- Dr. Adarsh Nath | Letters from the ER
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- The Cord
Click “Read Online” at the top of this email for a smoother reading experience.The Struggle
Fluorescent light,
sharp as a blade,
searing the eyes.
The air thick with the smell of iodine.
Of blood.
Of fear.
A man lies before me.
A body still warm,
yet already fading.
Skin pale.
Lips dark.
A pulse that slips
like water between fingers.
Hands drive a rhythm
into his chest.
Bone cracks.
Lungs resist the air forced through the bag.
Sweat drips.
Masks fog.
The monitor ticks
like a cruel metronome.
Seconds fall away,
one by one,
each a heartbeat
stolen by the dark.
The room shrinks to this,
my palms,
his ribs,
the flat song of monitors
that no longer sings.
The Discord
A rupture.
Not from the body before me.
From beyond the curtain’s thin veil.
A quarrel, sharp, absurd.
The night manager and
another patient’s relative.
Locked in fury.
Not about life.
Not about death.
About a phone charger.
“You guys don’t even have a charger?”
A young man,
veins swelling in his throat.
His words slice through Priority One bay,
mocking the silence of a fading heart,
mocking my hands,
still pressing, still failing.
The contrast glares.
A heart faltering.
A man demanding volts
for his phone.
Life here.
Wires there.
Both urgent.
Both grotesque.
The Stage
Inside,
a symphony of finality.
Chest rising, falling, breaking.
The dull thud of compressions,
the hiss of oxygen,
monitors screaming in monotone.
Outside,
a theatre of farce.
Chairs scrape, voices climb.
A security guard steps in,
another relative joins the fray.
"Don’t shout at me!”
“I just asked for a charger.”
“This is not a mobile phone shop!”
Two plays,
one stage.
One tragedy,
one comedy.
Neither yields.
It is no longer about a charger.
It is about pride.
About ego.
About the right to rage
in the face of silence.
The Emergency Room breaks.
Life and pettiness collide,
sharing oxygen,
stealing time.
I feel my heart racing,
caught in the failing heart beneath my hands,
and in the brawl that rises
from the curtain’s other side.
The Fall
The man beneath my palms does not return.
The flatline glows, unbending and absolute.
I feel the ribs give way,
and with them, hope.
Yet the quarrel rages on.
Petty, relentless.
Until one voice rises,
loud, smug and victorious:
“See? Was that difficult?
Everyone has a C-type these days.”
The monitor screams flat.
The argument drones on.
Both final.
Neither merciful.
This is the Emergency Room.
A circus of contradictions.
A house of endings
where life clings to trivialities.
A man dies.
The ER does not stop.
The argument does not stop.
Nothing stops.
And I,
caught in the moment,
keep my hands steady,
heart unsteady,
and go on.
Not for redemption.
Not for answers.
But because the world is absurd,
petty, brutal, unyielding.
And still,
I must go on.
“I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
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More soon.
Another moment.
Another reminder that we are still, somehow, human in all of this.
Yours,
Dr. Adarsh Nath,
Letters from the ER
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