"Umm,
what happened? Where am I?” I wake very confused and
disoriented.
“This is not the
'tracks'. Where am I? I don’t sleep in
a bed. Why is there a needle in my arm? What is that glass hanging
over my head? What are all of those machines for?"
I
try to sit up, but a woman in white tells me not to. I try anyway,
but she gently pushes me down again. She sticks a thermometer into
my mouth and takes my temperature.
"Where
am I? Why am I here?"
She
smiles and tells me, "You were in an accident. The doctor
will be around soon. He will answer all of your questions."
Shortly
afterwards, the doctor arrives. The nurse snaps to attention when
he enters the room. She hands him the medical chart. He doesn't
say a word to me as he flips through the pages. He only peers up
to look at me, from time to time, as he reads the chart. He looks
very authoritative and respected, I think. When the doctor is done
reading, he hands the chart over to the nurse. He comes over to
me. He is still silent.
I
think to myself, "I have never been so close to someone like
him before without having been pushed away." I can smell the
faint scent of his cologne. He is tall and fair skinned. His black
hair is neatly cut and parted to the side. He wears the square
shaped eyeglasses of the businessmen I've seen, when I'm out
begging in Makati. From his neck hangs a beautiful sleek tie with
a gold clip on it, and the buckle on his leather belt is gold. His
hands are manicured. On his left hand he wears a gold wedding band
and on his right arm, he wears a gold watch. He doesn't wear a
white jacket like some doctors do.
The
nurse interrupts my thoughts, diverting my attention away from the
doctor's gold watch, as she tells him my blood pressure and
temperature.
"Blood
pressure and temperature are stable, sir, but the wound is still
bleeding."
"What do you mean still bleeding?" I ask anxiously, as I
try to sit up.
The
nurse automatically comes over and gently pushes me down again. As
she does so, the doctor bends over to examine the bandages and
with dim eyes, he tries to explain what happened to me.
"A
train ran over your right arm while you were sleeping near the
tracks. It was severed at the elbow. We had to do surgery
…"
"What!
What are you talking about?" I yell in disbelief turning to
look over at my right arm. It is not there. There is only a stump
wrapped in white bandages with blood on it. The doctor tries to
answer my questions and tells me in a patient voice, "We
could not save the arm."
Bewildered,
I ask another question, tears welling up in my eyes. "How
come it feels like it is still there?"
A
little annoyed, the doctor tells me "You're experiencing
ghost sensations. They will soon go away," he says flatly.
I
close my eyes, as I feel my head sinking deeper into the pillow
with the weight of the information I've just received.
After
what seemed like a long time, the doctor starts to speak again. He
asks me about my relatives and who will pay for the post-operative
medicines. I turn my head to him with tears running down the sides
of my face and tell him in an empty voice, "I am a street
child. I have no family and I have no money. My parents abandoned
me at the age of five. They took me to a park to play and never
came back for me. I had to fend for myself ever since."
The
doctor writes something down on his clipboard. Then he and the
nurse turn to leave the room. I’m alone.
I
was alone for some days. The doctor and the nurses did not attend
to me. The anesthesia had long worn off and the bandages were
starting to smell. I was uncomfortable and I was in terrible pain.
“Why
won’t you give me medicine?” I asked the nurse when she
brought in my rice and soup. “Doesn’t anybody care?” I said
protesting, trying to get out of my bed. My yells and screams of
pain forced the nurses to come into my room and tie me down. They
tied my left wrist and my feet to the bed. It just made me scream
and holler more.
Later,
I developed a high fever that drove me into confusion and dreams.
In one of my feverish moments, a little boy with black clothes and
silver hair took me by the hand and we flew from my hospital bed
out of the window. We traveled through the skies until we came to
a group of children curled up sleeping on the narrow beams high
above the streets under the Light Rail Transit. The little silver
haired boy and I watched them as they slept. Each far away in his
own dream world. Suddenly, one of the little boys turned over in
his sleep and fell to his death on the street below. I was
horrified. The next moment, the silver haired boy and I were
standing next to the little boy as he emerged from his splayed
body, rubbing his eyes, as if he had just woken up. He and the
little silver haired boy looked at one another. Then the
silver-haired boy grabbed my hand and we flew off.
In
a flash, the silver haired boy and I landed on a highway and sat
down next to a group of children sniffing rugby. They could not
see us. There was a lot of traffic going back and forth.
Unexpectedly, the children got up from the wall, on which they
were sitting, and ran into the moving traffic.
I
was shocked as I watched them dodging between the rapidly moving
jeepneys and cars honking their horns fiercely. There was a loud
screech and a dulling thump. One of the children was hit. His body
lay in a pool of blood in the street, twisted and contorted. He
was still clutching a plastic bag with rugby in his hand. I
watched as he rose up from his dead body and appeared next to us
on the wall. He looked on, as the people gathered around his dead
body asking for his parents. The little boy just looked at us with
bleary eyes and continued sniffing. The little silver haired boy
took my hand and we flew off. We went on like this for hours,
traveling through the skies watching street children dying in the
streets from accidents and brutalities.
Finally,
we ended up at the railway tracks, where I saw myself lying
sprawled out, sleeping soundly, still holding my plastic bag of
rugby in my left hand, and my right arm flung carelessly across
the train track. I heard the train coming and rushed to try to
wake me, but I couldn’t. The little boy with the silver hair put
his hand on my shoulder. I heard the train coming. It was getting
closer and closer… I watched terrified as it ran over my right
arm. I woke up screaming in a complete delirium.
Pouring
with perspiration, someone patted my forehead dry and calmed me
down. I asked for water. It was given to me. After I drank, I
could focus better. I looked around me; I was back in my hospital
room. I lay back down on the pillow.
"You
had a very high fever for four days. You developed an infection
where your arm was amputated. The infection has spread up into the
remaining part of your arm. The doctors had to operate again. They
had no choice but to remove the rest of the arm," the kind
stranger said.
I
looked over to the empty space where my stump used to be. My arm
was completely removed.
"I'm
sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it is possible that the
infection has spread through the rest of your body," he said.
I
looked at this person with tears in my eyes and asked, "Why?
Doesn’t anybody care?"
Black
Angels
Black
Angels can't fly
They don't go up to heaven
Instead, they live amongst us
On the streets
Dirty, neglected,
Raped, torn and broken
Testing out humanity
Then they die
unnoticed
only then do we notice them
maybe
MDR
3/01
back to top