Forty-One

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ANU

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ANU

Knots form in my stomach as I sit anxiously across from Genave and Samuel in a small corner office. I stare at the oak wood desk covered with patient files, each with an accompanying number. Grazing my teeth against my lip, I think of how people, humans can become numbers and procedures and then just like that they'd be gone.

Genave has Sid's file open in front of her. It's thick, the bound pages too much to be held down by the silver prongs on the binding. Passively, she flips through pages, her neatly filed clear polished nails flicking the edge of each page that details Sid's step closer to death.

"I wish I could have done this at a better time and place, but circumstances don't allow that," I swallow the lump that formed in my throat since she asked to speak with me. My heart plummets into the bottomless pit that is now my stomach. "Sidharth has you as his next of kin and the person to make any decision regarding his life as it pertains to his current medical condition," I am aware of that fact. He made it official a few months ago.

"You're really scaring me Genave, what's going on?" I lock my clasped hands between my shaky knees, biting down on my lip.

"We are out of options, Anuksha. This was our last trial and his body is rejecting it," heat fiercely consumes my body. My cheeks and chest become hot with fear and anxiety.

"Since Sidharth is irresponsive I can come to you with any details regarding his disease. There is a new study that came out it entails about the use of stem cells to cure diseases,"

"Yes, but this disease requires your own stem cells," I mumble, swallowing through the parchedness in my throat.

"Well, that's changed. The new study used stem cells from an infant's umbilical cord to cure its mother's disease. It's the first of its kind. And still considered highly experimental. But as a physician and as a friend I want you to consider this option. It's not an easy option and there are a lot of factors that will prevent it from working out, but it can give him his life back,"

Gaping, I stare between a stoic Samuel and a hopeful Genave. At a true loss of words, I choke on a muffled gasp that burns in my throat. "I-I-Uh can I go back in now? I want to be there when he wakes up," she nods her head, understanding the severity of what she just dropped on me.


Vermillion filling the middle parting of my hair and a promise made before God echoes in my ear. For your demise shall be my own. Hope, it can shatter or save. It gives a new resilient meaning to the life I share with Sid, but it also comes with a gamble of fate.

Life or death, it comes with a promise of either. Just when I lost hope it somehow found its way back to me. Rekindling that flame in my soul for a future with the man I so desperately love, I could give my life for his own.

I'm torn, for hoping means to hurt, but I will hope, pray and fight until there's nothing left but a corpse burnt to ashes and scattered across the cresting waves of the ocean. And likely enough that same hope will be my demise or salvation.

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