Mending Broken Hearts

25. Premonition

"Madi, come back to me."

"I love you. Please don't leave me."

That's when my eyes flew open and I found myself in my bed, drenched in sweat and out of breath. Still repeating Madi's name, as if she had placed a spell on me.

It was just a dream, I caught my breath, reassured myself. Just a nightmare. That wasn't real. She is ok. I repeated silently till my breathing slowed down and I was able to swing my legs over the side of the bed. 

I got off the bed slowly and walked to my bedroom's window. Normally, Chicago downtown's night lights would be streaming inside my room, casting shadows on its bare walls. Today, it seemed to be pitch black outside, just like the darkness that Madi had stepped into and never returned from. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cold glass of the window.

This wasn't the first time I had this nightmare, but it was the most vivid one. My gaze fell on my bedside clock, it was 4 am. The sun wouldn't rise for another 2 hours but there was no way I could go back to sleep again. Even if I did, I knew that nightmare would be back again to torment me.

I stepped back from the window and walked into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water, ignoring the littered counter tops illuminated by the light from the open fridge. I wasn't a sloppy person. I may have spent almost a decade on my own as a bachelor but I liked having a clean space around me. Yet lately, I had just felt like giving up. On everything. Myself, my work, my family, my friends...everyone, except her. Thoughts of her were the only thing that had kept me going.

That, and having faith in a Being who was larger than us mere humans. The realization that nothing was really under our control had dawned on many of us in the medical field. We were all trying our best, and the science was progressing at breakneck speed. Every day new COVID-related discoveries were being made, including in my own lab. But every day we were also humbled by how relatively healthy people would end up losing their lives, while others miraculously recovered after weeks of being at death's doorstep.

I hadn't seen Madi in a while, but every day I read her 7 am COVID update emails. A new responsibility she had taken on, since being selected as the next chief resident. The update was filled with both dire news and hopeful discoveries but it was the last line of that email that I would always look out for. Reading the motivational quote she added was almost like an addiction now. 

Those emails weren't even for me specifically, they were for the whole residency program. But they were a reminder that she was out there. And that would add enough fuel to my smoldering fire to last me another day.

But it was several hours till today's email. 

"Allah khair rakhe," I sighed and mumbled into the silence before reciting the Ayat-ul-Kursi, doing wudu and saying the Fajr prayers. I lifted my hand, praying for Madi's safety, and that of Salman and Noor and their young baby. And for my sister who was pregnant in the middle of a pandemic. I even prayed for my parents. That they would see the light, and the error in their ways.

Sleep had eluded me long ago. On a whim I decided to step out for a walk, even though dawn was still almost an hour away. Chicago's streets, typically teeming with life no matter the hour of the day, now lay in an eerie stillness, temporarily suspended in time as the pandemic took over every facet of life. The air itself seemed hollow, as if drained of its very breath.

A short while later, I found myself upon a bridge spanning the Chicago River. Dim lamplight cast a soft glow along the walkway, and the settling mist conjured a scene one might find in the pages of an English classic novel, evoking a sense of timeless serenity. Yet, the backdrop of towering skyscrapers, once aglow at any hour, now standing in almost total darkness was a stark testament to the transformation of this bustling urban expanse.