I see the illusion!

Let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy and prosperous year 2020 and welcome you to the 3^rd decade of the century. You must be wondering why I am welcoming you as though I am the resident of the decade. It’s only been 9 days and I feel like I have been around for a decade already. It’s called the January illusion.

Don’t bother looking it up because you won’t find it because it doesn’t exist. Of course not unless you are checking it up here or recommending a friend to this site. It actually exists but only occurs in the said month of January (Njaanuary). And well ladies and gentlemen we are in the month of January. Usually at this time of the year there is an outbreak of some epidemic. Previously, it didn’t capture my attention but this year it has. I am yet to confirm whether I am a victim or I have just improved my observation skills.

It’s been a week since the first case was reported and luckily no fatalities have been reported yet. Doctors and nurses are working round the clock to cater for the sky rocketing number of patients. The situation is slowly running out of hand and there is a growing demand for bigger hands. More patients are being admitted, chocking the already suffocated bed capacity in hospitals. The wards are overcrowded, everyone is trying to stay afloat, and that is the four on the bed and the two lying on the floor beside each bed. The queues at the outpatient desk are meandering more than a river at its mouth. Every case is an emergency with even more casualties but the department is a casualty in itself. The patients present with severe dehydration and a certain contortion on their faces that seems like a permanent frown face. The doctors are yet to ascertain the cause of this peculiar contortion but they are inclined to think it is caused by the patients feeling of anger and disappointment towards self. The patients have also been observed to soliloquize.

The nurses on duty are clearly exhausted, indicated by the bugs under their eyes. They must be having sleepless nights. They mile around the nurses’ station to at least have a minute to themselves and sip the 10 o’clock  tea and at minimum retain a bit of their sanity.

                             “Daktari saidia uuuuiii!”

This call cuts short their already short break snatching away any hopes they had of sitting for a while and catching up while at it. The call of distress is from a make up ward that has been created on one of the rarely used corridors to an additional entrance that is no longer in use. In the make over bed, lies a man in his mid or early twenties. He seems to be in so much pain but the nurse can’t point out exactly the source of pain. The man is wriggling on the bed threatening to break the weak stands on which it is placed on.

“Daktari alisema atarudisha, nikasema you only live once (YOLO)”. The man was saying , or rather thinking aloud quite loudly, amidst loud weeping and calls for help.

The nurses could not understand what the man was saying. Had a friend borrowed his sanity or what exactly was he referring to? This was certainly a new development and the doctor in charge had to be informed. The soliloquy spell must have caught up with this one too. One nurse was left to calm the man down as a colleague went to call the doctor. This epidemic was definitely one of a kind.

Wonders shall never cease.

Beeping monitors surpassed the calm noisy silence that had prevailed in the building. Only hush murmurs could be heard between a nurse and a patient, a doctor and a nurse, the occasional yelp for help but never before the beeping of monitors. This was an alarm that something was terribly going wrong or suddenly gone south. The beep was not the normal three time beep, this time it was a long agonizing and deeply distressing beep. This was definitely not an indication that there had been an electric surge and everyone was very certain about that. It was one that was clearly recorded in everyone’s brain. The ear seemed to have been set to a particular vibration, the frequency, the brains favorite.

There was a sudden eerie silence. The kind one would expect in a vacuum but this was no vacuum. This was a ward that was full of patients, nurses and doctors alike. Everything came to halt without warning. A straight line showed on the monitor’s screen, slowly fading to infinity, as a straight as an arrow mid-flight. Is this what it was always meant to be, straight? Had their eyes fallen for the illusion?

Everyone in the room was dumbfounded. The beep had knocked the stuffing out of everyone. Everyone stood still, none daring to make a movement, eyes glued to the screen. This epidemic had finally marked its territory, its boundary the straight line. The beeping continued, seeming to grow louder with every second as the silence grew quieter. The wind blew through the windows, taking with it the straight line to further infinity. The beep was carried by the wind, echoing round the block, reminding everyone on its path that it was part of something bigger, the illusion.

The doctors and nurses slowly approached the bed, taking the heavy and annoyingly loud steps to the bed, gravitating to the monitor. Their aim was to stop the beeping may be for good or maybe just for a while before it met its next victim. They wore long faces, heads hanging low on their necks, devastation engraved on their foreheads, disappointment oozing out of them.

“We tried our best,” they whispered in a pathetic attempt to wash out the guilt that was threatening to jelly their knees and grant the floor a least deserved embrace.

The doctors already knew what that beep meant. What that straight line meant. What the sudden stillness of the occupant of the bed connected to the monitor meant; the sudden drop of temperature. A lecturer must have it mentioned in their school of medicine lectures years ago. But this was no med school , this was the school of life. Had experience taught them what that beep means, especially at this time of the year?

As a sheet was pulled over the head of the bed’s occupant and the monitors disconnected, reality hit hardest. This was the first fatality of the epidemic. The unidentified patient had been carried away by the beep; gone for good, maybe in pursuit of infinity. He was the first one to go. Had he been carried away by that illusion?

Everyone shut their eyes as if in memory of the fallen hero as the bed was wheeled towards the door of no return beyond which was the cold room. A room which could only by thawed by the rays of the summer sun; only after the illusion was over. Silence followed, no one in a hurry to resume normalcy. No patient called out to the doctors or the nurses. A nurse held a syringe halfway into someone’s gluteus (ouch!). Those outside were patiently waiting patients, contemplating whether their fate was as serious, hanging by the hope that they would not visit the cold room next. This epidemic had certainly shaken them to their marrow. It had everything in control and by everything I mean anything and everything. This was the January illusion!

Health professional predict that this strange illusion will persist for the next 43 days of January. They promise to make sure nobody else fall victim of the beep. They are calling it quality health care and so far no other case has been reported but I am scared for me.

The January illusion is basically the January feeling. After squandering all money over the festive season, the brain is reluctant to resume reality. The days seem to be 12 hours longer, the month a week longer.  The sun in this part south of the Sahara is extremely hot, as if to marinate our brains back to reality, but ironically not enough to thaw the cold room. Money is not easy to come through. In short this is Njaanuary. The worst of its kind is when the January beep beeps. At this point only February can end this infinity.

Lately I have been going through my December receipts and festivity photos and getting that frown face the doctors talked about. Change of my diet to a herbivore special has my stomach complaining and to put it politely I am dehydrated.

As I write this I am second in line to see the doctor. I hope they have a solution to my problem especially thickening my wallet a bit and working a miracle so that I can convince my landlord  that I am a man who keeps his promises. I am just currently in a tight situation (actually its loose, excuse me I have to rush to the washrooms…)

Before I leave, I’ll send the visiting hours because with the way I am feeling my gut is telling me that I’ll have the hospital management to convince as well.

Hope you don’t fall for the January Beep!

February please come already!!

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@Faith_daktari

faithdaktari@gmail.com