NYAC | 3min Read
Published on May 14, 2026
At Eternity’s Gate
At Eternity’s Gate
I am a sick man, always have been. it’s just that now I am a sick old man in a hospital whose
illness shows for once. In my time as a director, I’ve seen my fair share of gore, and it had always
been my speciality for directing hospital scenes, and why not, after all a hospital patient is one
you have infinite control over- put a tube through him, tie weights to his shattered leg, put him in
any twisted position to create a scene of skin crawling repulse. “With an open mouth in awe and
the upturned head, the man is put on a bed with grooves to support that position as they look at
the white cold metallic bed frame fluttering like a pigeon with mechanical clicks and clatters, all
the while choking on the tube that is the reason he still breathes.” Or some other showy attempt
of visual strangulation. Being in those positions lately has changed me. Cast in stone, they
would pass for modern art. In reality, they don’t hurt half as much. After all, a man drugged out
of his mind can only feel so much. Those vials left me feeling like the party animal me, only with
a tube shoved up my throat this time. There is no torture in being a bed model with enough
morphine to knock out a horse. But you know what real torture is; those wretched ratcheted
general ward beds that made the person into a mechanical toy whose back hurt every time you
turn the handle up and down. And those nurses- terrible excuses of them- what they were was a
bunch of giggly schoolgirls in scrubs who twirled their pastel nails with dolphin sounds every
other minute. Those good for nothing incompetent bunch. But they were good at one thing if I be
generous, and that would be lowering expectations because they made me worship the ICU
nurses for giving the medication on time. Those nurses kept me sane, at least; one can stay lying
only so long, being but a bag of potatoes who gets talked at only 5 to 6:30 except for doctor
visits. God, now I get why they the old folk love you so much, even an atheist falls to you when
he is alone 22 hours a day. Never had I thought of being called bed no. 12, but it’s good. Now I
get the old ladies who have more or less forgot their names, alone in a family with 8
grandchildren, treating a sculpture as their child- the living faces they see rarer than a blue
moon. There’s some charm you have that hooks the isolated, making them not so alone
anymore. It’s all you, always were, just that I only saw you now. Never would the young Anand
think he would say this. I have really changed. God, oh god, you are here; away from the crowd;
in isolation. Oh, why is it 5 PM again, those fake lackies will be coming here anytime, they have
no pity no well-wishing but still they won’t stop coming with that mournful face of theirs- there is
no compassion when the sick is in sight even those humanitarians have their noses scrunched,
even those saints lie, they are disgusted by me; they make a violated face. only the cleaning lady
only she is true. She talked to me as if I was a toddler; she cleans me up while exclaiming, ” look
what a mess you have made” somehow, she has nothing against me even when she criticises
me there is no hate no repulsion. the way she says all that is no different than how a mother
exclaims dressing her infant. I have become a child.
