The Other World

Image Source : here

She pressed her pale feverish palms strongly on her ears , crouching on the ice cold floor , as if to prevent even the slightest of sound waves from sifting through her eardrum . 

‘ What is all that clamour about ?! Was she in one of those terrifying nightmares that usually haunt her every night ? ‘

She jerked her head roughly up and down , right and left and in many other un named directions seeking the source of the distressing sound . An iridescent flash of light blipped before her eyes and enchanted her into following it , as the overlapping colours seeped through the multiple daunting layers of her retina . She exclaimed in fervour as a frail yellow bird adorning little black spots on it , a sight she had never seen before , limped towards her from a distance. As she continued her mesmerised stare , right before her eyes , the bird started transforming into a ferocious tiger , a huge yellow one with black stripes zig zagging haphazardly on its skin . Before she could dodge back , the tiger propelled onto her with all its might , its razor sharp claws , mercilessly gnawing onto her silky soft skin . She watched in horror as the blue veins chanelling through her arms cracked open to reveal a wine red pool of alluring liquid . 

‘ Was it wine ? Or was it just a figment of her imagination ? ‘

 Torn between a million questions , she felt as if her head was drilled through recurrently with one of those sharp edged whirring machines she had seen them manoevering around deftlythe other day . Mustering all her strength , she grazed her dainty fingers on the luscious wine red pool and directed the stain back to her parched freckled tongue . To her dismay , she realised that she had tasted the awfully sweet flavour of her own blood from her fingers ! 

She watched with wide opened eyes as fresh blood gushed out from her arms as effortlessly as water projecting out from a garden hose . She shrieked in horror , realising she was in danger , not knowing what else to do . She had always felt relieved after a bout of those relentless nerve tearing screams emanating from the depths of her throat . Someone or the other appeared before her to revive her back to her senses after one of those screaming sessions she had mastered herself with painstakingly . Before she could continue any further , she felt a shrivelled cord of metal piercing deeper onto her neck . She gasped as the cord pressed onto her neck stronger and stronger , until her face changed shades from flushed red to a cyanosed blue , dilated blood vessels jutting out from her temples threatening to spurt out any second . She collapsed on the floor as darkness blinded her vision .

 A muffled cry escaped her lips as the nurse injected a shot of tranquiliser into her and fastened the knot of the thick cord that chained  her legs . 

She drifted slowly into one of her calm dreamy states as a distorted image sailed towards her on the flowing waves . It murmered in its mellow voice , a poignant expression shadowing on its face .  

‘ They cannot save you for long , dear  . The other world is merciless . It wont spare you ! ‘  
She shut her eyes close forcefully , as if to erase the depressing image from her mind’s vision as well and prayed desperately that the next day never arrives . Before she knew she was slowly succumbing to the drug , as it insinuated into the discordant synapses of her mind , offering her schizophrenic mind solace for a brief period of time .  


24 thoughts on “The Other World”

  1. (It is a pain to see one's comment disappearing, especially, when one had felt touched. But this is what happened at the website that has published your post. Anyway, here I go again:)

    Humans are being that insist on inventing the wheel each time. And they seem to be vain the way go about it. Adolescence and youth are the heady days when frenzied parental guidance appear gratuitous. We ignore the very paths we are pointed at. We do realise our folly belatedly when it is no more possible to turn the ship to the lost waters.

    That is a brooding, poignant and compelling memoir. My heart goes out to you and your mother.


  2. First of all , let me express my heartfelt gratitude to you for having taken the pain to comment a second time . That itself leaves me beaming with happiness ! The thoughts you have detailed here is so in sync with what i had in mind while i wrote the piece . I wrote it more like a memoir as you have pointed out . It feels great to have you appreciate the essence of the post in all its depth . Thank you from the bottom of my heart 🙂


  3. While I started reading this post, I didn't feel much but as I continued, I was kind of sucked into the story. It all became very clear in the end what you were trying to convey and I applaud you for writing such a poignant piece. Being a doctor, you would have more knowledge about patients with this horrific condition but I believe you when you say they go through much worse every single day. I will surely have them in my prayers.


  4. Good concept…painful story…wonderful characterization through words…only an MBBS could write about such a tale and it was evident from the word…schizophrenic as i had to look for it in the dictionary…to get exact meaning of the word and off course i could understand the zest in a more comprehensive manner…good work…

    would love if you would write about stories related to various kinds of diseases…not only it's informative…but it also gives us the feeling and understanding of the pains of the actual people who are suffering from it.


  5. Hardhitting, vivid and dark. Schizophrenia has been talked about much in books and movies, but I guess it must be much more subtle and therefore, more terrifying in real life.


Leave a Reply to AmitAag Cancel reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s