The last thing Jasmine remembered was waking up in hospital with a nurse attending to some cuts and bruises that were clearly visible all over her arms and legs. Her bulging eyes were sunken with dark circles around them. Her frame was thin. Her body was weak. She struggled to sit up feeling very tired and shaky and then quickly the events of the accident flashed back into her mind. She remembered the night's events like it had happened just yestersday.
Jasmine had been living in the city for almost two years. She travelled all the way from her home town to find work. The night had been cold with a little drizzle . It had been raining the whole day but at least the sun had been out. Now the night was chilly and Jasmine was stranded, hungry and homeless with no money. The young woman was about two weeks shy away from her twenty- second birthday. She'd been in the streets for almost two weeks and had spent all her money almost down to her last cent on food and hotels and now she only had enough left to catch the bus back home , which arrived at 5 a.m. She she had been sitting at a busstop for most of the night clutching her backpack and suitcase with both hands shaking, from the cold, her blue coat drenched form the rain. It was almost 4.30 a.m. A dog could be head barking in a residential building nearby and also two voices of a quarelling couple. Slowly the lights in the building started to turn out. Out of boredom she decided to go for a little stroll. She had gotten used to walking in the night that fear didn't bother her much at all.
She had come to an abrupt stop when she came across a large narrow bridge when something then caught her attention, the rails of the middle part of the bridge had been violently crashed and some pieces of broken concrete and shattered glass, were spread across the ground. She stumbled over pieces of fabric , that seemed to be leather in white smeered in blood, a few broken green bottles of alcohol and a dented expensive car door randomly lying on the ground. Clearly something terrible had happened here and she wanted to linger there any longer,
With her heart beating faster and faster, she thought of fleeing the scene quickly but then she curiously ran over to the edge of the bridge and saw what seemed to be a crumbled car floating upsidedown in the water, and her only thought at the moment was to save the victim. Jasmine leapt over the tall bridge plunging sixteen feet into the dirty waters of the river. She wildly dove under water barely able to see anything. She could taste the dirty murky water with a hint of blood near the crumble. Clearly this unlucky person who had met this terrifying ordeal couldn't have survived, she thought. She strugged to remember some of the details but the most haunting ones unwantedly flooded her mind, like moment she had spotted what seemed to be a man's body struggling to free its self from the sinking rubble. She had dove deeper swimming over to the sinking car, grasping the mans shirt and violently pulling in desperation to save his life. The man seemed to stop and turn around in shock and fear only to see a hazy figure of a woman. He was afraid because he had been alone during the accident but he didn't give it much thought. He was grateful for the any help he could get in this urgent momemt. Finally after a couple of minutes, what seemed to be an eternity to both of them, she managed to free the man.They both struggled to the top, the man then swimming towards the edge of the lake with his head bobbing above the water, while she was left gasping for air, splashing the water with her arms and screaming in terror, suddenly remembering she had never been able to swim. A feeling of dizziness over came her as the blurry vision of the man swimming back towards her and grabbing her arm, faded. The last thin she had felt was a gut-wrenching feeling of fear of suffocating underwater, the fear of death.
A sudden scream then pierced the silence and then it dawned on her that it was just a memory, when she felt the nurse's strong grip holding her down the gurney while she tried to calm her in a quiet voice. Jasmine's head hurt terribly.
"Finally you're awake!"
The nurse whispered with a smile on her face.
"How long have I been her?" Jasmine murmured in a hoarse voice. She seemed to have a terrible fever and her temperature was very high.
"You have been in a comma for one and a half weeks, you need to take some rest because you have a very high fever." The nurse replied irritably waving her hand telling her to lie back on the gurney.
"Almost two weeks? Is the man ok?"
"What man?" The nurse replied with a puzzled look on her face.
"The man I saved from drowning after the accident. Wasn't he brought in here with me?"
She asked irritated at the nurse's reply. She was eager to know if the man had survived because he had been bleeding terribly.
"No there was no man dear, you were brought here by some stranger who said he saw you jump over the bridge trying to commit suicide." The nurse retorted with a disappointed disapproving ook on her face.
Jasmine could not believe her ears! She would have never tried to commit suicide, the thought of death alone was appalling enough to nauseate her and to make her lose her consciousness. Had it all been just a dream? An illusion? Had there really been an accident that night? Did she really see that car floating in the water?
" You must have imagined it, after all you hadn't eaten for days."
"What do you mean I must have imagined it I know what I saw!" She retorted this time annoyed thinking the nurse was trying to play a trick on her, or maybe the man had passed and she did not want to disclose the heart breaking news to her. That all her effort had bee for nothing and the man couldn't make it? Looking at her terrible state the nurse felt sorry for her.
" Just have some rest ok? " The nurse said, this time with a serious oak on her face.
"But I remember clearly I saved a man from an accident."
"Listen madam, you really need to take some rest like i told you there was no man or accident , you should be happy and grateful some kind stranger risked his life to save yours, he's also paid all your hospital bills for the rest of your stay here as well."
The nurse replied really trying not to lose her temper. She had seemed like a quiet person with a cool temperament.
"Not not another word from you or I'll ask the doctor to put you on sadetives. "
That was enough to make Jasmine quiet but she just couldn't shake off that awful feeling that something bad had happened to the man and that the nurse was trying to hide something from her.
Finally Jamine was discharged from the hospital after a few more days and the doctor handed her a note from her rescuer written in blue ink in Arabic.
'It was a joy saving your life pretty stranger, ' ...it read.
' Please visit me on this address for any help you might need,' then an address and name followed printed in capital letters but in black ink.
"He's quite a nice man you know," the doctor a short man in his mid fities, balding head with a few strands of white hair and a long beard said, wearing a faint looking smile while glaring at her in pity.
" It's not everyday anybody decide to do this much just for a stranger. Especially for him! Do you know who saved your life miss? " He asked with a looked of excitement on his face.
"He's the twenty year old son of the richest man in the city, a billionaire who runs one of the largest oil companies in the gulf. The young man kinda took a liking to you when he brought you here everybody thought you were his spouse because of the way he was treating you. The man stopped visiting after a few days because he knew you were bound to wake-up soon."
He the turned and left waving at the bewildered young woman. It obviously had to be a mistake because that man had been too injured to walk.
There was bunch of dollar bills stacked between the note. Never had she ever seen so much money in her life. She counted the dollar bills and got about two-thousand-five-hundred U.S dollars. This was more than the amount they spent on their monthly household supply including rent back home . Why had he given her so much? She thought of visiting the address just to thank him. Jasmine was relieved because she had worried so much about the after stay at the hosital, she be homeless again on the streets and she wouldn't be able to contact her family.The past year had been really hard on her, travelling from place to place looking for work only being hired for a few monthly jobs earning a little bit of income she'd spend on food and stay and maybe save a few bills to send back home. Her sister would also her money frm abroad well. Two years had passed and city life had never much really got into her and of course due to her lack of experience and aducation, it was hard for her to find a decent average or high paying job. She had gotten over worrying about what's she would eat or wether she'd make enough money to make ends meet, so all she'd done was stay in her small two roomed apartment staring out the window watching the rain during her spare time. Those were best moments of her life because she got to reflect on a lot of things including her loveless lonely life.
