The nurse paged ‘Dr. Abraham, “Mr.Carpenter in room 635 really wants to see you”. Dr. Abraham looked at his watch.
It was 12 in the afternoon. Amy, the nurse is one of the most passionate nurses in the oncology unit. If she has paged then it is bound to be urgent, thinking that he walked his way to room no. 635. When he entered the room, Carpenter was lying on the bed with closed eyes. The T.V was loud in the background and scenes from Iraq war were being shown on Fox News Channel. The birth place of a civilization was literally in pieces. As it is with all the wars, the majority of the civilians are innocent people with little or no understanding of the conflict. One could see American tanks moving as fast as snakes in the deserted desert sand. With there excellent precision, American missiles very seldom missed the target. Commanders sitting in the Pentagon could direct missiles to the strategic targets in Baghdad with utter ease.
Dr. Abraham wished he too could with such a precision kill the cancer cells that are invading Carpenter’s body. He thought if only the weapons in his arsenal were as effective as those used by the U.S Army
Carpenter has Osteosarcoma, a very aggressive form of bone cancer. His left leg had already being removed due to fast growing tumor. Dr. Abraham, standing helplessly, was thinking that his chances of survival are too lean. He thought as if he was leading an army that was doomed to fail. Carpenter did not notice Dr. Abraham’s presence, he was lost in his world. Dr. Abraham saw a family photo on the bed side table. It was so hard to imagine that the handsome man in the photo and the frail man lying on the bed were the same. Today he needs 4 litres of oxygen through a nasal cannula.
At last Carpenter noticed his presence. Dr. Abraham pulled a chair close to him. Carpenter said of late he is having nightmares, as if he was in a desert storm. Carpenter was in the U.S marine corps, one of the toughest military units of the world. His troops led the attack on Kuwait during first Iraq war. Carpenter continued, he said 2 weeks back his best friend was brutally killed on the streets of Baghdad. Carpenter died 4 weeks later.
Misunderstandings of cultures often lead to war and it is a historical fact. We need to be more tolerant to make this earth a much better place to live.