Workplace Romance

I am in love with a woman at work.I know it isn't ethical and all, but who can question a heart's choice? I certainly won't. She's usually the first person I see in the day. She never talked to me, because we speak different languages, but she's a doctor, and a very sincere one at that. You can find her at the theatre, next to me humming while she works, her black hair tracing seductively across her smooth neck, rocking gently like palm fronds in the wind. Her glasses perch on her button nose as she frowns at me slightly, especially when something is puzzling her. Finally, one day she began talking to me. It was during Saturday's, when no students would be there in theatre and she would be studying alone there with me. Since I work under her, I just kept quiet and listened on as she spoke. She just went on and on, while I just listened silently. It was related to a structure in the human body. She then began to speak to me as if teaching me, because I guess it helped her learn better as well as kill the loneliness. This began to happen every week. It became an intimacy the likes of which no reproductive organs could imitate. She then switched to passionately speak about everything that would irritate her, her useless students, who couldn't find their anus from their oral cavity and to her family. I hated her husband. He was a jealous, possessive fellow who always thought she was having an affair with someone at work, and usually barged in, while she was still working late in the afternoon. He always had a loud mouth and this irritated me to no bounds. Slowly, I felt love grow towards my employer, who seemed to look forward to the time when we worked together.

One day, he started this routine in front of all the students gathered around her. While she started fighting with her husband and the students started looking uncomfortable. I tolerated it and did my best to ignore it. But when he sIapped her and knocked her on to the theatre floor, I decided I had enough. I stood up. Riverlets of formalin ran down my naked, preserved cut up  dead body as I grabbed the scalpel from the stupid boy who was dissecting me and slowly rose up. Cut muscles contracted as I stepped over the table and gazed at the eyes of medical students, too paralysed to scream.  I silently moved towards him.Death is no barrier to love's call.

Enigma of Project Lazarus

When I was in medical school, I remember that a section of the research centre of our medical college was always active even in the dead of night. It was weird because that section didn't have any major attachments. You could hear the sound of people working, and researchers hanging out even at the early moments. Because of this very bewildering  scene, so many conspiracy/horror stories popped up, and I would like to relate to a particular single very interesting story. It goes that in the older years, there was a medical student so brilliant, he would learn everything with utmost sincerity and dedication. He had  an intense thirst for  knowledge nobody could surpass. He overtook all his professors in terms of knowledge and skill. It was said that he was the pride and glory of the university. For him, it was not mere concepts that was sufficient. He wanted an in depth knowledge which even the most well published authors could not cater to. He didn't even bother about exams. They were like insects colliding on to a  speeding bike rider's helmet. He passed out and after his graduation he decided to become a simple tutor and continue his life at the same institute. It was at this point someone informed me that he was an orphan. This simple teacher started to dedicate his life as a symbol for all the departments, an epitome of ultimate knowledge, and it is said, he lead 'the golden age of Doctors' in there college. He continued to teach at the same pace throughout the rest of his life. He was so brilliant he could have studied for his entrance examination and carry on as one of the greatest physician of the age, but he laughed it off and said that it is his love for all the subjects in our field that kept him satisfied like his academic wives, and then his duty was to spread this tale of love to as many students as possible. So one day this man died. And as a non religious man, he dedicated his body to science. So on the autopsy table, as he lay cooling, about to be dissected for the name of science , you can understand everyone's amazement when a heartbeat  suddenly appeared. It was noticed when one of the scientists wanted to take a selfie of herself holding the famous scientist's hand as if checking for a pulse. And so it did. The man's heartbeat appeared, and although he was still in a vegetative state, he still had a shocking resemblance  of life.
This then led to a lot of changes. They wiped out all data pertaining to him in the college directories and tried to eradicate any proof of his existence. Dubbed under 'Project Lazarus' They placed him in an observatory centre in the Research centre. And things began to get more strange , when apparently he slowly began to improve in other aspects as well. He needed as little as care required, with nutrition needed only once in  2 weeks. And then his EEG peaked up again was a day hell broke out, since it implied  the brain was making its first signals and messages jumping over each neuron  like a child in a playground ever after his heart stopped beating.  Brain dead was now Brain Alive. Like Lazarus, He was rising from the grave. All the departments in our medical college, as well as in other medical colleges around the world were involved in this project,  and although it was top secret,  in the academic churches, the rumours grew in wildfire proportion. This man was a master in all the fields and sciences related to the human body. He knew how the human body worked, down to the cell, down to the biochemical level thanks to his biochemistry. He knew how it carried on its existence thanks to physiology. He also knew each and every aspect of cellular damage, repair and recovery thanks to his general pathology. So could it be that this man's body, somehow because it was 'hyperaware' about each and every aspect about itself, managed to encode its knowledge into itself,  such that it would  then begin to use this information to it's benefit in a way that we still could not begin to understand? Scientists were all well aware about the 'mind over body' concept, but this was the unmitigated truth. Could it be that this intelligent body started to view death as merely a major injury and start regenerating and reviving itself in a slow and arduous process. And now, the CNS, being nature's most toughest thing to understand, was slowly opening its sleepy eye once more. So a secret alliance of scientist worldwide closed in on this phenomena, to study his physiology , especially his EEG findings to finally achieve to goal to find out what happens after we die. It seemed his EEG was becoming more complex by the day, with it almost seeming like he was trying to communicate back to them.
But my friends! It was just a rumour. A crazy story. If that's the case, how would he die in the first place!, that's what the health officials say about this special section in the research labs of my college to this very day. They deny the existence of project Lazarus. They deny the existence of this intelligent man. They deny everything.
But that's the funny thing.  I'm currently standing in the same place I got my medical degree 46 years ago. And even though a lot at the centre has changed, the same project is going on, supervised by a different hand, but on its on same secret agenda.

The enigma of the jigsaw puzzles

Nobody knew who they were or what they wanted. They seemed to appear and disappear like mysterious ghosts. Encounters with people have so far been random. They could meet you anywhere. In a crowded bar, in a graveyard by the moonlight, a school courtyard, anywhere. They looked so ordinary, you almost forgot them after they left you. But over the last 5 years, they have been met with mixed reactions. Those who survived 2 days later would claim that meeting them was a gift from God and love. Those who didn't, well they died. After they met you, they would give you a simple suitcase with the words ' you have 48 hours'. They then vanished like the stars at dawn. Inside the suitcase would be two things. A  black jigsaw piece and a letter. The Letter would state ' you have 48 hours to find the jigsaw piece which fits to the one in this suitcase, failing which you will die of a painless heart attack.
The missing jigsaw can be in the hands of anyone on earth.
If you both do not meet, then you will do so in death.
If one of you dies either by means of suicide or natural / unnatural means, then the other will survive.
These jigsaw pieces have been created keeping in mind the most perfect match possible. Don't give up! :-)

After the first few victims chose to ignore it and were soon found to be dead, people then realised that this was no hoax and started to take action. Websites started to pop up which helped people to find wherever their match were and amazingly enough, almost all of them, soon fell in love with each other and lived as literature would have it, happily ever after.

I met my stranger in the subway. He gave me the suitcase and told me the cursed four words which sounded like nails driven into my coffin. Nobody around me seemed to notice him. Maybe they couldn't. In all the accounts, it seemed they were invisible to all around them except those they came for. My initial reaction was to ignore it, leave it to the security guard and run. But then rationality hit. Calm down. No need to panic. I decided to call my best friend and tell her. Purva would know what to do. When I called her, her voice had a tone which caught my attention immediately. Having been her friend ever since we were kids, I could understand her like a sailor understood the sea. She then confided in me that she had met the stranger and got a suitcase herself. What where the chances! I told her not to worry and asked her to meet me at our favourite spot in the park. A warm feeling began to glow inside me. Was it possible? I always had a non progressive crush on her ever since I could remember. In one of her more pensive moments, she once revealed to me that she would only take a guy when she knew she saw the sign. I smiled as I raced towards the park. This was as auspicious as it would get.

If you never felt as if you'd been dealt a bad card in your life, let me know. I'll send
you an essay on how it feels. Purva and I had both got a jigsaw piece, but they didn't fit. They almost did, but mine had an extra bump on it and hers didn't, so in the end, we both felt lost and we didn't know what to do. I remember the look on her face when the pieces didn't fit. It was the look of a snake bite victim when he realises he's only minutes away from dying with no hope left in sight.

We both tried all the websites which catered to the jigsaw phenomenon. But there were no responses. For some reason, either the people who got them didn't hear about the website, or they were in some remote place in the middle of nowhere. How depressing would it be to know that the only one who would truly make you happy  for the rest of your life was a shepherd in  sub Saharan Africa who you had no chance of meeting? Or an Inuit for that matter.

It's been almost two days. I'm sitting at the park where we last met. The sun is dying behind me and soon so shall I.  In the last two days, the only thing on my mind was purva. I was convinced that she would be the girl for me, but it seemed the universe had other plans. I heard people who failed to find their others piece would admit themselves into a hospital, and hope the doctor could help them. But they were always wrong. Purva slit her wrists last night and sank into her bathtub, which I felt funny, because a painless heart attack seemed a better way. But I guess she wanted to go out in her own terms. I grinned to myself. I wasn't that brave. I didn't attend her funeral, because I was going to die anyway. Why get a haircut if you're going to undergo chemotherapy the next day itself? I sigh as I begin to get up and suddenly there is someone in front of me. My blood freezes as I realise it's the same man who handed me the suitcase on the first day. He politely nods his head and hands me another suitcase, and states that the last suitcase was a botched delivery and apologises. I open it and I see the perfect compliment to Purva's. The man vanishes as I close the lid of the suitcase. I lay my head on it and weep bitterly.

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