Of all places to be, at predawn!

By Emmanuelle

I wake up, startled from a deep, predawn sleep. My pink phone had been ringing imperiously, and it is not the ringer’s fault. Its ringtone is for friends who needed friends at these really impossible hours.

This one writes not in decapitated SMS language but in uncorrupted grammar. Ah, this is the friend who aspires to become a writer, not only in her dreams. Her cell phone message: I walk the halls of the Cancer Ward of this government hospital at two AM. My footsteps are as quiet but more slow than the medical intern’s before me. Our watch began at one and we’ll be off at seven.

I yawn, then prop one eye open with the index finger and thumb of my right hand. I tap the keys with my left. Ows? Are you playing a shadow game? If so, I am glad. I will be more worried if you are playing doctor-doctor. You are not. What is it this time? You plan to write about the big C, the C ward, the intern with the quiet footsteps, your footsteps as quiet, the long six-hour watch, or how to make a friend wish she is not at two in the morning?

Haha! I can almost hear her chuckle to herself. I wish I could laugh out loud with you, but one rarely laughs here. Let me tell you about this place. This is one of the oldest buildings in the compound, maybe even prewar; but it’s the most beautiful and cared for part of the hospital, the entire two storeys of it, with a courtyard at the center. The first floor is mostly for outpatients, rehabilitation and administration. The second floor is the wards, with porches wrapping all four sides overlooking the courtyard and its designer garden.

My friend has a friend who gifts her with cards of free loads. So, she does not fear being cut off in the midst of a sending spree. The halls are the porches themselves, and one enters the patients’ rooms, all neat and clean, through thick double doors. These rooms are so appointed for a reason obvious to even the most dumb. The rooms nearest the stairs on the left side are the children’s wards. To the right are the rooms for the new entrees. These two sides march on to the third and the fourth, where the more serious patients are assigned. The corner where the last two sides converge is the Hospice.

I ask: And what is the Hospice? I can hear the whisper in your text.

It is where you would not want to be if you have the big C. And I shall pray, and go to all churches, and bend my knees, and make all my friends bend their knees too, to make sure you do not. Or else, I would have no one to send to these messages at three predawn. For it is three predawn. Look at your watch.

I look. And it is. At three predawn, I am looking into my mind’s eyes. And I am seeing the world of her words.

(To be continued next week.)

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