Date Published: Tuesday, May 14th 2019
Chapter Thirty: Heart Beats
"Turn it off," May said, her voice off. She wanted it to stop. The siren wail of the heart rate monitor.
Aditya choked back a sob. He walked towards the machine himself, not trusting the nurse with this final minuscule task.
His eyes watched the line, a manic through crossing his mind.
Get up!
Just one beat.
Show me. That you still want to be here. That you want to be with us.
He did something he very rarely did.
Please God, please bring him back.
The horizontal line did not move. He glanced at May.
She was starting stock still at Ryan's body. For that would be what it would be referred to from now until his burial. A body.
This was what death did. It took away everything.
It reduced a man to something inanimate. Something extinct.
He had dissected bodies in his youth. Seen dozens of them. But nothing prepared him for this.
The body of a loved one.
He hadn't even felt this wretched at his parents' divorce. God, and that had been hell. Not for his parents, they were better off separated.
But to take care of his siblings after-well.
He shook his head, pulling himself out of the dark void it almost sunk into.
He turned back to the heart rate monitor.
He would do procedures that required no effort and could be done by anyone. A random nurse.
He would check vitals, write down the time of death, do all the little nothings one did during such a situation-but he couldn't, couldn't process what happened.
He'd read a text once- an essay on idleness. Idleness could even be defined as the state of being perpetually busy with mundane useless, unproductive work.
He didn't care. He'd be idle then-to hell with it. He'd bloody clean syringes if he had to. He just couldn't accept it.
His best friend was dead.
"Please, turn it off Aditya!"
His finger hovered at the button. He felt its grooves under his finger tip. Brushing against it. He didn't want to; it was too final. Way too final.
Stalling, stalling, stalling.
He sighed. A deep one. This was useless. He was going to press the button.
He willed his finger to-
And then; his whole body froze. Stalled by the beep. His face snapped up before he could even process what was happening.
"May," he whispered.
May looked at the heart rate monitor. Then she looked back at Ryan.
Her gaze moved like that for about an entire minute.
Like a person watching tennis match. Without processing what was actually happening.
She looked back at the doctor, questioning the functionality of his machine.
Aditya? Aditya, is this real? Am I delusional?
He seemed to grasp her meaning; he gave her a small smile and motioned to Ryan. She glanced back at the bed.
Her eyes filled.
Ryan's chest was moving; up and down. A steady rhythm.
***
Next Update: Friday, May 17th 2019