58-Pills & Injections

It was hard days. I felt that the pills which were prescribed for me were going to hurt the health of my body. My experience with a previous dentist taught me to be aware of the human errors. My doctor left to enjoy his vacation and apparently forgot me. So I decided to escape swallowing the pills as long as the situation allowed.

A fellow patient entered to our room as a visitor.  I welcomed him and he shook my hand and the hand of my partner in the room in peace. He appeared normal. My partner Ahmed told me to take care of that one that he accustomed to take the towel he sees on your bed and wipe the earth with it. I wondered of that and asked the visitor,

"Why did they bring you to the hospital?"

"I was in a unit in the City Marsa Matrooh," he said, "and one day I went out to walk in its streets and buy cigarettes from a shop. When I was at the shop I saw my own photo hanged in the front. I asked the grocer, 'Why did you put my photo there without my permission?' Then I didn't know what happened after that until I found myself in this hospital."

"What now do you think of your seeing your photo there?" I asked.

"Still I remember I saw my photo there," he replied. Ahmed and me smiled and felt we were before a heavy guest. After a while he turned back and left. We thanked God that he left and I returned to read in the bible.

During the lunch, on a long table that gathers more than twenty, I heard a loud voice outside the hall, from a man crying, ah ah ah. I asked Ahmed about it and he answered,

"The voice we hear comes from the room of electric shocks. Every lunch the man, who cries, refused to join others and insisted to have a table for him alone. He insisted that he was the minister of defense of Egypt Mushier Amer. They told him that Mushier Amer had died. But he refused it."

I shook my head wondering of the case and I thanked God that I didn't say to any doctor that I was Christ. I always told them that I authorized a book and they brought me there for it. When I was asked why, I answered, because it was full of materialism in explaining things in existence. I also didn't tell them about the ghosts or the tiny stars or the voice I heard inside my ears saying, Peace upon you Abdelwahab.  I already knew that they would say that it was sight and audio hallucinations. I avoided hearing that from them. I had known their ways from reading many books and essays of Psychology.

From evening to another, one of the patients with us used to sing with the voice of the famous late singer Abdel Halim Hafez. Really we enjoyed his singing and we used to gather around him outside our rooms to hear him. But I didn't know if he thought he was Abdel Halim Hafez.

One of the patients with us told me he was brought up in Islam but he was subject to feel that he should be a Christian. I asked him,

"Why do you want to be a Christian?"

"I felt it without reason," he replied.

"Aren't you afraid to be condemned to death by the Islamic law?" I asked.

"I didn't know," he said. "I just felt it and told it to my family and friends."

"I wish you think reasonably," I said. "To protect yourself from those who would apply the law on you. We have people hear anxious to kill the people like you."

"I hope to get the necessary treatment here," he said.

In fact I myself didn't consider I had the same case. I didn't consider myself a Christian. But I considered myself the Christ or the Messiah as known in the Arabic language. So, I was not afraid of the law of retarding from Islam. I was of a belief that transcends Christianity and Islam.

                                            To Be Continued!