Page 160 - Till the Last Breath . . .
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                                                Arman Kashyap









                Arman kicked in his sleep when his phone rang. It was the first time in

                weeks that he was back in his apartment and an uninvited phone call was
                the last thing he wanted. It rang for the fifth time and he had to pick it up.

                The patient from room no. 509 had had a seizure and his kidneys were
                failing. He had puked blood and a hole had had to be punched through his

                throat to keep him from choking to death. Fuck.
                   After what had happened in that room with Pihu’s friends and Dushyant,
                he wouldn’t have cared if Dushyant lived or died. He was a burning pain in

                the ass anyway. Mindlessly, he stepped into the shower and washed up. As
                the water ran down his body, he realized he had gained considerable weight

                over the last few years. He wasn’t the young, athletic charmer any more.
                His body, once as hard as granite, was now slowly withering away, his eyes
                were sunken and fine lines of tiredness from long hours in the hospital

                showed on his face. He stood in front of the mirror and wondered how his
                parents still looked so young. The answer was clear as it was always—

                making money as a doctor was easier than going out there and making a
                difference.

                   He sat in his gleaming blue BMW—one of the few gifts he was showered
                with on his last birthday—and zipped through the early-morning traffic,

                reaching the hospital in fifteen minutes. He noticed Zarah’s car parked
                rather awkwardly in the parking lot. He checked in at the reception and
                headed straight for his office. On his way, he crossed the surgery room

                Dushyant was in and stepped in for a bit to see what had gone wrong. His
                eyebrows knitted. He put two and two together.
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