A COVID-19 Story with Goats and Soda
What does COVID-19 have to do with Goats and Soda? Apparently, a lot. Depending on your state of mind.
Raj considered himself a man of science and almost always sought out the elusive evidence on important issues at hand, removing bias and accounting for statistical errors, before endeavoring to form an opinion. Evidence was always the key. The raging COVID-19 pandemic had been no exception. He had unearthed opinions — scientific or otherwise — from all across the geography, paying close attention to the exceptional countries brave enough to stay away from the beaten path, but not ignoring traditional medical opinion, and even reading serious material from obscure scientific organizations from Austria and other European sources. Ultimately, he had decided that the threat was not to be ignored, but panicking was not the solution; the elderly needed to be isolated; but the rest of us needed to go about life with all reasonable precautions, with complete draconian isolation the most mindless choice, because it was a safe bet that ultimately almost everyone would be exposed to (not necessarily infected by) this invisible pathogen. Raj respected everyone’s personal choice, and the only question he had permitted himself to ask others occasionally was "Do you know you have three times more chance of getting killed in a road accident than by COVID-19? Does that deter you from going to the grocery store or to the liquor store?"
But now the blaring siren of the special COVID-19 ambulance rushing him to the hospital seemed to bring on a new perspective on the situation. At only 42, Raj knew he should be in no imminent danger of meeting his Maker just yet, especially from a minor brush with COVID-19. In fact, when a few days of unease had resulted in a positive COVID-19 result, he had been scientifically amused that he was caught on the wrong side of statistics and also relieved that he was now going to acquire the antibodies through natural exposure to the pathogen and not through some hastily-released, half-tested vaccine of an avaricious drug company. But now as the ambulance rolled on, his scientific mind slowly seized on the real possibility that he was after all merely a statistical pawn and there was no way he could ensure he was not going to be one of those who would defy the odds of being killed in a road accident only to be sacrificed at the altar of science as an unlikely COVID-19 victim. First mild anxiety; then a concern for his family; and finally, the fever-ravaged brain found an unlikely outlet for his energies in contemplating what the Facebook posting of his demise might look like. Which photo of his would his wife select? What would his final social media epitaph read? Would there be an outpouring of sympathy far exceeding what the sudden death of their close friend Jagdish had generated recently?
The ambulance had ground to a halt. The doors were flung open. He was hastily deposited in a wheelchair and rolled into Emergency, as it was the middle of the night and the regular check-in desk had closed. Through the torturous check-in procedure, during which his dutiful wife Anita competently ran around completing myriad paperwork while constantly snatching a moment to assure him he was going to be fine. But while he smiled back in reciprocation, our man of science — knowing that statistics can sometimes be a horribly unreliable ally — was constantly refining his Facebook announcement in his head.
At last, the check-in was over, and he was wheeled away from Anita into a clinically clean but emotionally forbidding elevator that transported him into the COVID-19 ward. Not unhappy to find the comfort of a bed, even if a hospital one, our man of science was finally ready to park the challenges of secretly constructing one’s own epitaph and seek some slumber instead.
It wasn’t a particularly slumberous night, though, as he was repeatedly poked and prodded for various tests and occasionally hauled away into machines on various floors to take stock of his medical situation. When the day finally broke, Raj was feeling weaker than ever before and knew he needed help, as well as pleased to know he was in the right place where someone appeared to be orchestrating his recovery quite aggressively.
By the end of the second day, Raj was feeling well enough to realize he was surely on the mend. A video chat with Anita and the kids restored his spirits quite completely. The Facebook epitaph was now a distant memory. To the man of science, statistics seemed once again a reliable measure of what was to come.
The patient in the adjoining bed troubled him, though. During the time when Raj was rather deliriously ill, he had paid scant attention to his surroundings. Now he noticed that his room had one other occupant, surely a COVID-19 patient. He seemed around the early ’40s as well but had a certain listless despondency that was immediately troubling. His eyesight seemed clouded over and lifeless; he looked through you. He uttered not a sound and silently submitted himself to the administrations of the nurses. While Raj found the hospital food outrageously inedible — though he did force himself to some necessary morsels in order to stem up his weakened body — his companion silently devoured every piece of food placed in front of him. His every action was faultlessly perfect but abjectly missing any human spirit behind them. Raj could not but help speculate that his fellow patient seemed to be afflicted by a much greater misfortune than mere COVID-19 and that his hospital stay seemed almost a welcome break from whatever horror lay outside. Perhaps a bad divorce? A runaway wife cohabiting with his first cousin? The active imagination was at work again. With renewed interest in his strange fellow patient, he began actively observing the hapless fellow in the adjoining bed. He had a mobile phone by his side, but he never once touched it. He received no calls and apparently no messages either. He refused the daily newspaper with a silent shake of his head every morning. The mystery grew.
Being naturally reticent by nature, our man of science was conceivably one of the last of the human species that could be relied upon to cast the opening salvo in an attempt at socializing with a fellow patient in a hospital. So, one possibly could not begin to fathom the depth of effort it must have taken Raj to wave a cheery hello to his fellow afflicted at an opportune moment and inquire about his health. But he did it and the attempt seemed to have been registered by the intended recipient of the abnormally social gesture. The lifeless eyes looked at Raj with a vague intensity that might be justifiably mistaken for focus. A few seconds passed; then a few more. Raj was transfixed in the lifeless gaze, but no other response appeared to be imminent. Suddenly, a raspy old voice — nothing that could be identified with a 40-year-old — emerged from behind the lifeless gaze, and the mysterious words that emerged sounded like "goats and soda… goats and soda." With that, the man slipped back onto his pillow and appeared to go either into a meditative trance or a fitful torpor, as the case might have been. Rather dramatic, and quite unreal. But there it was.
Our man of science had now actually progressed beyond idle speculation and acquired some real evidence. But didn’t know what to make of the evidence. First of all, he had difficulty believing that such a theatrically dramatic scene had actually just occurred before him. Was he dreaming? Had his fever raised its ugly head again? Did he — Raj — actually reach out to a fellow patient of the most extraordinary disposition? Did he imagine that raspy voice? It was mysterious and rather ghastly, completely unbecoming of a young man.
But after five or so minutes, he had to admit that the incident had been a real one. Now he was left with the abiding mystery of what he seemed to have heard. "Goats and soda" — the man had repeated it twice in clear English. Could he have misheard? Was it a vernacular that somehow sounded English to his ears? Goats and soda. What an extraordinary combination of words. What did they portend about this poor man’s deep despair? They must mean something extraordinarily meaningful to him, as these were the only words he spoke in all these days. But what could they mean? Our man of science now had really solid evidence to act upon without much clue of what lay beneath.
When he mentioned this strange incident to Anita, she was not unconcerned and employed her woman’s instincts to good use. Being married to one introverted and extraordinarily intelligent man, she was reluctant to see some deep despair in the fellow patient just because he kept to himself. "Isn’t it possible he might be a poet or an author whose mind lives in its own imaginary world?" Raj had to admit she had a point. That might also help explain this extraordinary incident of the goat and soda. Perhaps these were part of a verse he was struggling with in his mind. But while Anita enjoyed the advantage of physical distance from the object of study to shield her from distracting emotion, he was sitting bang opposite this mysterious human being and his faculties were not ready to accept such a prosaic explanation just yet. So, the mystery continued.
In fact, the mystery deepened because since his relapse into quiet unmoving seclusion after uttering the mysterious words, the man had not stirred even once. When the nurses came for their routine measurement of vitals, they seemed concerned with his lack of response, but the vitals appeared to be strong. When the nurses attended to his intravenous flow of medicines, once again he was unresponsive and that resulted in a senior medical person being called in to arbitrate the situation. When finally roused, his low responses seemed to satisfy the medical personnel and he was allowed to slide back into his listless trance.
But all was not well. The more he watched his co-patient, the more Raj realized that the man appeared to have given up and seemed to be slipping away. Unlike earlier, he had now stopped eating, despite the admonition of the nurses. His skin had acquired the pallor of the bloodless and his eyes had retreated further into dark recesses where no movements were visible. Raj tried calling Anita, but his phone appeared to have lost all connection.
Suddenly, Raj awoke with a start. He must have fallen asleep. But what abruptly transported him out of any possible sense of equanimity was the sight of his co-patient standing over his bed looking straight at him. A silent scream arose from Raj but he could neither move his limbs nor his eyes. He stood transfixed looking at the apparition of his fellow patient, the scream frozen in his throat.
Anita sat stunned with her two children in their home. Surrounded by relatives. Tears long dried. Raj had been slipping away for a few days now, the doctors had warned. But the end was too sudden and was not anticipated. In fact, the doctors had been cautiously hopeful, given his youth, that he was likely to bounce back.
She told the strange story of Raj’s last call a few days ago where he was concerned about his fellow patient who seemed to be doing badly. "But when I checked with the nurses, there was nobody else in his room." His pneumonia-induced delirium was obviously raging unchecked.
The Facebook announcement that came out in a couple of days was tasteful and very personal. It conveyed the best of a short life lived in joy and intellectual fulfillment. We will never know what Raj would have thought of it, but it did generate a lot more loving reminiscences and comments than Jagdish’s epitaph.
