Degenerate

He lies on the floor. His jute mat with its frayed ends being munched away slowly by the rats that came to visit him. He moans lowly to drive them away but they don’t care and take him for the entertainment at their restaurant, squeaking their appreciation. He's too worn out to bother shooing them away. His hand hurts and every square inch is littered with blisters filled with fluid like puddles on a brick road. He rolls side to side scaring away his dinner guests and rests again for a while. The hospital has been very busy lately with the rains bringing along with its showers, patients by the truck load to St. Mary's.

The ward maid walks among them triaging the various inmates to see whether some have inadvertently succumbed to deaths call. She signals for the ward boys and they come, green masked, stretcher in hand to pick up the unlucky remains. He stirs to let her know he's alive. She smiles for a micro-second and she’s off to scan the remainder. Defeated he looks at his hands again, enclosed pools waiting to be explode. But he knows better now not to pick them, for the previous time it stung so bad that they had to prick him with countless injections so he preferred his body did the job for him and weathered them slowly away.

From silence to crescendo, the rain arrives again. He makes another fruitless effort to gather up courage to cry for help, but his voice like smoke easily gets lost in the madness of the crowd. Pain like a thief attacks him swiftly causing him to whimper and cringe. He lets out a cough. Drops of red spurt on the patterned tiles, the sight of which scares him. His time is up. He tries to breathe again but it gets harder. His heart starts beating frantically almost forcing him to make another attempt. With a last labored breath, he succumbs, into the hands of his heavenly father. "Acha isko bhi le chalo. Mar gaya buddha.” his eulogy read.