The Serious Tale

'Never fret over an OSPE afterwards, only before”

Great words said by a great person, my elder sister. :D

The panic I experienced while diving for my cell phone as it fell into a pool of mud, or while running for the last free sandwich, or even while running away from the Dissection Hall for my precious life...(rewind and imagine all in slow motion :| )...was nothing as compared to the panic that enjoyed a roller coaster ride to and fro in my G.I.T. ONE DAY BEFORE MY ANATOMY OSPE.

For the sake of a few minutes that we would spend in front of scary specimens, trying to make wild guesses, we dedicated an entire day to exploring the world of Anatomy. From morning to night, “Have you had something to eat?”, “NO”... “Do you want a sweater?”, “NO”... “Have you brushed your teeth?”... “NO...wait, what?”

The night brought no peace with itself. I jerked around in bed, finally deciding that I wanted to revise the gross part again. The atlas seemed to be playing games with me, hiding the very labeling I wanted to check. Before I finally found sleep in a corner of my eye, I wished for a miraculous photographic memory.

It was like a dream. The voices around me were fading into thin air with every minute, a sense of derealization was slowly taking over, carrying me in its heavenly arms and shielding my eyes from the sharp golden daylight that illuminated half of my face. I was staring right into the Sun. My body was numb. I reminded myself that my theory exam hadn't gone quite okay. It was do or die for me. And as a matter of fact, I already felt like a corpse, feelingless and expressionless, staring blankly through transparency into my scary thoughts.

I was the third one to go. The bell rang and my mind instinctively pushed me forwards to the first specimen. Then the second, the third. It was a queer feeling, this was quite like the first OSPE of my life. Yet, the feeling of derealization was new. The feeling of walking over a cotton-cloud and life suddenly losing track of time...two minutes were two hours when I had to wait to go to the next specimen, and the same was two seconds when I was still struggling at a station. Life had turned into an unskilled wizard, swishing its wand this way and that, not knowing what the consequences were to be. Life was rash-driving and not knowing where it's going, depending ninety nine percent on sheer luck. The wheel was out of hand. That wheel, a Force had taken in its command. And I was a puppet to my luck.

I came out gasping from the same door I had entered through. However, this was not the end of suffering. Level Two was still to go. It started after a one hour torture of sitting silently on the provided stools. My butt was frozen and I shifted about awkwardly in my seat, hoping to get some warm blood throbbing. The girl beside me turned to give me a skeptical look. I cheesed her a big, toothy smile. I couldn't understand how everyone could be so stiff, so silent, so patient a few minutes before an exam, I had imagined two dozens of fat chickens puck-pucking and flapping about in a pen haphazardly. THAT was my idea of a scene before an Anatomy OSPE. Here, even crickets were silent. Even coughing was going to get attention. The ironic part is, I always have the urge to cough when the air is still and silent. Oh, destiny.

The bell rang. It was a race of memory and time. And so far, time seemed to be winning. I would just stare into the microscope, wondering whether I'd seen something like that before, trying to recognize the ever so tiny spots as some kind of epithelium. I mean, SERIOUSLY?? I wanted to turn the objectives to power x40. What IS wrong with x40? I think they just don't want the poor kids to pass. Evil, despicable paper-pattern-setters.

One minute, TRRING. Another minute, TRRING. Come on people! Throw away the microscopes and LET'S PLAY MUSICAL CHAIRS. I'd be luckier at that than guessing the names of the pink brides in sixty seconds.

My long slide was Cerebellum...I couldn't really think of a suitable viva related to it. I asked a few girls around. By the time a short, sophisticated examiner entered the room in a crisp, royal blue formal suiting, my heart was pumping blood like a maniac. Every hair of his beard was in perfect place, and classy silk rested in the breast pocket of his American style coat. Nevertheless, he was a poker face. As he came to me, with the same glassy expression that he'd put up for the previous students, I decided to face him boldly.

“So what is cerebellum?” He asked in a low, smooth tone.

Damn! I thought. I didn't see THAT coming.

“Ugh...” I gazed at him, he gazed back. I gazed at him, he gazed back, I gazed...okay, enough :-/ . So I slowly started to tell him all I knew. “It is a part of the CNS...” and I decided that was all I knew. The awkward gazing game started again. He smiled at last, and asked me an easier question and let me go.

Whew...that was close. I ran back to the hostel, deciding I couldn't breathe until I'd get back.

Yes, there is truly a Force. A Force that had made the utmost strict examiner smile. A Force that had made me guess the names of at least half of the pink brides correctly. A Force that was running through my veins and writing my answers for me. I had felt the presence of the Present, the might of the Almighty, the power of the Powerful. And I decided that there was God above, and I ran my arms under a gush of water to perform abolution for a prayer of thanks.

Jail-break

Headed towards the Heavenly Green Door...flung shoes off a tired pair of feet without opening the laces, threw the lab-coat into the top shelf in the messy cupboard, and collapsed on the hard mattress.

That's what everybody was like when they got back after their last exam...it seemed like breathing again after being bailed out of jail after eighty years of sentence.

Stomach growled.
Ow. Now I have to get up off my lazy ass to get my self some food...Food, come to me. Whoa, that thing is walking. Nice.
I looked at the refrigerator, and to my surprise it opened with a slight creak. I moved my eyes to Rak's costly mango juice, which happened to hop out and poured itself in a grand glass. My meal was ready. I opened my mouth so each of my favorite dishes would jump in, and I munched and munched until....I finally choked.

"Wake up, idiot!"
My weary eyes shot open. "Oh, holy...thanks for ruining a nice day." I mumbled under my breath.
"Get dressed! We're going to hang out somewhere in Loserville." I saw a blurry image of Rak hanging upside down from the ceiling.
"Loserville?" I raised a brow.
"We don't have money, so we can all we can afford is Loserville." We both giggled. I suddenly made a sulky face.
"What..."
"I didn't bring any clothes even good enough for Loserville." I told her.
She said she'd lend me her's.

It was a nice shade of brown matched with pink. Five girls with wavy, dark hair decided to visit a classy mall even if their pockets were empty.

There was much to look at. So much to see and absorb. We were lost in the city lights, out of our prison after eighty years. As the sun set, the lights became dreamier. Neon signs danced and mesmerized us. We spent hours commenting on Maria B.'s new collection, comparing designer work with small scale industrial output, quality and quantity, and most of all, how much we were always going to cherish our time together.
We had tons of frozen yogurt for our complaining tummies.
After, we visited more shops, turning shoes, hats and coats down secretly because of the prices but beaming at the shop keepers with a slight thank you, pretending we didn't really have time to actually stand there and choose.
One attendee actually thought we were interested in buying their shirts, and she even put a dress off "waiting" just so we would buy it. Just like our attitude in other stores, we beamed, saying thank you with a slight bow and turning the offer down because of "time", saying "PHEWWW" right as we got out.

Subway was our last spot. We munched and munched and munched on our sandwiches until we knew we would grow out of the dresses we wore.

We returned empty handed of course, with nothing that has mass or takes space, but in our minds we had taken two thousand retarded pictures and saved them in our memories.
Fun didn't quite end. We talked and watched movies till after midnight. Still, we went to bed thinking this wasn't enough...

Because after all, we were all born to party, but forced to study.

The Murder

During a fight violent screams, swears and curses pitch the air. People use guns and sticks.

I had none. In the air silence screamed. My friend shivered. A frown had hooked up on her face as fright took over. Yes, the idea of two helpless girls locked up in a room with a merciless shadow gives goosebumps. All I had to offend the enemy was a broom, the only thing I could find in the haste. No matter how puny a broom may sound like, it was a mark of strength for me at the time, when nothing else was available.

Again...two young girls locked up in a room with a scary stranger...slithering its way from one bed to another...the creeps that frozen smile would give...two young girls on the verge of wounding themselves badly....with swollen throats and tightened facial muscles...eyes bulging out, bruises on their backs...a lifeless color haunting their bodies...it could be, in short, a MURDER.

The guard outside had retreated from the fight with the stranger. Now it was just the two of us...and of course the horrendous shadow.

We circled around like in a boxing ring. Our scared wimps and moans were the cheering crowd, and the stranger's sudden leaps were the ringing bells. "time out!" they would say...and then each brave move I'd make with my broom to defend myself would be a break to the "three, two, one..."

I attempted several unsuccessful shots at the advancing shadow...but what good could a broom do? The stranger smirked at my helpless hit and trial. I was suddenly breathless. It was suffocating in the locked room. I looked around at the four walls that grew closer and closer to us. Would we ever be saved? It was either the stranger or the phobia that would kill us both. Teyni pulled at the sleeve of my shirt. I tried to give her some of my fake courage by nodding and shaking myself back up, clearing my throat. A crooked smile was enough to unveil my secret.

The circling continued, added to it was the hiding, ducking, jumping and rarely bending back parallel to the ground dramatically in slow motion. :D

The stranger became impatient with two utterly hyperactive and disrespectful hostages. It had never seen frightened people in so much action before. Therefore, not foreseeing the circumstances, the stranger dived towards me.
A shriek escaped my dry mouth as I blindly shot a sixer at the offender. Teyni leaped up, her hand smacking in my face and making me shriek louder, and this once, multiple times in a row. This made her to scream in return. The pin-drop silence turned into a clatter. Teyni threw her precious scarf in the direction of the "six" I had made...just as an innocent attempt to save me if the shadow survived.

Suddenly dead silence took over. Teyni was shaking. I was frozen to death...the offender had vanished. At last the heat of the very recent incidents melted me, and I plucked courage to peek beneath the scarf...something wriggled underneath. Teyni and I screamed together. :D

*girls*

The lizard had let go of its tail in surrender. I sighed as relief crossed my mind at last. We unlatched the door and threw the corpse out with our dissection gloves on. :P

To celebrate our first official murder in hostel, we ordered burgers and had a little dance party in the room. As we munched on the crispy meal, I grinned. When Teyni asked me about it, I exclaimed, "I must admit we looked like the Flinstones back then!"

Zombieland

Home: a warm word with so many memories and so much joy, where people are pure inside out unlike the world outside. The world outside is Zombieland, with their hair and teeth growing, to frighten you and then to eat you up, respectively. :D There are only two ways you can keep the Zombies out of your way: to shoot them...or to show them the middle finger.

As I don't have license to kill, I've been doing the latter lately, but the Zombies have become immune to getting abused so often. Let me describe the Zombies. The Zombies are two-headed, one to show and the REAL one to hide. The one to show has normal-sized teeth along with other very human features. The other is GREEN and MEAN with vampire canines and a pretty greasy tongue; the evil Mojo-Jojo brain is always at work! Some Zombies are the leaders, who tell other Zombies what to do. The other Zombies listen and work accordingly, because their brain present in the “head to hide” never developed fully, so they can't make strategies themselves and are foolish enough to be used by the Leader Zombies for their personal benefit. The Leader Zombies think that getting back at humans for their mistakes makes them a winner, and they laugh about it. Had they known that humans “know better” and that the Zombies “aren't worth it”, they would realize that they're just wasting the little time they have in this life, the time that humans are spending munching on chocolate, drinking cola, listening to music and writing a blog like I am. :D

Sometimes the Zombies change their identities to pose as humans to get back at them. They think they're so clever that humans can't realize WHAT KIND they truly are. They have lots and lots of fun fooling around with a fake identity that they forget what it's bringing to them. Because in famous legends when they laugh too hard they forget about themselves in the end. What a tragedy.

*sad violin* =P

There is a time when the Zombies realize what other Zombies are actually doing, and then they fight among themselves. That is the time when humans sit back with a big bowl of cheesy popcorn and WATCH. It's a cold war, like that between Zombies and humans, so the target thinks they're so cool until they're shot. :D

Zombies can never be united. You know why? Because after all, they are ZOMBIES. Had they been humans, would they have had the sense of unity and would have known the value of staying together as ONE.

Don't be Zombie.

Be human.

The Laptop Buzz: Part I

Our favorite time-pass in college was taking trips to the I.T. department, asking the coordinators twenty times a day about the hoped-for free laptops. With shine in our eyes we would head to their office, but the Grim would follow us everywhere, sucking all the joy and hope out like dementers. At last we came to believe that we would never be lucky enough to run our fingers on a free personal computer, or punch in digital notes with the triumph of a winner. =(  Not everybody was being rewarded with a laptop, only students with high educational achievements were honored so. As we would walk out of the coordinators' office, the Grim would laugh at us mockingly.

At last the blue moon shone, emerging from within a mob of retreating shadows. The date for the distribution of laptops in our city came nearer and nearer, and the adrenaline level rose and rose, until the excitement erupted in finding "someone who wants a red laptop in exchange of a black one?". :D

...but what happened in "The Moment Between Cause and Effect"? Look thus...

The day was hot. :/ It was three in the evening. I was sitting under the blessed fan in the college cafeteria, munching on crushed ice that I got for free in a disposable glass. I was waiting for the first bus to start so I could push my way through the imaginary crowd in my mind and glide in like Superman. :D

Temperatures rising, I saw students crowding on the road like colorful tides, like a mixture of shades on a palette or hues splashing in the air to celebrate Holi. The heat was frustrating, but the hope of a fruitful tomorrow kept everyone in high spirits.

The buses swallowed these tides in a matter of minutes, and headed in style to a temporary stop: Divisional Public School...but I was still stuck in college. The "superman" in me wasn't feeling so fly after all. I decided to wait for the last bus, in hope that I wouldn't have to be transported all the way with the side of my face pressed against the glass window. :D
Result: I still had to be transported all the way with the side of my face pressed against the glass window. =/
As soon as i hopped in (one of the last ones to get into the bus), a senior squeezed her way through and settled right beside me; I was already in a tight spot, right in front of the door. Her fitting in practically pushed me to a side with a bump, and a speed breaker proved to be further helpful by slapping the side of my face against the glass window. :D It was a horrible nightmare come true.

We breathed again only when we walked into the school, headed to the cafeteria and bought chilled fizzy drinks. Wiping the sweat off my temple, I walked around exploring the building, found the auditorium, and soon was disappointed to know half of our college had already discovered it. Suffocation forced me out again, and I stalked the shadows of tall trees around, seeking haven under their thick canopies till the big college crowd would move again. At last a lot of chaos among the teachers ended and we walked the rest of the way to Iqbal Stadium...the Final Destination. :D

All Luck Needs is a Prayer

20/05/2012. Sunday this weekend was a boring one, but only until the evening, when Hania, Teyni and r.a.k. returned to Faisalabad and broke an exciting news. They blabbed and chattered about a short-film competition that was going to be held soon in Lahore. The Snipers had explained everything concerning the event last Saturday. So the three pests had thought the story out on their way home that weekend.

With every little detailed conveyed to the rest of us, it was at last decided that the video was going to be made.

For the main role, we needed someone who was both a good singer and had an aptitude to give a star performance. We also needed a child with the same qualities. Then a person fit to act as a typical father was to be looked for. After a lot of thinking, overlooking and rejection, we at last came to choose the perfect people for these characters.

21/05/2012. Monday. A hundred eyes looked for a fat guy…and a skinny one. Where were the two? We had only five days for making the video before Saturday, the dead-line for submission of our creation. Now, due to their unfortunate absence, we were left with four. However, the next day, both the fat guy and the skinny guy were talked into the concept of the video.

That night, as I pulled a shirt out to wear the next day, I realized it was all too black. A scarf. I need a good scarf, I thought to myself. But where do I get it? I scanned my wardrobe. I pictured in my mind a black and white checkered scarf that would go perfectly with the shirt. Nobody had it. I asked all accessible seniors, but no one owned a checkered scarf. Disappointed, I tried to accept the dress as incomplete as it was. As I got in bed to sleep, a thought suddenly woke me up. I knew who had a black and white checkered scarf.

23/05/2012. Wednesday morning. Warrior got me the scarf. The camera was focused and the cast was in action. We pleaded the worker in charge of the auditorium to unlock it for the shooting.  He succumbed to our stubbornness at long last.

The stage lights were perfectly positioned for shooting the “concert” (it sounds funny because all we had was ten people to act as the audience to wave their hands about in the air wildly as Faiq, the skinny guy, performed without any instruments, music and microphone arrangements  :P ).

As we saw Faiq arrive for the first scene of the video, his casual clothes spoiled the enthusiasm for a moment. We tried to convince him to borrow a more “superstar”-like shirt from a hostilite friend.

“Like what exactly?” Faiq asked us, confused.

“Dark.” said Hania, just as I said “bright”. This confused him even more.  :D

“What do you guys really want, dark or bright?”

“Dark.” said Hania, again as I suggested “bright”.  =D

“Dark and bright.” Hania suddenly summarized. Faiq blinked helplessly.

Avoiding a time-taking task, he at last bluntly asked for Warrior’s scarf that rested on my shoulders like a beautiful, patterned snake. I made a face. I had struggled to get a matching scarf for my shirt and giving it away as soon as I had worn it was no justice. Understanding the situation, I reluctantly handed it to him for his role. As the camera rolled, I realized that a mere Arabian scarf had changed his whole get-up,  accessorizing and adding to his otherwise informal dressing. I was pleased with myself. :D Had I not forced Warrior to find the scarf, what would have become of the main character of our video?

We were on our toes for the next couple of days, struggling to complete the five-minute video. It was a tough time for everyone. A little disappointment followed our decision of expecting perfect acting from a boy who worked in our hostel: his face was frozen in a permanent grin. He kept laughing in the scene where his father died, and in the short time that we had, seven takes of the same scene irritated Warrior so much that at last he begged for mercy.

“How many times are y’all giving me a heart attack?” he asked.

“Just one more time!” would be our answer. :D

24/05/2012. Thursday evening. The uncle in charge of Aazam did not allow us to take him away for the video again, and only when we made a hundred promises to bring him back to hostel in time, did he finally agree. Again, all he did was smile…

The major problem we were to face was the editing. Video-making was a first experience for all of us. We tried downloading a couple of editing programs, but the load shedding was forcing us to surrender. The sun set with such misery, that we found no hope in the night that followed. Warrior had talked to an experienced senior, but concluded without any luck. It was midnight and the editing program was downloading at snail’s speed. We were all freaking out. We had just one day for shooting a couple of more scenes and editing. Was it possible for first-timers like us? We begged for mercy as the power was lost for the millionth time in the day. Fate seemed to be against us. The download stopped. The heat was frustrating. I tried calling friends, who could help, but suddenly there occurred a network problem and the call would not connect. So many “catastrophes” in one night ruined all the enthusiasm we had started the project with. We looked at our anatomy book with remorse, thinking: struggle for nothing. Hania broke the silence with another sad remark.

“Just think what we would’ve been doing right now if we hadn’t taken this impossible responsibility on our shoulders.”

“We would’ve been studying anatomy for our sub-stage, munching on snacks and chatting.” R.a.k. commented. We hadn’t studied a single word.

It was three in the morning and still no sign of power. I gave up. R.a.k. fell asleep. I lay down beside her.

25/05/2012. Friday. I was so hopeless, that I refused to shoot any more scenes. However, when r.a.k. told me Gohar had downloaded an editor successfully, I realized the value of hope. When we’d all gone to sleep last night, Gohar and Aymi had taken another chance. And that chance had worked. I relaxed in the afternoon as r.a.k., Teyni and Hania struggled with shooting the last scenes in college. I was preparing myself for the editing that was coming my way like a spinning cricket-ball. In the evening, Gohar told me some basics of the editing program. The rest was easy to work out. Gohar’s mind was full of ideas like always. She showed me an impressive sample of some editing she’d done to test the program, and that motivation pushed me through the whole night. Teyni sat beside me for a pretty long time, choosing a variety of modifications, r.a.k. and Hania were there to give suggestions to improve the edited piece. Everyone was all eyes and all ears till their stamina could support them. After everyone was sleeping soundly, Ayesha I. came and sat beside me. Though she had brought her B.D. along, she helped me through the rest of the video. When I shut the p.c. down, it was six in the morning. My mind was saturated. I updated Warrior with necessary information and collapsed in bed like an eighty years old Einstein.

26/05/2012. Saturday noon. I woke up to screen my eyes against the unexpectedly bright sunlight pouring in through the window. I looked at the clock. Oh my… SUB-STAGE! I had made up my mind last night that I won’t be giving this viva because I didn’t know the anterior mediastinum from the middle mediastinum, and dyspnea from dysphonea. My sketch book wasn’t complete either, but that guilty feeling of leaving a test was hammering in my head. I got up, got dressed, and ran to college. I asked about for a sketch book. Teyni gave me hers. In fifteen minutes, she put short facts in my head. With the confidence of a winner, I sat down in the chair the teacher offered me. He asked me for my anatomy card, but I had no idea I was supposed to bring it. He then told me to show him my sketch book.

“There you go…my sketchbook.” I smiled and put the diagrams in front of him. He, instead of Going through the diagrams, flipped the book back to the first page. My confidence shattered and my heart sank in my mediastinal cavity. It seemed as if he freaked out to see some other roll number on the book instead of my own. However, I wasn’t wrong, and he really did freak out. He called another girl who would tell him my right name and roll number. He (like any typical teacher) shared the situation with another teacher who was also taking viva in the same office. I happened to be his student. Luckily, he took my side. That luck also owes me gratitude for bunking dissection and getting to prepare a presentation as detention, which had impressed my teacher such a great deal, that now he was forced to say kind words in my favor even when I was wrong.

My viva started. None of my answers were incorrect. In the end, he threw at me a ball that was hard to play. I surrendered. Hence he found a chance to say “you haven’t studied at all, I’m still going to pass you, but you haven’t studied.”

After college, I sat down again with the editing program, showing everyone the work and asking for the flaws. R.a.k. and I struggled hard for five whole hours, staring at the screen with tired eyes. At long last, our video was completed. It was almost eight on the clock, and I realized I hadn’t even changed out of my uniform since I’d come back from college.

We had completed Mission Impossible in a mere week, and if there’s nothing more I learned, I at least realized that all luck needs is a prayer.

The Little Things Give You Away

Everyone is judgmental. Some go for the first sight, some wait for time to bring them the answers. Yet, there is a blind side that everyone ignores, which is why perception matters. Some see the glass half full of water, and others as half empty. An apprehensive mind can never think positive. Sometimes you just feel like climbing the highest mountain, and then merely jumping down. That is how spirits rise and fall.
The world inside of a woman is wild. No matter how much she looks like she is bathed in the summer-sun, her soul is wet through. When expectations are not lived up to, a woman simply changes her perception. All transitions are painful. Disappointment always means she is building walls around herself. Her screams are silent.
Expressions always suppress the fear of risking the truth. They clear misunderstandings and give space for reaction. They bring the storm to an end. Only when the tides crash, do they submit to gravity. Silence only rises the tides above the sea, and ego higher than self-respect.
Express yourself, be an open book. Crystal clarity in a person's character is what's beautiful about them.