Monday, October 25, 2010

Past, present and future in two seconds

What I had not seen. 

The doctor at Services Hospital Lahore was scribbling a subscription. A young boy of a poor gardner was resting on a hospital bed. The whole wardroom was quarantined for dengue patients. The doctor was wearing a mask. The television set outside the wardroom was running the news of Lahore Executive District Officer Health Dr Fayaz Ranja’s sacking over his failure to control the spread of the dengue fever.
The doctor gave the subscription to the boy’s father. The father rushed outside the wardroom to bring medicines from some nearby medical store.

What I did see. 

I had dropped my sister outside the student hostel of Services Institute of Medical Sciences at around 8pm. She was carrying a lot of luggage in the car’s trunk. She went inside the hostel and sent a servant to carry the luggage. I opened the trunk lid of my car for the servant to pick the luggage. He lifted a bag and spotted some cash and a folded paper on the road. He bent down to pick the cash. He was cunning. He had discreetly hidden the money beneath the paper before putting it in his pocket. My sister had seen the money. She inquired from me through gestures that was that my money. I replied in negative before ensuring that my wallet was in the car. The servant put the paper in his pocket and picked the remaining luggage and went inside.

What I would not see. 

The father of the boy suffering from dengue fever reaches a medical store and checks his chest pocket. Seeing nothing in the pocket, he becomes nervous. He looks at the floor of the store, believing that the cash and subscription might have fallen there, but finds nothing. He checks his side pockets, which also turns out to be empty. He runs back, scanning the road from medical store to the hospital. He reaches the wardroom where doctor is awaiting him. The doctor rebukes him for not bringing the life saving medicines and tells him that his son would die without medicines.

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