Fever…

Her fever came suddenly. It started with an intense headache, followed by nausea. By night her body was burning with fever and intense pain in her joints.

He called the doctor.

There seemed to be nothing wrong with her apart from a racing pulse. The doctor gave her paracetamol and asked for a few routine blood tests. It’s mostly dengue I feel, given the intense shivering while the fever comes he said.

Should we get a covid test done too, the husband asked, worriedly. The doc shook his head. I’ve tested her chest, seems clear and I felt no congestion he replied. Looks like dengue to me.

He sat by her bedside applying cold wipes on her forehead as and when he felt her fever rising. The wipes would arrest the temperature for while but after a while it would shoot up again.

She complained of intense bodyache and joint pains and nausea. Take me to the hospital she begged him.

By midnight her condition was such he had no choice but to take her to the hospital. The hospital was the last place he wanted to go in the current situation but there didn’t seem to be any other alternative left. He wore his double mask, face shield and gloves as he drove her to the hospital that night.

Over the next two days her condition worsened. The fever ran high. There was an inexplicable hair loss which the doctors couldn’t figure out and gradually her senses seemed to lessen rapidly. Looks like she’s slipping into a coma the baffled doctors told him.

All blood test results had come negative including dengue.

He stayed at home and stopped visiting the hospital. The doctors told him not to come. The situation wasn’t conducive to regular visits they told him. Moreover she was in coma so it was pointless anyway for him to risk his own life visiting her now.

He stayed awake at home. Night after night. Every ring of the telephone quickened his heartbeat as he expected the worst.

She pulled on for a fortnight before finally losing her battle. It was around 5 in the evening when the call came from the hospital. The death was officially certified as Mystery Fever.

A week later he sat alone at home looking at their wedding photograph. She looked so radiant as a bride. He remembered her smiling face as he held the photograph in his shaking hands. He took one last look at it before putting it away in the carton containing her other things. Her clothes, her perfumes, her make up, her books, her music. He was throwing everything away. He wished he could throw her memories away too but he knew they would stay with him forever. But these things had to go.

And also the Advanced Chemistry Handbook. She had gifted it to him on one of their anniversaries. Because of his love for chemistry. It was there that he had read about Thallium poisoning. It was undetectable and there was no known antidote. And the only way it could be traced was by a process known as flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. And he knew most people in his town had never even heard of it. He made sure he placed the handbook right at the bottom of the carton.

Keep the tea ready, I’ll be back in an hour disposing these boxes off, he shouted to her younger sister who was in their bedroom resting.

She came to the door, smiled at him and blew a kiss as he began to shift the cartons in his car.

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