The fluorescent lights in the hospital's conference room buzzed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the empty chairs and the plain wooden table.
Rubina stood by the window, clutching her phone. Her voice was hushed but urgent, speaking to a trusted Qazi known through her NGO work.
“She’s unconscious most of the time but... she blinked. She understands. We need this done now. It’s a matter of saving a life.”
The Qazi arrived within thirty minutes, a kind, elderly man with a gentle presence, clad in a clean white kurta-pajama, a rolled tasbih in his fingers, and lines of wisdom carved into his forehead. He looked from Rubina to Hadi, understanding without needing much explanation.
“I understand the urgency,” the Qazi said softly, his eyes compassionate as they scanned Hadi’s exhausted face. “But we still need her consent.”
Dr. Zafar led them quietly into the ICU room. The Qazi stepped closer to her bed with reverence, his voice low but clear.
“Beti, main Qazi hoon. Tumhara nikaah karne ke liye aaya hoon. Agar tum maan jaati ho, toh abhi ek baar palkein jhapkao.”
(Daughter, I am the Qazi. I’ve come to perform your marriage. If you accept, blink your eyes once.)
For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air. Then—
Blink.
Rubina covered her mouth with her hand, eyes glistening. Even Dr. Zafar, standing near the monitor, blinked back something too heavy to name.
The Qazi nodded gently and turned to Hadi, opening the small nikaahnama and preparing the documentation.
“Ladke ka naam?”
“Hadi Ansari,” Hadi replied, barely above a whisper.
“Ladki ka naam?”
“Maira Ali,” Rubina answered for her. Hadi's eyes snapped to the girl on the bed. Maira, he whispered.
“Haq meher ek rupiya likh dein?” the Qazi asked, pen poised.
“No,” Hadi said firmly, almost instinctively. He looked away for a second, memories of another wedding, another girl in white, flooding his thoughts. That day, I gave twenty lakhs to Lubna… He swallowed hard. “Please Write twenty lakhs.”
The Qazi looked up in quiet surprise but nodded without question.
And then, the moment came.
Rubina stood at Maira’s side as the Qazi quietly asked the question to her, eyes filled with hope.
“Maira Ali, kya aapko Hadi Ansari se nikaah qubool hai, haq meher bees lakh rupaye mein?”
(Maira Ali, do you accept Hadi Ansari in marriage, with a haq meher of twenty lakh rupees?)
Maira, still weak, managed one blink.
Then a second.
Then the third.
The Qazi repeated the question and asked Hadi.
A beat passed.
“Qubool hai.” Hadi’s voice cracked, but he didn’t waver.
The Qazi repeated the question twice more. Each time, Hadi responded “Qubool hai. Qubool hai.”
The Qazi signed the final line with care and reverence, placing the pen down like it held sacred weight.
“Nikaah mubarak ho. Tum dono ab shohar-biwi ho.”
The words hung in the air like a sacred prayer.
Hadi moved forward, his footsteps dragging as if he were walking through water. He reached the side of Maira’s bed and sat on the stool beside her.
Slowly, reverently, he placed his hand on her head.
Her hair was tangled, her skin cool.
“You’ll be fine,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion, eyes blurred with tears. “I promise, you’ll be fine.”
Her eyelids fluttered open for a brief second, just long enough to meet his gaze, to see him, really see him.
And then, just like that, her eyes closed again, and her body sank into unconsciousness.
The machines began to beep faster. The nurse rushed in. The surgery team was already on standby.
Dr. Zafar looked at Hadi with a nod. “We’re ready.”
Hadi stood up but didn’t follow.
He stepped out of the room, the silence of the corridor pressing in around him.
Then he slumped into the chair outside, his head falling into his hands.
For the first time, he didn’t feel like a man with a past.
He felt like a man desperately trying to rewrite someone else’s future.
---
Time stretched like a cruel, infinite thread.
The hallway outside the operation theatre had long emptied of its urgent footsteps. Even Rubina had gone quiet, seated alone outside with hands clasped together like she was trying to physically hold herself from unraveling.
But Hadi couldn’t sit there. The air felt suffocating, every breath shallow and bitter. The bright white hospital lights glared into his soul, mocking his helplessness.
Without a word, he stood and walked down the silent corridor. His steps echoed with a hollow, dragging sound. When he reached the small hospital prayer room, he paused. The door was slightly ajar, revealing a narrow space with worn-out prayer mats, a low shelf with Qurans, and a faint scent of rosewater and old wood.
Hadi stepped in, closed the door behind him, and collapsed onto one of the mats. He bent forward slowly, his hands trembling, and rested his forehead on the ground.
And then, he broke.
Tears poured freely, soaking the mat beneath him as he whispered through shaking breaths, “Ya Allah… please… please save her.”
His voice cracked, dissolving into choked sobs.
“She’s just a girl. I didn’t even know her name until some hours back. But she’s... she's breathing, she’s fighting. Don’t take her now. Please.”
He rocked slightly, hands raised in trembling supplication.
“I can’t carry this sin, Ya Rab. I won’t survive it. I didn’t mean to… I swear I didn’t mean to hurt her. But it’s me… I did this. I was stupid, I was driving in the heavy rain, I shouldn't have....”
His voice broke again.
“And now she’s dying.”
He gasped, desperate, like he was underwater. “Give her another chance… just another chance. I’ll do whatever, just save her”
He pressed his hands to his eyes, biting back a scream. Then, as if the memory slapped him across the face, he whispered another name—
“Lubna…”
His heart clenched violently.
“Ya Allah… what will I tell her?” He looked up, as if waiting for the ceiling to fall on him.
“She doesn’t even know I’m here. She doesn’t know I’m married to someone else right now. How do I explain this? How do I look her in the eyes and tell her....?” he paused, lips quivering, “....that I married another woman… while she was still asleep in our bed?”
He shut his eyes. “I love her. Wallah, I love Lubna. She’s my world. I can’t lose her. I don't want to.”
And yet, in that very moment, he was crying for a stranger.
A girl who wasn’t his mother.
Not his sister.
Not Lubna.
Just a girl. On a hospital bed. Fighting death because of him.
The clock on the wall ticked on.
One hour.
Two.
Three.
By the fourth, the first rays of the morning sun started creeping in through the small frosted window of the prayer room. But they brought no comfort, only more silence, more waiting.
Then, suddenly, shouting.
Voices echoed through the corridor.
A nurse calling for help. Someone crying.
Hadi’s head jerked up. He stumbled to his feet, the rush of adrenaline making him dizzy. His heart slammed against his ribs as he sprinted out the door.
He turned the corner to find Rubina outside the ICU, crying inconsolably. Her body was hunched over, and her shoulders shook violently.
Two nurses rushed past him, their footsteps urgent, panic seeping through their calm exteriors.
“What...?” he barely managed. His voice was hoarse. “What happened?”
Rubina looked up with red eyes, her mouth trembling. She tried to speak but the words clung to her throat. Then, finally:
“They… they said…” she hiccupped, covering her mouth, “her heartbeat… it stopped.”
Hadi stumbled back, like he had been slapped.
“No...” he whispered, breathless. “No, no, please no.”
Rubina collapsed into the chair, sobbing uncontrollably. Her hands clutched her dupatta, knuckles white.
“This can’t be happening,” she cried. “She’s so young”
Hadi couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled as he dropped onto the nearest chair. The fluorescent lights blurred in his vision as tears welled up again.
He bent forward, elbows on his knees, hands dangling helplessly.
His mouth moved, but no sound came.
She was just there.
She blinked. She said yes.
We got married.
I promised her she’d be fine.
The words looped in his mind like a cruel echo.
His lips quivered again, whispering to no one:
“Please, Ya Allah… not like this…”
---
The operation theatre was silent except for the rhythmic beeping of machines and the sharp, focused voices of surgeons.
A metal tray clinked. A suction tube whirred. The overhead lights poured sterile brightness onto Maira’s unconscious face, pale, unmoving, her body limp under the surgical drapes.
Dr. Zafar, the lead surgeon, stood steady at the table. Sweat beaded at his temples as he monitored her vitals. Around him, a team of nurses and assistants moved with quiet urgency.
“BP’s dropping again,” someone called out.
“Saturation’s unstable.”
“She’s crashing—!”
The heart monitor blared, then flatlined.
A shrill, continuous beep cut through the room.
“Cardiac arrest!”
“Code blue!”
The team sprang into action. A nurse began chest compressions while another readied the crash cart.
“Push one milligram of epi, now!” Dr.Zafar barked.
A syringe plunged into her IV line.
“Still no pulse,” someone called.
“Continue compressions. Come on, Maira, don’t do this.”
Beads of sweat slid down Dr.Zafar’s brow as he watched for any sign of response.
Then....
A sudden flicker on the monitor. Chaotic. Irregular.
“V-fib!”
“We have a shockable rhythm!”
“Charging to 200. Clear!”
The defibrillator paddles pressed against her chest.
A jolt surged through Maira’s frail body. Her chest arched, then thudded back down.
“Still in v-fib. Charge again...300. Clear!”
Another shock. Her body jumped again.
Then....
A blip.
Another.
A rhythmic flutter.
“Sinus rhythm returning!”
“Heart rate 42 and climbing...!”
The room collectively exhaled, the tension easing but hands still moving.
“Stabilize her,” Zafar ordered, voice steady again. “We’re not losing her today.”
The beeping resumed, slower than before, but steady. Her chest now rose and fell on its own, faint but present. A second chance, snatched from the jaws of death.
They worked quickly, finishing the internal repairs. Her body was still fragile, her breathing shallow, but she was alive.
The silence returned, this time quieter, reverent.
“She’s stable,” Zafar finally said, pulling off his gloves. “But…”
He looked at her face, unmoving, eyes shut.
“She’s not waking up.”
---
Outside the OT, the door opened with a hiss. Hadi stood first, his face gaunt with dread, Rubina right behind him.
Dr. Zafar stepped out, removing his cap slowly. The lines on his face looked deeper than ever.
He took a breath.
“She’s alive,” he said.
Rubina sobbed out loud, a hand on her chest. Hadi couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He blinked once. Then again.
“But…” Zafar’s voice shifted, more serious. “She went into cardiac arrest during surgery. We were able to revive her, but she hasn’t regained consciousness.”
He paused. “She’s slipped into a coma.”
Rubina gasped, tears now flowing freely again.
Hadi stared at him. “What… what does that mean?” he asked quietly, voice shaking.
Zafar stepped closer. “The next 48 hours are critical. If she doesn’t wake up within that time… we can’t guarantee her survival. Her body might recover. But without brain activity…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Hadi’s legs weakened beneath him. The floor didn’t tilt, but it felt like it did.
“She’s in the ICU now. You can see her in a few minutes. But prepare yourself,” Zafar added. “She may look peaceful. But right now, she’s still fighting for her life.”
He walked away, leaving the silence behind like a gaping wound.
Rubina wept into her hands.
Hadi didn’t cry this time. He just looked at the ICU doors. She had survived the accident. The surgery. Even death. But now, it was a battle only Maira could fight.
Alone.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
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