Overwhelmed with a severe headache at around noon, I was rushed to a hospital nearby. Holding my throbbing head in my hands, I was taken to the OPD.
Within an hour, after I was treated, my headache got better and was nearly causing me no pain. The doctor told me that I was doing fine. I thought I was going to be okay and we took our leave and went back home.
After having my meal, I found myself in an incredibly unexplainable condition. I felt breathless (not because of Covid; I had tested negative only a day ago). In a moment it became so bad that I almost fainted and fell down. Black and white colours appeared before my eyes as I lay completely dumbstruck. With all the energy I had left in me, I held on to a curtain to at least get up and call someone. I managed to get to the lobby where my mom saw me. She was as confounded as I was because I was unable to speak and tell her my problem. She shouted and cried as if I was dying and all of a sudden all of my family members appeared and took me once again to the hospital nearby.
On the way to the hospital I believed that I was going to die — that I had only a few minutes or hours left before I was transported to the afterlife. At that moment I found myself existing in a sort of infinite space and time. I acquired a 360-degree vision where I could see everyone around me.
Soon some tests were carried out. The doctor checked my pulse, my oxygen saturation level. I went through an X-ray and an ECG. The tests shocked all the doctors as they were normal and even better than of a healthy patient. But I was still breathless, and nothing was helping. I begged for oxygen support but the doctors believed more in the report. It was only after a dearest friend, Javid Rather, who worked in the same hospital, told the doctor to at least try oxygen support for once, that the doctors listened to him and I was shifted to a ward and put on oxygen support. The oxygen did not help, just as the doctor had said it wouldn’t.
Now I began to sense some clarity about my situation. It was a symptom of an uninvited, unexplainable death. I didn’t want to go, though, because it was so painful. It was just miserable. I didn’t want to die like that. All of my family was comforting me. I held the hand of my mom and asked her, “Mama, is it as simple to go to the heavens as they say? What about my sins?”
I admit that I always, always try to do good and never harm anyone, but what of the sins I’ve been committing? I am a really big sinner. I’ve sinned with my heart and mind, with my eyes and ears, and what not. What would I get for those sins? I did not want to die unless I had earned heaven for myself.
My mom told me that she would never give up on me, nor would let me go. She asked who’ll take care of her when she grows old? That brought tears to my eyes. As she held me to her bosom, we wept together.
To make me calm down, I was injected with something that made me fall asleep. But before I slept, I felt happy to know that whatsoever happens, my family is with me and that we are all one. My whole family, they’re a part of me, and whatever befalls, we shall tackle it together.
Waking up the next morning, I was better than before. I thought of how much my family loved me and how on earth do I forget that sometimes.

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Saraf Ali