over me. I tried to avoid it and twitched my body for it. My eyes opened in agony, and I found myself lying in my bed at a mysterious place. It took me some minutes to realise that I was in a hospital ICU bed.

An elderly nurse showed up herself near my bed and asked me in a melodious voice, “Beta, dard hai? (Son, are you feeling pain?)” Her loving tone reminded me of my mother at home.

I could not move my body. I was having a dull pain below my right arm-pit. Then I remembered I was in the military hospital in Dehra Dun, and the surgeons had performed a biopsy surgery in my liver. I had been bed-ridden for more than two years due to jaundice, and the doctors had a suspicion of cirrhosis in my liver.

I had been admitted to the hospital a week before. That morning when the doctors were ready for puncturing my liver to take some bits of it out for clinical examination, they first told me to lie down on bed on my right. First, one of them smeared a liquid over the right-ribs. It felt cold. Then he put something at the same place again and again, and again and again. Meanwhile, they were asking me questions about my family and study. After a while, I started losing the sensation on that particular area and felt only a dull touch by their hands. One of the four men held my chin up so that I could not see what they were doing there. Suddenly, I felt the one who was touching my ribs started penetrating my ribs with a thick needle. I could experience the needle going in. Each time the doctor told me to breathe out, he was pushing the needle further in. Finally, I felt a severe pain inside, in my right, as if the needle had penetrated my liver, and a sharp ‘Ah’ came out of my mouth. Then, he stopped and moved his both hands fast with the ‘CLANK’ of some steel tools.

They caught me tight when I winced in pain and crouched my body. The man who was holding the needle pulled it off my ribs. A gush of blood boiled out the hole and he patched it up with a pad of cotton wet in spirit. Then he pasted the pad on my lower right chest with some cotton tapes. Then another man smiled at me and gave me injection and said, “Now, sleep boy. You’ll have a nice dream.”

I don’t remember what happened the next moment. Maybe I fell asleep in deep sleep, and had the dream in which I struggled to come out of the den-like place. What if I hadn’t been able to jump up?

I rolled my eyes around the cabin. There was only one bed on which I was lying. It was air-conditioned and screened so that nobody from outside could easily see me inside. A yellow bulb was lit, and the room was yellow with its light. The walls were blank and painted with dim yellowish colour.

I tried to get up, but the nurse held me with her soft hands and gestured me not to try to get up. “No, my boy,” she said softly, “you must take rest for a while.”

I told her I wanted to go to washroom, but she produced a steel pot with handle in front of me. She said I was supposed to urinate in it. Seeing me blushed with shame, she said she would turn another side until I finished urinating. I had no other way. I put the tip of my member in the pot and peed in it. Then, she turned to me and took that pot away.

I was feeling a low dull pain in my right. My eyes were still drowsy, but I was wondering at the same time where my uncle and aunt might have gone. The old nurse perhaps understood how I was feeling. She came near to me with a bowl and put a spoonful of the thick yellow substance on my lips, and said, “My son, take this mushroom soup for it is good for your health. You mustn’t remain hungry for long.” Though I could not speak Hindi what she was using to speak with me, I could understand her well. I tried to smile at her for her loving and kind treatment to me, and ate the bland thick liquid with taste. She was happy at last and laughed at me lightly.

The nurse went out, and I closed my eyes to sleep, but all past events ran in mind as if I was in the cinema watching a movie. I had been admitted to the hospital a fortnight ago. My maternal uncle who was in the Indian Army had been posted to the Dehra Dun Railway Station security check post, so he had brought me to treat my more than two years’ chronic jaundice (Hepatitis). I had been admitted in the hospital as his younger brother dependent on him.

The day I got admitted to hospital was bright and sunny. We rode a tempo from the army quarters and came to see the army doctor who was a handsome Major. He saw all my past papers and asked my uncle several questions to know about my jaundice history. Then, he wrote on the prescription card for some medical examinations. I was then admitted to the hospital.

It was a long big hall with two rows of beds. I was allotted the bed near a door that led to the block with many washrooms along a corridor. To my left, across some beds, was another door that led to the kitchen where the cooks prepared food for the bed-ridden patients. I had to walk along a long aisle past many beds on both rows to get to the nurses’ counter.

A young boy, perhaps my age but much heavier thanI, came from nowhere and drank water from my bottle. I was both shocked and enraged, but could not say anything to him because he had a knife in his left hand. He just drank water and went away without looking at me. I looked at him go and lie on his bed, a little away from mine.

“Chhotu, kya hua?(What happened young boy?)” a man who was sitting on the bed opposite to mine with his legs crossed asked me, “Are you shocked of his behaviour?”

I had no immediate answer for him. He said that the boy who had looted my water a while ago was a crank and kept misbehaving with everybody in the hall. Then I got more frightened of him because he used to roam around with a knife in his hand. What if he stabbed me with the knife suddenly? I thought and I had goosebumps all over my body.

When I told the man that I was from Nepal, he said he was from Darjeeling. Then, he always spoke in Nepali with me. At least, he became my company in the hospital where everyone spoke in Hindi. “You look very young and inexperienced,” he said to me, “You do not look like a sick person.”

That evening, a young petite Bengali nurse came to ask me what my problem was. I tried to tell her in Hindi, but could not describe it without taking help of Nepali. “Ay, what language is he speaking?” she asked the man from Darjeeling in Hindi, “Do you understand him?”

The man from Darjeeling translated my explanation into Hindi for the nurse. She was a beautiful tall brown girl. She smiled at last, and assured me, “Ok, don’t worry. You will be better soon.”

When the nurse had gone away, the man from Darjeeling mocked at me in Nepali, “Chhotu, now she is in love with you. Did you see her smile for you?” After that, he used to mock at me whenever the Bengali nurse was on duty.

There was another nurse, beautiful, chubby, and dark. She was perhaps in her middle age and good-tempered. She used to smile at me whenever I tried to speak in Hindi with her. Perhaps she enjoyed my bad Hindi. But I suppose she had a good feeling for me. She always treated me well.

The most senior of the nurses was a tall white lady with tough face. I think she hated me. She never came near to me and never spoke with me. But one day I heard her briefing the doctors on round, “He is a black sheep in his family, and has tortured his elder brother much.” She didn’t look at me while saying this. I felt hurt. I wished I had been able to spit into her face.

The patients were either serving army personnel or retired veterans. Every morning, at 9 am, there would be the doctors’ round who also were in different ranks in the military. Even the nurses had their own military ranks. When they came near, every patient used to stretch their hand over their folded legs as a way of greeting. I also had to do the same.

They used to tell various stories of strange and brave army personnel who did not even wince despite having a serious injury. Just within a week, everybody in the hall had known and had grown fond of me. Everybody had started calling me as ‘chhotu’ (the young). One day a dark man in the bed next to mine told me a story about his friend who had lost both his legs in the battlefield but was still ready to fight with the enemies. In fact, they enjoyed seeing my face terrified or shocked by their horrific stories.

One morning the Bengali nurse sent me to another block for the blood report. She gave me a slip of paper and told me to bring my report and submit to her. It was almost eight in the morning. However, there was a long queue of patients like me for the report. I was confused what I was supposed to do, but could not ask anyone because they would not understand me. Suddenly I saw the man from Darjeeling sitting on the balcony nearby facing the morning sun. I got a little hope at his presence there.

To my surprise, he was sobbing with a paper in his hands. When I called him, he looked at me with both his eyes in tear but hurriedly wiped them with his palms. I asked him why he was crying, but he said he had caught flu. He denied he was crying, and smiled at me. He hid the paper in his shirt pocket. The whole day I did not see him in his bed. He did not even come to the line for lunch.

It was almost half past six in the evening and the sun had already set in the west. The block of the washrooms had already got dark, so it had already been lit. Since the block was a bit away from the block with beds, I used to feel afraid to go there alone. I would not go there until I saw somebody else going to the block. Whenever I followed somebody, I would try to finish and return before him.

That evening, I did not see anybody going there for long. However, I was in a big pressure due to the nature call. I was wondering what I was supposed to do because of my uncomfortable situation. When no one came for my relief, I decided to go to the washroom at last though I was afraid to go there alone.

I was moving forward as carefully as possible so that I would not have to encounter any ghost or evil female spirit in the darkness of a corner in the block. However, my mind was creating many dreadful imaginary pictures of them. The whole block was dark and desolate except the dim electric bulbs around.

When I reached the door of a toilet, which was nearest to the entrance and half-open, I pushed it in nervously. But it was hard to open. There was something inside that was blocking the door. I pushed it harder. Then, I saw the knee of a man bent horizontally. My breath was suddenly out of control with excitement and nervousness. I can’t remember how fast I returned from the washroom to my bed. From there, I reached the nurses’ counter and reported about it in my broken Hindi. It was the shift of the nurse with dimples in her chubby cheeks. She listened to me anxiously, and phoned to somebody. Then there was a rush of many men and nurses. I felt proud to have been the one to report about it.

I followed them to the washroom block. There was in fact a man inside, but he was sitting on the floor with legs folded. They called him, but there was no answer. When they were unable to open the door, one man climbed up the wall of the toilet room. Luckily, the walls were not attached to the ceiling. He jumped into the toilet room, and opened the door with much difficulty. I could not see the man as the nurse told me to return to my bed. Actually, she ordered all the patients who had gathered there to be onlookers to return to their respective beds. After a while, they brought the man carrying on a stretcher. They said he was unconscious. He was taken into the ICU room.

He was none other than the man from Darjeeling. Everybody was curious to know what actually had happened with him. A man told to another in his whisper, “He has himself dismembered his penis. The toilet pan and the floor were full of blood.”

“Poor he!” another said with a smug smile in his face, “Already had too many tastes. Now has got the reward!” Only now I understood why the man from Darjeeling was sobbing that morning. His blood report had revealed that he had been HIV positive. The early morning of the next day I was taken to the operation theatre. On my way, I heard he bled to death the same night.

The elderly nurse came into the cabin again with a broad smile in her face, and said, “Son, when you were asleep here, your brother and sister-in-law gazed at you for a while from outside the glass and went home because they were not allowed to touch you. But don’t worry. They will come again tomorrow.” She had a mop in her hands. She rubbed the floor with the mop and went out. The room was filled with strong smell of phenyl.

After a while, a new nurse in white uniform came in, and gave me an injection. Then, I fell asleep again.

(Parshu Shrestha, 1981, lives in Itahari, teaches English, and writes stories.)