Fiction by Benyamin: Mariamma, a young nurse from Kerala, travels from her hometown across the world

I came back home yesterday after a harrowing twenty-day stay at the hospital that seemed more stretched out and dreadful than twenty years. I experienced a profound sense of liberation in breaking free from the chains of illness.

It was a viral fever, but I had ignored the alerting symptoms in every possible way. Never once did I take the tablets Mummy asked me to, burying myself in music and Netflix until one day I collapsed on the floor, exhausted after returning home from the scorching sun. The last thing I could discreetly remember was parking my motorcycle. I felt my eyelids growing heavier and my memory fading. I fainted, stretching my arm to catch hold of the grills of the verandah.

I was fortunate to have collapsed inside the house rather than on the road. Dire would have been the consequences had I fallen a few minutes earlier. Oblivious to my plight, Mummy noticed me on the floor much later, as the sound of mixers and pressure cookers in the kitchen, where she must have been, masked all sounds from outside. As Pappa was not at home, it was Raju Uncle, who came running, after hearing Mummy’s bawl and took me to the hospital.

I regained consciousness after three hours. My fever, a harbinger of worse things to come, had led to pneumonia. I overheard doctors mention meningitis, poor liver function or a malfunctioning pancreas when they were discussing my treatment plan. Subsequently, I was put under observation in an ICU for the next five days. Those five days were a torment of fever, chills, rigour, vomiting, headache, loose stools, tiredness and whatnot. Time crawled by as slowly as molasses during a blizzard.

Visitors were restricted in the ICU. During the permitted visiting hours each evening, only two people were allowed in, which was when Pappa and Mummy came to feed me tea or biscuits, or simply to sit by my side – only to be instructed to leave shortly after. I knew they waited outside the whole time I was in the ICU, helpless to do anything more. Janaki visited me a few evenings during my ICU stay. She sat beside me and cried, blaming herself for my illness. A few days before I was admitted, we walked together on the beach, the wind whipping through our hair as we nibbled on groundnuts and shared ice cream. I had a mild cough since then. Unable to bear her pointless accusations and theatrics, I ousted her from the ICU immediately.

Another evening, my father’s sister Laly Aunty visited me, and she told me of her son getting placed in a company in Doha, Qatar. Raju Uncle, my neighbour and my father’s friend, was my only other visitor. After these visitors disappeared, my only diversion was to gaze through the emptiness between myself and the ceiling. I could perceive in those days that loneliness was not only a feeling; it was an emotion, an experience. Miserably yearning for company, I found solace only in the presence of the ICU nurses. I did not have enough energy to even look at those patients who kept waxing and waning beside me in adjacent beds.

Some patients get admitted with beams of hope only to perish midway. I lay semiconscious amidst these, with vivid dreams encapsulating my soul that showed me images that were irrational and outlandish. I used to get nauseous while traversing such mindscapes. Before the nurses could bring me a bedpan, I would already spew all over myself. Disappointed and disconcerted, I would try to clean up, only to be stopped by the duty-bound nurses, who insisted on taking care of it. They would wash my face, change my dress and bed linen, and clean the floor. If I threw up again, they would repeat the process without a hint of annoyance.

There was a nurse named Maria John among the ICU nurses. She was the smartest of the lot. A newbie at the job, she was more enthusiastic than the seniors and was doubtful of nothing. She knew the time the doctor would walk in for rounds, when to give medicines to each patient, when to send blood and urine samples to the lab, when to change bed linen, and amidst all these, she found time to greet with a “hi” to each one of the patients there. She used to tell the patients, “Have the food … have the medicines … how long will you stay here? Don’t you wish to go home?” She used to reassure each patient and offer a modicum of comfort, saying, “You will be alright soon … please don’t worry … okay?”, which greatly reassured them. She would come to me only at last. Pulling a chair and sitting next to me, she would console me. “I saw your girlfriend crying next to your cot … what’s her name? Janaki, right? Wouldn’t you want to walk with her on the beach again? So please take the medicines quickly …” She spoke to me as she would to a child.

Some of the parenteral medications hurt my arms a lot and made me cry. Maria would massage my arms to lessen the pain and reassure me with the kindest words. On one of those days when I felt the sickest, I wanted to pass motion when an IV fluid was on flow. I dragged myself with the IV stand halfway to the toilet. When all my attempts to hold back failed, I passed motion on to the floor of the ICU. My excrement was all over me and on the floor, and the stink was unbearable. Maria stood witness to this. Never in my life of twenty-three years had I felt more embarrassed and upset. I wished a crocodile would devour me in full at that moment. But Maria came running to me, unaffected and walked me to the toilet. She helped me clean myself and changed my clothes. She also instructed the cleaning staff to clean the floor. She gave me a new pair of ICU outfits. As she helped me lie down on my bed again, I apologised profusely for all that happened. She only replied with a smile that such things were not new to her.

Excerpted with permission from Silent Journeys, Benyamin, translated from the Malayalam by Anoop Prathapan, Penguin India.