STRANGER THAN FICTION (PART 2...The Conclusion)

I sat there motionless.

As he went about preparing a cup of tea for each one of us, a million things kept going through my mind. I never believed in ghosts or spirits. But now, my colleagues’ reaction somewhat alluded to the fact that what I had witnessed on that particular night might have been real. I wanted to probe him further and find out what he knew. Given that he was the oldest one among us, and had worked there longer, might he have once spotted this thing that I had seen?

Surprisingly, he remained unperturbed. He hummed some tune off key as he rinsed our tea cups. The old man was a staunch Christian by the way. He held some senior position at his local church. Sometimes he would preach to us. Whenever patients came in for some surgical procedure, he would take them through some lengthy sermon occasionally breaking into a prayer regardless of one’s faith, all the while quoting the Holy Bible. “We all believe in one God”, he would always remind us.

I looked at my other colleague for possible clues but whenever our eyes locked, he would subsequently stare down at the floor. I had a feeling he knew something too but didn’t want to admit to it. I realized at that moment that, if there was any revelation to be made, this other colleague of mine believed that this wasn’t his burden to bear. I understood what his silence meant and didn’t probe him further. I was going to let the old man reveal whatever he wanted to reveal, if at all there was anything to be revealed. After what felt like eternity, the old man finally turned around and sat down. He gently sipped his tea, gave me a long hard stare then said, "Khamis, you know in this world we have both good and bad. Djinns are very much in existence and I mean both good and bad spirits. You know, it is said that evil spirits love residing around large water bodies. Now, you are aware that our hospital is next to the ocean aren’t you?”

I replied in the affirmative.

He then went on to say, “Now, I am sure that you are also aware of the fact that evil spirits love where blood gets spilled a lot?’ I nodded in agreement. Not that I knew…but I’d heard of stuff like that before.

“Now Khamis, you are aware we do spill a lot of blood here at the operating theatre given the nature of our profession?”,

I gave him a weak nod for reality was kind of setting in and I was starting to freak out.

An eerie silence followed suit. My other colleague now looked me straight in the eye. It now felt like we were having a telepathic conversation. I could feel him saying, “now you see why I didn’t wanna talk…?”

The old man then went ahead and sipped his tea again, leaving me to digest all that he had said. We were all silent. Only the sound of tea flowing down our throats reverberated throughout the entire room.

Reality hit me. I may have seen a ghost. 5 minutes passed by.

As these thoughts traversed through my head, the old man snapped me out of my thoughts and asked "Khamis, what is that building just a few meters from this operating theatre?" while pointing at it with his wrinkled fingers. The building was actually adjacent to our theatre with a pavement leading up to it. It was less than a minute’s walk from where we were. Only a wall separated us.

I followed his gaze and quickly answered, "the morgue".

He gave me a knowing look before standing up and going over to the sink to rinse his tea cup, never uttering anything else after that.

Less than a year later, the old man went to be with The Lord.

May he RIP.