Fiction by Preeti S.
2nd Place for College Fiction - 2019 Met Awards
She heaved a sigh of relief, and collapsed into the chair by the bed. After a six-hour long struggle, the young man was finally out of danger. He had been in a multi-vehicle collision on the freeway, and nobody who saw him as he was wheeled into the hospital thought he would survive. But a team of surgeons led by her had proven them wrong. Now, as she listened to his even breathing and the rhythmic beeping of the cardiac monitor in the sterile atmosphere of the Critical Care Unit, a sense of calm spread over her. She felt her muscles relax, and her heart, which had been pounding like a jack-hammer, slowed down.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed seven times. She opened her eyes — it was time to go home. No, not home. Only an empty apartment that greeted her with a graveyard-like silence every night. Pushing aside her thoughts, she got up and made her way towards the nurses’ station. After giving them instructions for the night, she walked to her room, picked up her belongings, and made her way towards the parking lot. She swiped her access card through the machine and smiled at one of her colleagues who was just arriving at work as she left the building.
But the smile did not reach her eyes. It had been a long time since she had really smiled. Those beautiful brown eyes that would well up with tears as she laughed had been replaced by still, muddy pools, no emotion ever disturbing their placidity. She walked towards her car, her gait that of a person who knew there was no one eagerly expecting her. She backed out of the parking lot and hit the road. The weather reflected her mood — melancholy and tired.
As she waited in one of the many traffic snarls on her way back, she stared out of the window at a flock of birds up in the sky. Suddenly, the alarm in her car clock beeped. She had set it to the time the flight left for her homeland. It had been a childish whim, but today it brought back memories of a native land thousands of miles away, and her real home.
HOME. The word hung in the air, and her thoughts flew back to a family she had left behind long ago. She was the oldest daughter of a rich, orthodox family that had never really learnt to respect women as individuals. But she had always been the rebel. When her wedding was called off at the last minute after the groom developed cold feet, she saw her chance to finally live her life the way she wanted to. After much coaxing, her parents allowed her to leave home for a distant land to study — a first in her family. Four years into college, she got married, leaving her parents dumbfounded. The last she had heard from them was when she had called to tell them that her marriage had ended in a divorce. Since then …
A sharp honking sound shattered her reverie and brought her back to the present. As she navigated through the city’s traffic, she reflected on the day’s events, like always. But today something was different. Maybe it was the day’s events, maybe it was the weather. She could not place her finger on it. But suddenly an unsettling feeling swept over her.
Out of the blue, a question popped up in her head.
What is the purpose of my life? This question had arisen before. She had always pushed those thoughts away successfully. But today, everything had a startling clarity to it. Try as she might, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. It was like those toys with sand at the bottom, that came back harder the more you pushed them. It was as though someone were nagging her for an answer.
And then it dawned on her, that she did not have a purpose in life.
She worked all day and spent long nights in her vast bedroom, battling the insomnia that had plagued her ever since she had started living alone. Even if she stopped working today, she had earned enough to live the rest of her life on her savings. But why she worked so hard and for whom she earned so much — she had no answer. Of death she was not afraid. As a trauma surgeon in one of the city’s leading hospitals, she saw someone die on her table every week. But the thought that scared her most was that she could not think of a single person who would even realize she was gone.
Lost in her thoughts, she did not realize she had reached her destination. She drove into her apartment complex, parked the car and walked towards the elevator. She unlocked her door, threw her belongings on the couch and sunk into it. Turning on the television, she raised the volume and allowed the noise to drown out the silence that filled the apartment. Not that she wanted to watch anything in particular, but she hated the way every little noise ricocheted off the walls and furniture, reiterating the fact that she was alone.
The news was on and anchor was talking about the stock market; then the weather report came on. But to her everything was a blur as she lay on the couch. Suddenly something that one of the news anchors said caught her attention. Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a start. Plastered across the screen was the picture of a three-year-old girl, her head a crop of disheveled hair, her face the epitome of innocence. But what attracted her the most was little girl’s eyes. For in them she saw the same gaze she saw in hers — relentlessly searching for someone to call her own.
A year later…
It was midnight as she lay in the tent under the stars, the little girl in her arms. It had been a special day for both of them. Exactly a year earlier the angel she now held in her arms had come home for the first time. She had decided then that she would celebrate that day as their birthday — for it was indeed the beginning of a new life for both of them. So today they had spent the day doing all their favorite things and had returned home exhausted. And they were going to spend the night camping out in the backyard, because it was something they both loved.
Her thoughts flew back to everything that had happened since the day she saw the news about foster children looking for forever homes; how she had contacted Social Services immediately and fought a legal battle to bring the girl home. And how much her life had changed since then. She was now happier than she had ever been.
As her eyes felt heavy with sleep, the insomnia no longer troubling her, she watched the little one sleep peacefully in her arms and promised herself that neither of them would ever be alone again.
About the Author
Preeti S. is a Cerro Coso student.
