Wish I Had Wings......

I don't know how to describe this story. It really has touched my heart . I couldn't believe that at the end of the story I could feel my tears rolling down my cheeks. It's a short story of what a family undergoes, when their only daughter takes to bed..... So i thought of bloggin it to you guys to read. And here it is.

Nancy walked down the desolate Lobby and settled behind the Reception counter. A proletarian in the profession, the loneliness of the hospital's lobby during night hours was still new to her. Preoccupied in deciding what to order for dinner, she was swinging in her chair, when the red emergency light started flashing on the board. It read Room 9. She immediately pushed the green button on intercom and announced - "Paging Dr. Singh for an emergency. Please report immediately to room 9." She repeated the message twice and then just set the receiver back and rushed down the south-east aisle. On her way, she was joined by Dr. Singh, and few other nurses. They entered Room 9, which was dark, except for the heart monitors which glowed insanely. The silence of the room was torn by the shrill noise of the life saving gadgetry that occupied most part of the room. Dr. Singh switched on the lights, to reveal a sad state in front of their eyes. The pole, to which the glucose bottle dangled once, was now parallel to ground, creating a puddle of colored fluid. The originally white bed sheet was now partly red and was indecisive whether it should be on floor or on the bed. With wires running between the heart monitors and oxygen cylinders, the matrix rested on a small figure cocooned in the bed-sheet. Among all this, lying on the ground was Anjali with foam dripping down her lips and her body quivering like a fish outside the water.
Anjali turned 10 on the day she was brought to the Holy Spirit hospital a month back, and she never actually left Room 9 after that. Her 10th birthday did not offer her as many gifts as many copious tests she underwent. Blood tests, urine tests, stool tests, X-Rays, just to be followed by MRI. The piles of reports that these tests generated were all hinting what Dr. Singh was dreading to even speculate. They all hinted that Anjali was suffering from "Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease" (CJD). CJD was a rare fatal disease of the central nervous system and the text book definition of the CJD suggested --

***CJD is a dementing disease of the brain caused by an unconventional, transmissible agent (prion).
Symptoms of CJD include forgetfulness, nervousness, jerky trembling hand movements, unsteady gait, muscle spasms, chronic dementia, balance disorder, and loss of facial expression.***

Considered as the pioneer of Neurology in India Dr. Singh was an uncrowned king of medicine kingdom. As his watery eyes stared at Anjali's reports, his cell phone vibrated.
"Singh Speaking."
"Hi Karan, Bose here. I just got your voice message, and you sounded tense. Is everything ok?"
"Sir, Sorry to bother you at this late hour but I have this very unusual case and I wanted a second opinion. Or to be precise, your opinion."
Dr. Bose was Dr. Karan Singh's mentor-cum-God-Father. Dr. Singh did not believe in God, but he believed in his GOD-FATHER. He believed that possibly he can be wrong in his analysis, but Dr. Bose would never. This time, Dr. Singh wished he was wrong. The conversation between them went on for close to an hour and just concluded with Dr. Bose saying --
"Karan, I know it's hard to believe, and also the chance of such a case is 1 in million, but we have to accept the fact that, the 1 unfortunate person is right in front of us. She is a clear case of CJD and there is no cure for this. Rest I leave it to you how you break this news to her folks." As he pressed the red button on his cell phone, Dr. Singh just sank in his chair and wondered how he was going to face Anjali's parents.
Next morning, Dr. Singh entered the room, and saw Mr. and Mrs. Suri sitting on the bed next to Anjali. She was awake, and attempting to arm wrestles her macho Dad.
"Good Morning, Princess. Did you meet the Prince in your dreams yesterday?" Dr. Singh teased to put a smile on Anjali's face and the 10 year old princess blushed. Then as always, he dug deep into the pocket of his white over-coat and came out with a 5-Star chocolate.
"Mr. Suri, we need to talk. If you don't mind can we go to my cabin?"
Dr. Singh and Aditya (Aditya Suri - an Advetising Icon and Anjali's dad) left the room, while Neelima (Anjali's mom) sat next to her combing her tousled hair. Dr. Singh seated across Aditya and the room echoed with a concerning silence, as he hunted for words.
"Mr. Suri, we have identified Anjali as a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It's a very rare disease, so rare that only 1 in a million gets as badly affected as Anjali."
"I...I..I am confused doctor, how bad is it? More details please?"
"Hmm.....you will start seeing some changes in Anjali soon. Within a week, she would start showing symptoms of Dementia. She will not recognize you or your wife, or even me for that matter. At times she would suddenly remember you, and would act normal. The week after that she would loose her control over her peripheral organs, and she might not be able to move her hands and her head. This occurs due to a condition in the brain and as it spreads, it will affect her various abilities and functions..."
Dr. Singh stopped and couldn't complete his sentence looking at Aditya. His eyes that were only moist till now, could no longer contain the heaviness of the tears accruing. He couldn't stop them from running down his cheeks, even though he attempted to close his eyes.
"Do we have a cure doc? or do I have to ask how many days Anjali will live?"
Dr. Singh's silence answered for him. As he frolicked with the pen in his hand (lousily attempting to hide his nevousness) he tried to calculate an approximate number.
"Mr. Suri, I think we just have 2 weeks."
Aditya saw his world falling apart. A million thoughts raced in his head, all converging to one -- "Why not me? Why that poor angel of mine? Why Anjali?"
Next day, on special requests which Dr. Singh made to the management, Aditya and Neelima practically shifted their living base in that small hospital room. Room No. 9 was Suri family's new home, and they didn't know for how long. By the end of that week Anjali had already lost her ability to walk, and would just look outside the window to see other kids play around.
It was just another morning for Anjali fresh and beautiful, totally ignorant about the fears which her father horned through the night. Every morning thereon Aditya and Neelima would wake up with an uncertainty whether they would see Anjali alive.
As Aditya sat next to her pillow, he stared at his little angel. Her innocent eyes stared back at him with no expressions. Her hair had started graying, and there were streaks of dark patches under her eyes. Her lips all chapped and skin all wrecked. Aditya was fighting the reality and didn't want to believe what his eyes were seeing. There were days when she would irritate him by nagging, but today she was not speaking. Innumerable times Aditya would have wished to tie her up in a chair, since she would run around the house and trouble him and Neelima. But today, Aditya wanted her to run, play with him, make him a horse and ride him, pinch her mother and run away. But the thought that she cannot do it, literally hurt Aditya like hundred knives piercing his heart.
"Papa, will I ever be able to walk again?" Anjali suddenly asked, as she looked at the kids playing outside.
Aditya was silent; his brain urging him to tell her the truth but his heart was not willing. Dr Singh had already warned him that such questions would come from Anjali, and had told him not to lie or give false hopes. Neelima could see that Aditya was choking, and it was not easy for him to lie to his little child. He wished so much that he could tell her that she can dance, run around and do whatever she wanted, but he knew he would not be honest to her.
"Anju, do you remember what you had told GOD last time you prayed? You thanked him for giving you most beloved parents and you also told him that they were special to you. So now he's very happy with you, and he's turned you also into a special child. You are very different from all the girls in your school, and out of all of them he's chosen you especially as his own little butterfly. Soon you will get wings on your back. Here....right here behind your shoulders, and then you will be able to fly. You would no longer have to walk....."
Trying real had to keep the fake smile on his face, Aditya showed a small butterfly outside the window. Anjali got excited, and kept looking at the butterfly. Anjali no longer regretted that she was loosing her legs, because she now believed that she would get wings. Neelima had seen a smile on her face after many days.
As days passed by, Anjali's health deteriorated and soon she lost her ability to move her hands too. She had grown very weak and absolutely no movements were possible without someone's help. The only moving parts were her eyelids and her lips. She was still able to talk, but no one knew for how long. Every morning she would ask her mom to check her shoulders and see if she got her wings? And Neelima swallowing her tears would lie to her saying they were there but were still developing. Aditya and Neelima were physically tired, but not tired emotionally. Aditya was strong, and he would stand by Neelima till the end of this ordeal. It wasn't easy for her to see Anjali her only child die a slow death in front of her eyes, but she managed to keep a happy face whenever she was around Anjali.
Sunday 14th-August, Aditya was sitting next to Anjali, when she said in a very slow tone barely audible --
"Papa, you lied to me. I am not getting any wings, and I know won't be able to walk too. Can you at-least show me my childhood videotapes where I used to run around? I want to see how it was when I walked. Please papa...."
Aditya could not take it anymore and with tears flowing uncontrollably from his red eyes he dashed out of the room. Neelima wanted to so badly hug Anjali and cry her heart out, but the life saving gadgetry stood between the daughter and her mom. By late evening Aditya with help of Dr. Singh arranged a TV connected to Video Recorder and few of her childhood tapes. Aditya picked one tape marked - "Anjali - 2nd Birthday Bash" and slid it in the recorder. The images on the screen, with Anjali walking around in a big diaper, smiling at the camera and hands full of chocolate cake could no longer contain Neelima's tears. As Aditya changed the tapes one after another Anjali smiled at few occasions. Then she told her mom to tilt her head towards the window, and as she lay there motionless, staring into the void of the Open Window a butterfly rested on the window pane. The music which the heart-monitors were playing so far suddenly went silent and a horizontal line replaced the spikes.
Our butterfly got her wings, and flew off to a distant land...........