UGLY

Finally I completed my fifth novel, and I can turn to my full attention to my screenplay The War. I believe that more than the story, it is the character that I have perfected. With complete satisfaction, let me have an excerpt from the novel.

The morning light had not even broken into Los Angeles. And much late it would be then to reach the busiest hospital of the city, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Centre. The nurses and the doctors worked overtime no matter whether there was light outside or not, for their toes were meant to be numb working there. Presbyterian Hospital was the best in its own way.

Vehicles were lesser in number, and there was much less number of vehicles moving in and out of the hospital. Silence was broken by the chirp of morning birds, but none could be seen in the darkness.

All of a sudden the silence was broken by the siren of an ambulance, which stormed in through the main gates and headed to the casualty. As it stopped, two men, one driver and another who probably had hiked the ride from the start, jumped and screamed, “Emergency! We have an emergency.”

Nurses ran out, and two attendees followed them holding a stretcher. The back door of the ambulance was opened and they got in, and all of a sudden the smell of blood and meat caught their senses.

The nurses waited out with their equipments to be used. And the wounded man was taken out, and all of a sudden, one of the nurses screamed and fainted, while another yelled, “Oh my God! He looks ugly.”

Anyone would call it a junk of meat and nothing else. Bones could be seen, while blood covered him in whole. He didn’t move, and couldn’t even open his eyes or breathe. But he was alive, very much alive.

The darkness was cut by the sunlight, as he was being carried away to the emergency room. The confusion remained on whether to wait or start, as he remained on the moving stretcher, pain and blood everywhere.

For a moment he opened his eyes, and saw the brightening light outside, and he smiled and closed his eyes, not to open again.