The Bleeding Heart

When she had received the news that her fiancé had been admitted to the hospital unconscious and with severe life-threatening injuries, she had sped from her workplace and had narrowly avoided a head-on collision with the oncoming traffic.

She had burst into the ICU and was guided to his bed after she enquired about his situation with the nurse’s station. The nurse in charge had looked up at her with a grave face, added that he was touch and go because his brain had sustained a concussion that may result in a short-term memory loss and in addition to that, he had suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs that narrowly punctured his heart. When she approached his bed, she broke down inasmuch as she kept telling herself to pull it together. He had an oxygen mask on him with a ventilator next to him with wires on his hand and chest and a bandaged head. She dragged a chair next to it and sat on it, clutched his cold, limp hand in hers and warmed it with her warm cheek.

"You promised to give nothing but happiness, love," she croaked. "I don’t want you to leave me just like that. Please wake up and make a full recovery in anticipation of our upcoming wedding. We’ll walk down the aisle surrounded by our family and friends with radiance in the air..."

She walked to the area that held a special place in her heart; it was here in this beautiful park a year ago that her fiancé had surprised her with a wedding proposal on her birthday. She remembered she had fallen silent, stunned at his move and that strangers had gathered around them and encouraged her to accept the proposal, which she did after she had regained her composure.

Her face became wet at the thought of it.

The attending doctor had mentioned that his chances of regaining consciousness were terribly slim and that the family should consider pulling the plug on him, ending his suffering. She couldn’t come to that decision as she was not ready to accept the loss yet but couldn’t bear the thought of him suffering another agonizing day either.

She wanted life to return to its normalcy, to happier times with happier memories but there was a side of her that knew that it was almost impossible unless a miracle happened. She bowed her head and cried her heart out, questioned the purpose of life.