Page 77 - Till the Last Breath . . .

‘Right now,’ she said and pressed the bell. Two ward boys came rushing

to shift him from his bed to the other stretcher.
‘I can move.’ He got up and climbed on to the stretcher. The ward boys
started to wheel him away from the room. Zarah walked by his side, her

heels clicking against the sandstone beneath, her hips swaying alluringly
with each step. Dushyant wondered how old Zarah was. He really needed

an ecstasy pill. Or at least a joint.
‘How come they never came when I was pressing the bell all morning?’

he complained.
‘They have been working here for years now. They know when they are

needed and when they are not,’ she explained. ‘There.’ She pointed to the
MRI room.
‘Really?’

‘No. Not really. Arman had asked the ward boys to keep you off any kind
of sedatives.’

‘Why? Why would he do that?’
‘He doesn’t like you.’

‘A doctor hating a patient? That’s new. Well, fuck him.’
He was sure he saw Zarah smile. For the first time, he saw an expression

on her face other than her constant icy stare. A little later, he was frisked for
metallic objects and asked if he had any plates or screws in his body.
Despite the multiple fractures his body had sustained from falls off stairs,

bike accidents and such, his bones still held up on their own. Bones of steel
and a heart of stone, he thought and smiled.

‘Now, this will take a while. Don’t move while you’re inside and shout
out if you feel strange. Am I clear?’ she asked.

Dushyant nodded. He felt a little ashamed in Zarah’s company. In the
outside world, he would have talked about her with his friends and

wondered if she was single. Maybe he would have fantasized about her a
little. But now, he was naked in a robe, helpless and at her mercy. A pretty
girl’s mercy. His body ached for a smoke. He felt defeated. Like he had

when Kajal told him she never wanted to see him again. That day was a
cursed day; a day he never wanted to remember. A little later, he was