On the way...

He could see a blur of whiteness on his side. There were shapes forming one large mass and then fragmenting into two or three or four blobs of white and then again uniting into one continuous shape. Only when the shapes came very near and bent over him, did he realize that they were nurses meticulously and anxiously exercising their skills. He had to concentrate hard to make sense of all his sensory perceptions. He slipped back to a daze with a welcome effortlessness. The rattling of the ambulance van became a rhythmic motion cradling his imaginations and moribund thoughts.

Lying down, he could see the balconies and terraces speeding past and the clouds scraping the electric poles. He could see the clouds funneling and trickling onto the roofs. He could see figures dancing on the electric lines – figures from the deepest recesses of his minds, faces he had long forgotten. Every figure balanced and danced perilously on the lines and on the balconies – some abruptly falling down and vanishing and others joining newer figures and forming an ever expanding procession that was following his thoughts, trying hard to keep pace.

Beams of light reflected from regions he would never see again sparkled in front of his eyes – each ray gained an indescribable strength, became an invigorating attempt, but in vain. The rays pushed the houses, uprooting them from their foundations. The houses merged with each other and the clouds pulled them from above. The houses formed images that were a jumble of his memories.

A ruined fort in a desolate desert became a temple with a mellifluous garden, an enchanting dew drop turned into a towering inferno. He heard whispers echoing from the sweetness of togetherness and shrieks from wild carousals. The gables turned to turrets, the soft sounds of flowing rivers melted into the smell of rain. It was a cumulating of sensations – sights, sounds, smells – that slowly faded into a blissful darkness.

Disease

Have you ever been so completely sick that you feel you are entirely a disease, an anomaly? Your head throbs with pain, and so does the back of your neck. Your knee feels like it is the abode of living scorpions that are waiting to be released in either direction, eating up the flesh of your leg. The acids in your stomach surge with wretched vengeance and your eyes are moist, blurred and fatigued. There is infinte exhaustion in your limbs - you try to stand up and your legs tremble crushing all hope and the desire for hope.
There is dullness, a debilitating delirium in your mind, a loathing for all that is human. You look at the mosaic on the floor through your tired eyes and you can see the small patterns crawling, bumping into each other like the millions of men and women on earth. Oh! How you despise the human body - the grime, the rotting flesh, the scars, the pus, the offal and sickness! How you despise the human soul - the miserable sorrow, the restlessness, the wickedness, the treachery and deceit!
You look at the light streaming in from the ventilator into your bleak room. You raise your hands to reach the light, to see if the light is real or is it an illusion born out of darkness. The light pierces your eyes and yet the light is beyond your reach. The light is the contemptuous laugh of life.