LIFE IN A MACHINE (XXXII)

Today I went to hospital for my routine tests and follow up. Every time I enter that MRI machine a different set of thoughts run through my mind. It is a big giant machine, like a huge cave where they tie me up with a log-like bed and I am not allowed to move at all. They slowly put me into that cave and I could hear all sort of different sounds as if wild animals are howling at me. For those 40 minutes I lose my freedom of movement but my freedom of thoughts take all together a different turn. I don't think about anything else except me. All kinds of thoughts capture my mind- What would be the result of this test, will it be negative or positive, remembering rather revising my whole past life, remembering all the good times and the bad times, thinking about all the people I have encountered in my life, recalling all the books I have read and recollecting all the memories of the trips I had, imagining my life if the result is positive and knowing my life if it is negative. Well! Medical tests are the only tests where 'positive' result is actually 'negative' and 'negative' results are 'positive'.

The most interesting part is that there is always a drum music playing on in the background. When I asked the doctor about it he said "This is for the patients to enjoy.' I laughed at this irony and the doctor laughed with me. When I am into the machine that is the only time when I would feel all kind of tickling and itching. Life tests your patience when you least have it.

By the time they pull me out of that machine I am half asleep and it seems that someone is waking me up from my dreams. I say thank you to the doctor and the doctor passes a smile at me. Every time I ask him whether the reports are fine and he would say "You will come to know about it tomorrow at nine." With that suspense in my mind I reach home waiting for that tomorrow to come early this time.