The Silent Pulse

The heart monitor beside bed number seven never made a mistake. Its rhythm was calm, disciplined, almost perfect. Dr. Ayaan often paused there longer than necessary, staring at the green line that rose and fell with mechanical honesty. According to science, the man lying beneath the white sheets was fine.
Yet Ibrahim’s silence told another story.

He had been admitted three weeks ago after collapsing in a crowded market. No cardiac arrest. No neurological damage. No clear reason to explain why a healthy man had fallen to the ground like a lifeless shadow. Every test came back normal. Every scan dismissed concern. Still, Ibrahim refused to speak.
Nurses tried. Residents tried. Even psychologists tried. Questions floated in the air and died unanswered. Ibrahim’s eyes followed people, not with fear, but with exhaustion—like someone who had already surrendered something precious.
Dr. Ayaan prided himself on efficiency. He believed in fast diagnoses and faster treatments. Silence irritated him. It felt like resistance. But Ibrahim’s quiet was different. It wasn’t defiance. It was grief wrapped in flesh.
One night, an emergency call dragged the doctor through chaos—sirens, blood, shouting. When it ended, he returned to the ward drained and hollow. Passing bed number seven, he stopped.
The monitor beeped softly.
Dr. Ayaan pulled a chair and sat down. He didn’t open the file. He didn’t speak. For the first time in years, he allowed himself to be still.
Minutes stretched into something heavier.
“I hear it every night,” Ibrahim said suddenly, his voice cracked and dry. “My heart. It keeps beating… even when I don’t want it to.”
Dr. Ayaan froze.
“My wife died in her sleep,” Ibrahim continued, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “No warning. No goodbye. I spoke to her for years, but in the end, my words meant nothing. Since then, every sound feels useless.”
The doctor swallowed hard. He had treated countless patients, but no one had ever trusted him with such raw truth.
“I collapsed that day because I was tired,” Ibrahim whispered. “Not sick. Just tired of being alive without being heard.”
Dr. Ayaan felt the weight of medicine fail him. No drug could touch this wound. No procedure could repair it. All he could do was listen—and he did.
Night after night, he returned. Ibrahim spoke of love, regret, anger, and the unbearable noise of silence. And slowly, something changed. The man began to eat. He slept without sedatives. His eyes regained focus.
When discharge day arrived, Ibrahim stood on his own feet.
“My heart didn’t need fixing,” he said softly. “It needed someone to hear it.”
Dr. Ayaan watched him walk away, the monitor silent now. He understood then:
a pulse can be stable and still be broken—until someone listens.