The Military Man’s Chronicle
DEAR DIARY,
I woke up, the nurses shouting for help in the adjacent room. A lady named Rosa was having her baby and the circumstances were dire as the chief doctor of the center was out of station. I tried to sit upright, only to be struck by a MIND-NUMBINGLY SHARP cry of a baby. Little did I know that the mother could not live to see her baby.
But this was just another day in the Metro Health Center in Lower East Manhattan, the year being 1932. I don’t seem to believe myself, however, when I recall that I was admitted to it, SEVEN years back — chronic liver disease for which the doctors haven’t found a cure yet. I know the medical bills are overwhelming, even though Robert, my son, and Rebecca, my daughter wouldn’t say a word about it. I guess I have been blessed with great children, although to my recollection, I was a fairly naughty one!
It was early morning and as the nurse entered my room to give me the pills and administer the “morning injection”, I requested her to turn on the radio, as I liked listening to the ‘Daily-Broadcast’ by Monica Jameson. Today was the day when my son was to bring me my diary, in which I knew I stopped writing, back when I was 20…. maybe (wow, 82 does have a toll on your memory!) but I thought it might be calming to refresh my memory with some “memoirs”.
So, Robert came to see me with Suzan. She ran towards her grandpa and sat beside me. Robert gave me my diary along with a record — Louis Armstrong’s “All of me”, he knew I loved jazz. Suzan started showing me her school bag, while Robert went to see the doctor about something. She showed me her coloring books, her crayons, her class copies, all nicely maintained, of course, to impress her grandad.(This was, because I hadn’t told her how “well” I used to maintain my school-work).
Suddenly, the lights went off, the emergency power system came into function, but the lights were still off. Suzan got startled and tucked herself in with me. As if out of nowhere, I saw three masked men enter the room and before I got a grasp of the situation, they snatched away Suzan from me. When I tried to retaliate, they took out their weapons and threatened to end her. I gathered all my strength, thinking I, being a military man could save her and advanced toward them, but just then, one of them shot my Suzan!….. Devastated….. I lay on the floor, my heart sinking, my gut wrenching…
My eyes open and I see nurses trying to calm me. They told me I was throwing my hands in my sleep. I was drenched in sweat, trying to get a hold of the situation. I was not too surprised as this was just another one, in a series of “nightmares”, of losing my family. I had, again, fallen asleep while reading my journal, which the municipality had sent me with my stuff, as they were tearing down the building where I used to live. You can take up all the therapy in the world and still it cannot help you recover from the facts that jolt you. The fact that you lost your family in a petty robbery incident. The fact that you even after serving years in the military couldn’t do anything about it.
The fact that you know that they are never coming back…
This post has been migrated from my previous blog.
About this post::
I know that it is grave but this was my first adventure into the mesmerizing and intriguing forest of writing. It started off as a memoir themed story about a man refreshing his memory at his deathbed while reading it (that I had to write for some event at my college) but as I continued, it turned into something else. I do hope it reached you as I meant it to.
Hope you sat through it!
