“Zero meter, inshallah! God bless. Allah hafiz.”

A phone in the palm of his hand. Always. Working it. Ringtone’s set on an azaan from Mecca. Goes off again.

“Dawood bhai! Asalamailkum sir! Kem cho? Allhamdolillah — Fine, fine, Allhamdolliah, Majma chom. First class. Umrah? Done or going? Very good! What route? Pick one without missiles or drones baba. Good. Direct Karachi Jeddah, PIA? Ok. Ok? Ane Zero meter kari ne aao jo! Sarey guna maaf karina aao jo. Get the sin meter back to zero buddy and come back. Ha, ha. Ok, Ok. Tamē pāchā pharō tyārē maḷīśuṁ. We’ll meet when you get back ok? Myself I’m leaving for Shanghai tomorrow only. Ok! Salamailkum.”

Another call. “Salam alaikum Shabbir bhai. Jazakallah. Yes, yes, got your 55 lakh cheque – Jinnah ma bacha ne ward ma iste’mal kar jo (We will use for the Jinnah Children’s ward). Samjho un ka meter chaloo hogaya achai key liye. Khoob sara kaam. Rokra bhai rokra. Huspital māṭē ik dam sueho kam tahiyo. Free hospital can only work this way. Jazakallah. Your meter rising for good work brother! Allah hafiz.”

Gaunt, tall and gangly, bearded with twinkling eyes behind reading glasses, a dark spot on his forehead, a big grin lighting up his wizened face, he looks around the room full of mostly men waiting for his attention. “Aik minute, please. I am so sorry – too much to do.”

He signs the papers presented to him.

He calls back. “Shabbir bhai. Mane navo CT scan machine mate paisa jo e chhe. Jazakallah. We need the latest CT scan machine. Manē sāmbhaḷō aik ilaaj key liye aya hey chokra. Bone marrow transplant vastey. 40 lakhs at the minimum? Bone marrow transplant baba. Jazakallah. Think again? 55 sey nikal key idhar laga doon? Take it from the 55 correct? That is what you are saying? Chalo done. Tumara meter suwab key liye challo. Han, han bartey bhai ka meter, yours need to go to zero first. Samjey nah. Understand? Haha.”

Someone in the room, a rotund, balding man sunk deep into the office couch, comments, “If I set up a Welfare Trust, can it save me income tax?” Then, as if as an afterthought, he asks the man behind the desk. “Bhai tamaro dhandho shu chhe bhai?”

The man behind the desk laughs. “Very small enterprise. Packaging.”

The balding man says, “Tsk, inshallah it will be a big business when we become Dubai. Soon. Āpaṇē jaldī Duba'ī banī śuṁ.”

The man behind the desk replies, “Who cares if we become Dubai or not! I just need you guys. He waves his phone “This is my wealth! Good people, baba. Good, generous souls. If it wasn’t for us, how would sanity prevail, bhai?” He directs this last comment rhetorically to a woman sitting in the corner.

I noted several landing spots. Here were men, talking about money and its loving brother, philanthropy, or is it insurance or guilt? After a while, I felt that this was the nerve centre of the hospital - no, the city. It seems to run from this basement. Lifeblood. Yum.

She is sitting on the edge of her chair – as if waiting to get up and go. “We’ll go in ten minutes”, he says to her. He tells the men, “I have to take her to meet the Mayor. Something about a bookshop. She is worried about books; we are worried about bombs. Haha.”

Everyone in the room looks at her and wags their head side to side, just to indulge the great man behind the desk and this irrelevant person who seems to be a relative of his.

And me? I’m just a mosquito. On the wall, biding my time. Eying the buffet spread.

I came here riding a corpse, a frail old man who was a hit-and-run victim. Late night. His body was left there on the road. As the sun rose and the other mosquitoes left him, I stayed. Then they picked him up and brought him here in the searing heat of early morning. Edhi ambulance. Sent to the morgue.

I decamped just in time – too cold there. I wandered from ward to ward. A good thirty days – feasting and laying eggs – larvae left where brains were oozing, guts spilling, blood gushing; road accidents, the occasional bullet wound, hernias, haemorrhages, heart attacks and diabetic appendages amputated; the tears of joy at newborns, the weeping in the oncology ward, the screaming. The larvae will thrive, I thought. I had arrived in paradise, so much to feed on.

By Day Thirty, I started feeling a bit weak. I flew down two flights of stairs, then out into a parking lot and then into the basement and straight into an office there. I noted several landing spots. Here were men, talking about money and its loving brother, philanthropy, or is it insurance or guilt? After a while, I felt like this was the nerve centre of the hospital – no, the city. It seems to run from this basement. Lifeblood. Yum.

But wait – who’s that in the room? No one seems to see him? A silver cigarette case in the palm of his hand, tapping an unlit cigarette against it. Isn’t this the person I came here with? A ghost. I don’t remember him having a cigarette case then.

This is interesting. It’s a huge crowd of us over here then. I didn’t realise! Just loitering about in Oncology, ENT, Maternity, CyberKnife, Emergency.

So I fly off and land in the hollow space at the base of his throat, just below the ridge of his protruding clavicle. I try my luck, but there’s no chance. No beat, no blood; the tap, like the ones in Karachi, has no flow. I’m done. He’s done. As if to confirm it, I catch the kind man and his phone’s reflection, but not ours, on a glass-top table.

And so we, the done ones, continue watching and listening as the kind man works the phone.

He says “Why are you thanking me bhai? Stop please. May Jinnah maate kari riyan cho. (I’m doing this for Jinnah.)”