•He needed a wife.
She needed to pay back a favor.
•His mother suggested her name.
She didn't see why not.
•He thought he knew her.
She had some secrets she wasn't ready to share.
But surely in every web of lies, secrets must come to light, a few...
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NASREEN
6:35am
Checking the watch strapped around my wrist as I stepped into the elevator, I let out a breath.
6:40am
Perhaps out of habit, I loved rounding up time. For one, one couldn't actually guarantee his own time was accurate. For two, it lets you get ahead of things. But rounded up or not, I knew i had a solid 20 minutes before rounds, if not more.
I begin my final year of residency today, which essentially meant that while other year residents worked hard, I needed to triple their efforts. While few of my mates were having second thoughts on whatever speciality they chose to dabble in, my decision to specialize in haematology had never wavered.
I adjusted the badge reel holding my ID on my navy blue scrubs. I looked at my ID and couldn't help but feel proud of myself. It read;
Nasreen Burja, MD.
With a new string of determination, I proceeded to give myself a once-over in the elevator mirrors. As if on cue, the metallic silver doors parted open.
The view before me was the same as it had been every other day. The ward clerk nonchalantly talking into the hospital telephone, a good number of nurses monitoring patient progress, while the fewer population getting in on the early morning gossip, and of course doctors filling patient charts.
Walking over to the reception area, I swiped my card against the attendance system. I quickly slipped my card back into my card holder. I had 19 minutes left, and that was enough time for me to go have breakfast. I walked into the cafeteria and ordered up a plate of sandwich and a steaming cup of coffee. The thing with health workers is that we are all hypocrites, the whole lot of us. We always advice people to take care of their health when in fact we pay no heed to our own.
As the orange sun rose more and more from the horizon, more people started trooping into the cafeteria. Such a bummer actually, I had been enjoying the silence. I mumbled a few greetings to a few of my colleagues before a petit figurine dashed into the seat next to me.
"Tell me you have heard!" Basma gushed almost out of breath.
My attention piqued. "Heard what?"
"A lady came in here yesterday complaining of an intense pain from her ear, and when the doctors checked it out, they found a flesh eating maggot. It had already chewed up a 10 centimetre hole in her ear canal."
