The Mind Game
Chapter 3

This is the 3^rd time I am learning to walk. The first was involuntary, without much ado, and already out of memory, maybe fossilized in some black and white photograph. The second was long and arduous, not delving much deep into it.

16 days have passed, and I just couldn’t lift my ass up properly. But finally came the breather, a sigh of relief, as I made friends with a pair of crutches today dawn and set the first steps, barely learning to fly once again.

It has been a hell-heaven for me the last two weeks. Been there, done that, but one thing I have realized, a feeling I experienced a tremendous strength that resides in us, and such is the strength that will never come up and show itself unless you go out of your comfort zone and dictate terms to it; its mind control. It’s that key that can give you the universe, and I had just experienced a nano of it, the rest I have merely heard about.

Imagine a path, narrow very narrow you can barely walk through it. But inside, you have a belief that if you can keep the balance you can pull it through the other side. Imagine everything that comes up is adverse, it s foggy, visibility is down to zero, you lost, everything can’t just be more screwed up for you. One slip of the leg, you just fail to hold on to, and you start to fall; into the darkness, never to climb back again. It’s one of the greatest distances I have ever covered in my conscious state of mind successfully till now.

~Flash back~         

28^th march 2008

First take my six pence on major surgeries. Never, ever go for spinal anesthesia, if you are in a condition to take the general one (the one in which you are totally unconscious). Believe me it’s not a pleasant sight when the surgeon cuts through your flesh and blood spills out, and goes on hammering at your bone, just as a carpenter hammers a nail in the concrete walls. ITS ****ING NOT A PLEASANT SIGHT. By the end of the 3hour long journey through hell, I was sweating like somebody’s squeezing a wet sponge saturated with water and gasping for air, even though I had the oxygen mask tucked inside my nostrils. I desperately wanted to see ma. After sometime was trolled out of the O.T, ma was there. She touched my hand; I breathed and closed my eyes, wanting to sleep away the rest of the pain.

~fade out~

I had senses only in the upper half of my body, the entire lower part was numb, dull as if somebody had sliced me into half. Truncated my mind, my body, my conscience, everything. As I lay there on the dove white hospital bed sheets, two lone streaks of water ran down the side of my face, as I felt the warmth of the tears, under my ears. Unnoticed, silenced and I don’t know for how long I kept staring at the ceiling till I closed my eyes, which I thought was for the rest of the night. But I was wrong.

~fade out~

I had a conversation with God. Everything was negative in that. I kept questioning him, why did it happen to me, of all people? Why couldn’t I lead a normal life? Why would I have to miss out on such a god-send chance in my professional life. I was impatient, I had convinced myself that this is hell, and I wanted to come out of it, as fast as possible, I ridiculed HIM, I cursed HIM, but I couldn’t get a single answer out of HIM. I was selfish but I couldn’t help it, I would have been a heartless brute if that could have got me out of the situation. I was being bad, unknowingly. I was scratching away into the darkness, trying to delve more deep into it. Never to see light again, never to face pain again. I turned my face away from life, I realized that later. Till then, I never realized that there was a road, a narrow one to which I can climb back again.

~fade out~

I woke up to excruciating pain in the entire lower region of mine, I wasn’t aware of the time, neither was I interested, all I knew was that it was the same night continuing. Hallowing, galloping, over riding everything. I have never seen darkness as of today. Feared. The pain was expected considering the effect of the anesthesia wearing off after a 4-5 hours. I lay there motionless, trying to calm my mind, trying to hush up the storm, and bring back the lull that comes after it. Flexing my fingers I lay there, reaching out for the iron railing of the bed, trying to get a grip on it, a tight one. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

Staring out into the darkness, and as my eyes got used to it, I saw the hazy image of the IV fluid, silently dripping down the tube, and then running into my veins, throbbing  away in the darkness, breathing as if alive, silently coming to life. Healing me. Then I realized one thing, everything that was happening was healing me, was infact to heal. The night, the darkness, the pain, the tears, the conversation everything has a healing power that was making me breathe again, that made me feel human again. The universe has started to move behind me, for that final push that would levitate me from this eternal darkness of negativity, to fly once more, so that 16 days later, today I can set my first steps. The gods were conspiring against my destiny, as I began my 90degree climb from the fall. As I consciously worked my mind from the negative images to everything positive and bright and sunny…  here I am!