The Drop

He had the look.

Eyes glinted a mad belief. He walked with a sole determination. The wind bayed and the trees swayed. The incline was getting steeper. As he walked briskly, he realized he wasn't panting. No more gasping for breath. As if the lungs knew. Little by little the flora and fauna receded.


It was dusk and the sun cast a gloomy outlook on the hill. Shadows formed as if welcoming him into the unknown. He couldn't help get the feeling that they were almost embracing him. The shadows they knew. Little by little, as he trudged up the rocky path, life forms decreased.


In maniacal rush to the top, he tried his best to block all the images. But it was futile. He kept replaying the scene over and over in his head. Like a broken tape recorder that played the same few lines, he kept repeating the scene. It was so vivid, he was still sweating. How could he have made this mistake. In one single step he had destroyed his career. He had done the operation innumerable number of times, yet never faltered. In medical school, he was as cool as ice, when it came to surgery. Yet here he was, a doctor in shame. A single mistake that defines you. He knew he could fight the battle in court and save his career. But the boy was dead, which meant he had lost the battle with himself.


He gritted his teeth and increased his speed. He remembered how the head nurse warned him that cutting the A line would send the boy into shock. The ego never listens does it. He was the doctor and there was no questioning him. In a million attempts he wouldn't have cut the A line as it stops the blood flowing to the brain. But it was as if fate was forcing his hand. Cognizant of the mistake he was about to make, yet it was as if he was stuck in his own body. He kept screaming , frustrated at such a simple error in judgement. He willed it, pushed it , forced it yet his hand went forward. Cutting across his degree, his career and his mental balance, he cut the A line. The patient immediately went into shock. In minutes, before the machine could tell him, he knew. They all did.


In the court case of life, he had lost. He didn't want to be forgiven. He could never forgive himself. There was no going back. Death was the final and ultimate truth. There is no bending it. No deceiving it , no dodging it. No undoing and no exit strategy. He reached the top of the hill.


His one mistake had changed the course of so many lives. The mother, father and siblings of the patient. His family, his children. Everyone's life was connected to that one moment of insanity. It was almost as if he cut off the light to so many lives with that one incision of his surgical knife.

The wind was strong and every molecule in his body shouted against it. He closed his eyes and tried to recollect all that he was leaving behind. He had hurt everyone , there was no forgiveness. No redemption , just cold, hard death.

In that realization, he let go. Of life, of happiness, hope, salvation , suffering, agony, tensions, sickness, health, despair, hope, greed, modesty, wealth , poverty. Everything there was and everything there wasn't.

He let go of it all and dropped into the truth.