No no Mr. Messenger!

I have been occasionally having this feeling ever after seeing City of Angels. Is there any possible chance that there exist some messenger that comes to take the soul of the dying? Its called "messenger" in the movie, but the scriptures of various religions are replete with references to the god's messenger. Azrael, viewed as the good angel of death recording every birth and death in Christianity; in Islam referred to as Malak Almawt. Samael, an archangel (in Judaism) and Yamraj (kaalan) in Hinduism are a few references to the same. I particularly remember a dialogue in the movie where Dr. Maggi asks her fellow doctor," everyday we fight in this operating room to save lives. Have you ever wondered with whom we are fighting with?". I think that was a very powerful line. Maybe it takes so much significance because I am a doctor too and dealing with life and death issues are part of the trade, and maybe many viewers would not have even noticed the irony at all. But it did strike me. There has been times where I have seen patients almost in a delirious state talking to someone and looking fixed onto some point, as if someone was stationed there, and smiling or talking or just gazing, so happy that they are here after their absence for a long time. The grey areas that science can never explain. I think it is that, because always after that particular episodes we have lost our patients. Their memory and their minds never woke up to tell the story of their meeting with that one person who stood amongst us, whom only they could see. I wish I got some patient back, so that they could answer many of the questions that haunt me in times like these. These erratic, unexplainable behavior have been termed medically as hallucinations, or in some contexts as Delirium or Delusion.

Picture this possibility : Every patient that I have seen die in the ICU, and beside whom I was too unfortunate to be had shown some activity looking at one point beside the bed. There has been times where the entire family was beside the patient, and the patient would look at all their faces and the last face he would look just before he would die is 'that' face, the face with no form. I have tried and discussed the possibility of having that 'messenger' between the crowd that encircles the dying patient. I have tried and fixed my gaze too onto that one point that the patient looked, but the fact of how small we are to many bigger and enigmatic truths that lay hidden, gapes me into my eye, almost paralyzing me with the strength of its conviction.

I also think that the worst job among the men of God might be to be a messenger of death. This job must be reserved for the souls who just barely managed to pass the heaven test! He would by far only see the pain and agony that rips the very root of many families right before his eyes. How the very absence of that one person would invariably change the lives of all the people around him for ever. How even the doctors to the OR to the grieving family for that frame in time feel so connected in the circle of life, that immensely reflects in their longing against the messenger. The amount of curse he would harvest. The unfortunate will that he would not be able to see the blessings that life has to offer. He would see just the end, the death.

Though I would want to know if there is that Mr. Messenger who comes to take the souls away, I also would not want to know much about him, because as they say, he only comes alone, never leaves the same way.