FF: Asleep - C5

Kripa woke up with a chipper mood. She looked outside and smiled. Everything was going right. She hoped that like all the other times, something wouldn’t go wrong. She shrugged and got up. She had a quick shower and wore a white tee and blue jeans. She tied her hair in a ponytail, grabbed her bag and went to the hospital.

‘Hi Ms. Mary. Long time no see,’ she said hugging the nurse. ‘You look very pretty today. What’s the secret?’

Ms. Mary laughed and hugged her back. ‘Nothing much. Just seeing your bright face makes me look pretty. I heard about you meeting the patient in room 113. That’s very nice of you. You here to see him today?’

‘Yup, I’m here to see him. I brought some jazz music with me today. I hope he enjoys George Benson as I do. Anyways, I’ll see you later.’

She walked to her friend’s room and saw another stranger in there talking to the doctor. ‘I can’t afford to keep him here any longer. I don’t know what to do, Doctor,’ she overheard the tall man talking.

The doctor sighed, ‘you have been very generous when you don’t even know him. I don’t know, I’ll talk to the hospital administration and see what they say.’

Kripa burst in. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on?’ She walked to the man with brown eyes and shaggy black hair. He looked exhausted, she thought.

‘And you are?’ the man asked.

‘Kripa. I come to the hospital everyday to see the patient. Who are you?’

‘I’m Kartik. I was the one who saw him in the car wreck and pulled him out. I was paying for his hospital bills because I felt really bad for him. But I can’t afford it anymore. I’ve always been on a tight budget, as it is.’ He looked weary to the bone and he pulled his fingers through his hair.

Kripa mulled over this for a little bit and brightened up. ‘I know, if it’s OK, I can take him to my place. That way we won’t have to worry about the hospital bills and nobody will be in a tight spot. Is that OK, doc?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to the hospital administration. It’s against the rules that a non-relative takes the patient home. There’s a board meeting in thirty minutes. I’ll go talk to them. If you want, you can stay here till then. We’ll see what they say.’ The doctor didn’t even know if what he was doing was right or not. But he had to take a chance.

The men left the room and Kripa turned to the patient. ‘Hey again, it’s me. I hope you don’t mind that I volunteered to take you home. But you seem like a nice guy and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Cross your fingers that they let me take you home. Hmm, I didn’t even think about it but my landlord might have a problem with it. Oh well, I’ll figure it out. And there is an elevator in my building. But I’ll have to hire a nurse, that’s for sure. I don’t know how I’m going to afford this either, but I’ll find a way.’

She chattered with her friend till the doctor came back with a huge smile on his face. ‘Alright, since nobody has come to claim him and you’ve been coming everyday to check on him, they said they don’t have a problem as long as you sign some papers that say that he is going to be your full responsibility.’

‘Yay! Alright, I’ll take you home today! Thanks Doc. Could you please tell me all that I need to know about how to take care of him? I will hire a nurse for some time but it’ll be nice if I know what I’m getting into.’ Kripa quickly went and gave the doctor a quick hug.

After the doctor explained everything to her, she got some help from the nurses and put him in the wheelchair. She took him outside and gave a huge smile. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to have a roommate. Wow, this is so cool. Well, I live in a one bedroom apartment, so you can have the bedroom and I’ll sleep on the couch in the living room. It’s pretty comfortable so it’s not a big deal at all. Anyways, I think the Mogul Empire was such an interesting phase in the Indian history.’ She reached her building elevator and got in with him. ‘Did you know that Akbar apparently had three hundred wives? Three hundred wives! How did he keep track of them? Did he spend a night per wife in a year? Jeez, it’s complicated to even think about it, forget actually doing it.’

The elevator dinged and she got off on her floor and continued with the monologue, ‘Anyways, Aurangzeb was the last powerful Mogul ruler.’

‘Kripa, who is this?’ Kripa jerked up and saw her landlord. Oh crap, she thought, now what am I going to do? I’ll have to wing it.

‘Um, hi Mr. Shah. This is.. this is.. this is my friend’s brother. Ya, he’s my friend’s brother… Zaib. Ya, he is not well so I brought him over. She’s a very good friend of mine and she’s not in India. I have to take care of him Mr. Shah. I have to because she’s my very good friend and if I had a brother who was in this condition, she would take care of him as well. Please be OK with it Mr. Shah. He’s a very good man.’ Kripa crossed her fingers and looked at Mr. Shah with imploring eyes.

He sighed. It was impossible to say anything when a girl used her eyes like that. ‘Fine, but make sure that there’s no problem.’

She gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘Oh Mr. Shah, don’t worry at all. There’ll be no problem at all. You know I always pay rent on time and make no noise at all. See ya Mr. Shah.’

She walked to her apartment and locked the door. ‘Yes! Everything’s fine. I hope you don’t mind that I called you Zaib. We were talking about the Mogul Empire and Aurangzeb, I had to come up with a name, so I shortened Aurangzeb to Zaib. Please don’t mind OK. And anyways, we had to name you right? Until you tell me your real name by yourself. So Zaib you are from now. Let me take you to my room. The doctor’s going to send a nurse for today, just to make sure that you settle down, and they can hang the drip and all that. I really hope you won’t be angry with me when you wake up.’

***

‘Kripa, how could you just take him in? How are you going to afford his care? You can hardly pay your own bills,’ Mishti said concerned. She knew that Kripa had the softest heart she had even known, but this was going too far.

‘Oh Mish, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out, you know I always do.’ Kripa sighed. Her friends were too worried for nothing.

It was Sunday morning and the gang was at Mishti and Prithvi’s place. Prithvi put his hand on hers, ‘Kripa, we know how much you feel for others. But really, how are you going to take care of all this? You always have some financial crisis going on. I know, I know, you always figure something out and you have too much damn pride that you won’t even take money from your friends. Kripa, we’re worried about you.’ Aaliya nodded in her direction.

‘Seriously, you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. He’s lonely! I couldn’t leave him there. Would any of you leave me in hospital if I was in that condition? No right? I’ve seen him every day for the last God-knows how many days. I care about him. I don’t know why, but I care about him. And if you care about me at all, you’ll leave this alone. Just accept my decision and be happy for me.’ Kripa got up and walked to the window.

Aaliya went behind her and put her arm on her shoulder. ‘Kripa, we’re always there for you. No matter what path you take in life, you know we’ll always be behind you just as you’re always there for us. We’re just worried about you. That’s all.’

Kripa turned back and held Aaliya’s hand, ‘I know. Please let me do this. I just need to do this. And don’t worry about me. Things always work out for me. You know my book is coming along well, a few more weeks and I’ll be done with it. I have a very good feeling about this book. I do,’ she smiled and they dropped the topic.

After the brunch, Kripa walked back to her apartment, thanked the nurse who left and took Zaib outside. ‘My friends really do mean well. They’re just concerned about me. They’re not happy that we’re roommates. But Zaib, I couldn’t leave you in the hospital. I just couldn’t. You’re my friend.’ She shook her head and smiled.

‘Don’t you just love this time of the year? It’s warming up and it feels great to be outside. Zaib, I’m picking a second job in the mornings. It’s at a local café. A friend owns it and she said that they are always short-staffed and always need help. She said that I could join it any time. I called her last night and she was OK with it. I’m sorry but I won’t be able to spend much time with you what with my afternoon job and all. But it’s just for a few more months. When my book gets published, everything will be fine. There might be everything I doubt about myself; if there is one thing I cannot doubt about, it’s my writing. I know it’ll be published. I feel it in my bones. Anyways, let’s head back.’