Free Till the Last Breath . . . by Durjoy Datta Page B

looking at it.’
    ‘What? Neurological? You mean something is wrong with my
brain
?’
    ‘We’re not sure. It might be a tumour or a clot somewhere. We need to do a full-body scan and an MRI.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘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 swallowed by the gigantic circular dome of the growling MRI machine. He felt unsettled. His head ached and he wanted to scream.
You’re a grown man.
The words came back and he stayed shut. He didn’t want to shout like a scared pussy in front of her. Why did he care?
    ‘Did you always want to be a doctor?’ he said, just to distract himself.
    There was no answer. A little later, a voice answered back. ‘More or less.’ The voice echoed. He felt better.
    ‘This thing is bloody noisy.’
    ‘I know it is,’ Zarah said. ‘Let me concentrate on the unflattering images of your brain.’
    ‘How does it look?’
    ‘It looks perfect to me. Though we will have to take Arman’s opinion on this. I am no expert.’
    Dushyant stayed shut for a while. The white shell made him claustrophobic.
    ‘Are you okay in there?’ Zarah asked.
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘Just a few more minutes,’ she said.
    He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He thought about Kajal and the other guys in college. The guys he had got sloshed with that day. None of them had called, let alone visited. The sound slowly came to a stop.
    ‘Done,’ she said and instructed the ward boys to pull him out from the machine.
    His eyes never left Zarah’s lithe body as her shapely behind sashayed in front while he was being wheeled back to his room. Zarah was engrossed in the few printouts she had in her hand. The stretcher was pushed into a lift. Zarah followed; her eyes still hadn’t left the sheets in her hand.
    ‘Oh, by the way, your girlfriend called,’ Zarah said. ‘She sounded concerned.’
    ‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’
    ‘Well. I just guessed. Kajal, if I remember correctly. Sister? Friend?’
    ‘We used to date. She called? Here? At the hospital?’
    ‘Yes, why?’
    ‘We haven’t