The Doctor

Explanation

Her mind was struggling as she wanders another corridor of the hospital after her shift was done…

Everything seems so weird, confusing….

She always thinks herself as a rationalist, but to have that kind of spirit encounter makes her has to reconsider, rethink everything about spiritual life….

The life she left behind long ago….

If God exists, he would not let anyone suffer like this…. She thought one time, during her early days, when she still have to take certification to be a full doctor, and during that time, she had to witness a mother lost her life, along with her unborn baby, after they were late to come to the clinic she works, since the distance between her place and the village the woman come from was so far away, and has to go through unfriendly environment….

Other time, she was so angry to a family, whose child was terribly ill, yet the parents refuse any kind of medication given by the clinic, including the one she’s trying to give when her clinic doing their CSR and charity work for remote areas…

Our faith is to the almighty… Not to men…. You are nobody…. Just a bunch of men who think that they are gods… You are demons!

And that kind of responses makes Sandra decided to separate herself with religion altogether…

But now, seeing…. Yes, she’s the only one that can see, a human spirit came out from a body and disappear along the figure that still become a mystery to her…. It begins to make her to question her own spirituality….

Sandra keeps on walks along a corridor until her steps reach a room reserved for a VIP patient….

She knows so well, the patient occupied the room….

Stefan, once was prominent, successful businessman, that worked until he passes 80 years old until one day, while he was studying many documents on his study room at his mansion, he collapsed…

And that memory during his time being admitted to the hospital makes Sadra feels a grief for the elderly man….

She knows from the chatter among the nurses that at the time he collapsed, all of his family, his children were present on a family gathering, but none of them bring the man to the hospital, it was his personal driver, who rushed him to the hospital, while the other family member that the hospital called, didn’t bother to come, and give only their approval by phone and send their lawyer and assistant to complete the administration and tend the man until it was all settled before they all returned home, and leave their father to the good hands of the hospital…

Sandra can feel the pain, the sadness the man must have felt, as he seems to be castaway by his own flesh and bloods, even when he never shows it….

Even one time, when she comes to the patient room, the man, in casual tone when Sandra asked him if there’s any family member that has come and visited him, as his eyes watches the news program on the tv….

“Can you guess what did they do during the gathering, my sweet doctor…?” Asked Stefan, turning his eyes from the tv and looked at the doctor who sits at the chair next to his bed, during lunch break time, and she, with the permission of the man, who was happy to get a company from the beautiful doctor, take his lunch with the man in his room….

“That day, my children, and their lawyers were arguing on how to split my heritage…. While I still alive….” He said that makes Sandra feel like a spear stabbed through her heart, thinking on how inhumane the living creature that supposed to have heart, compassion, care, and love….

She always wanted to stay longer in his room, just to make the man feel less lonely, and have someone to talk to, but her works and responsibilities cannot be ignored….

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir…. I have to work…. Get well soon…” She said, mending his bed cover and leave the room under the weary eyes of the man who sighs and say in soft, low, weak voice….

“I wish that you can accompany me for a little bit longer….” He said with his tears begin to run down his cheeks….

And the next day, Sandra get the word that the man falls into a coma, and not that long that the hospital has to put life supports on the man….

Once again angers fill her heart, because she saw when some of Stefan’s children did come to the hospital…. She can see the lies underneath their sadness that they put on while they gather around their father’s deathbed…

“Do you all agree and sure about the decision you make…?” Aske the head doctor who is responsible for the observation of their father…

“We can’t see our father in pain, like this, for much longer…” Said one of his sons, with dark colored spectator covering his eyes, had held up a little….

While some of his daughters, also wearing dark colored glasses, wiping their tears that never there….

“Then, please come to take care of all the administration, and tomorrow, with your waiver, we will unplugged Mr. Stefan’s life support….” Said the doctor, opening the door and make way to the family that rushed themselves off the VIP room, and didn’t bother to say sorry to the young doctor thy almost bumped on….

And that night, she once again enters the room of the patient that tomorrow will be put out of his misery medically….

She wanted to say her last goodbye as she enters the room, when….

Gasp…!

Her heart skips a beat….

At the chair, next to the bed of the patient… The chair she usually uses to sit and accompany the patient during her lunch breaks…. There is a figure who take her place….

The mysterious figure wo changes all her perspective….

But before she could ask, the figure gestured to her…

Come in, Sandra… I have been expecting you…. Said the androgyny that makes her feel goosebumps all over her body, yet, her body seems to have a mind of its own and walks towards the figure sitting on the chair, right leg rested on top of the left leg, arms rested on the armchair, looking at the young, beautiful doctor that now stands in front of the chair the androgyny seated….

“Who are you…? Really…?!” Asked Sandra with low, trembling voice….

She gets the idea of who the figure sitting in front of her, might be…. But her instinct demanded some kind of confirmation from the figure who looked at her with a pair of now glowing eyes, like a pair of gold dishes…

Some called me…. The grim reaper….