Dying For A Chance (2 page)

            Arms-check, I waved them cautiously. Face-check, I wiggled my nose and touched my ears. Legs-check, I shuffled them slowly and found that at least one was responding normally. Boobs- check, I grabbed them to make sure. A sharp laugh erupted from one corner of the room.

            “Who?” I panicked, unable to see the jokester and pulled the covers up to cover my chin. There was no answer. Perhaps it had been my imagination. A lingering chuckle stopped me from calling the whole thing a hallucination. I slowly reached my hand from out of the covers and flopped it around in search of the bedside table I knew must be close. With a clatter I found what I was looking for. My hand wrapped around the plastic cup of water and I heaved it across the room to where I thought the laugh had come from.

            I heard a splash of water but no surprised or drenched prankster. I slid further into the blankets.

            “You know, you've got horrible aim.” I sprang up from the covers, my sore body complaining loudly.

            “WHO??” the toad in my throat wanted to know.

            “Calm down Princess.” the new amused voice broke into my peace. “Look, I didn't mean to scare you.” he sounded honest, or partially. “Actually, I didn't know you could hear me.”

            Since when did prankster nurses hide out in patient rooms and laugh at them? Or, perhaps he wasn't a nurse. Maybe he was some psycho who slunk through the hallways looking for a peepshow. My heart caught in a sudden impulse of fear. I couldn't see a thing, but I could scream. I opened my mouth to let out a shout.

            “I told you I'm sorry, there's no use yelling about it.” his mocking voice taunted me from across the room. I struggled to lift the bandages from my eyes but a pair of cool hands pushed them away. “Don't do that, silly girl. I'll leave you alone, just relax.”
N
o footsteps marked his retreat so I couldn't be positive that he had truly left. I fumbled for the button to call a nurse.

            She came quickly and I pointed out where my trickster had stood and everything that had happened. Her comforting “aha's” turned into disbelieving “mhm's” and before I knew it she had slipped something into my IV drip. Something warm and fuzzy which wrapped me up in a blanket of forgetfulness. What was I thinking, why would a nurse tease a deathly ill patient? It was madness. I didn't even try to fight the medicated sleep.

            There I was again, fitted black skirt and silky blue shirt. I looked up into the rearview mirror, everything in place. My phone rang and I looked at the passenger seat, the blue light illuminating something important. Suddenly the sky twirled around my head. Hellish screeches tore at my ears and I couldn't tell which way was up. My stomach flew into my mouth and the only thing I could think was “I'm going to be late to that interview.”

            Time was elusive. It could have been minutes or hours, my arms were numb and my legs felt hot and heavy. My hands flew to the door handle once the spinning stopped and I tried to open the door. Unfortunately, another car was there. I looked back to the other window and what I saw didn't make any sense. Red and yellow colors mashed together to make a Rorschach test on my window.

            Knocking on the drivers door caught my attention. I rolled the window down and saw an officer standing there, his cool dude mirrored shades reflected my crumpled car.

            “What d'you reckon?” He drawled through the toothpick between his teeth. A tapping on the passenger window drew me back again.

            The reds and yellows were smearing around creating a mustard and ketchup painting. I ignored it and looked back at the officer who was now sitting astride a mighty chestnut horse and sporting a cowboy hat and sheriffs badge.

            “He doesn't have a chance...” He tipped his hat back and gave me a stern look. The tapping was back on the other window. I turned my head again.

            The reds and yellows had started to pull together into something I knew I should recognize. This was important. I banged my hands to my head in an effort to knock loose the image. My heart had begun to race desperately, this was important.

            A cough interrupted my thoughts and I looked back to my own window. The sheriff was now a knight clad in sliver armor and carrying a long spear with a red plume at its top.

            “That's sad... he looked so young, like he could have done something special.” His voice reverberated through the metal helmet that sparkled and shone into my eyes so much that it was painful.

            I turned to glance again at the passenger window. What was outside?

            The red's and yellow's merged into one and peeled themselves off of the window. A rush of wind blew through the car as time tripped backwards. Glass hovered in the air and replaced holes in the windshield, debris flew back into place as time rewound. I was horrified. The red and yellow colors had merged into a body, into a face...a man's face, perhaps only just turned 18. His red and yellow cycle helmet slowly melted back together. For an instant he turned his face to me. I screamed.

~~~

             The sound of my scream followed me into the waking world. I launched up from the bed and clawed at my covers. Gentle hands pushed me back down.

            The boys face burned into my vision. I could see him very clearly. He looked like a sporty guy, younger than me. He would have been nice looking, I saw him try to say something. Was he trying to talk to me?

            Something moved in front of him and I wanted to yell at it to move, I wanted to see him again. He looked like he was going to say something to me. Just one minute, that's all I wanted.

            “Samantha,” soft hands gripped my arms. “Samantha, can you hear my voice?”

            My thrashing slowly subsided and I could feel the return of all that old pain. Suddenly a new feeling rose up from my stomach. I leaned across the bed and heaved. It came in bursts until I was completely empty. Tears ran down my face, under the soaked bandages and onto my arms.

            “What” I could feel the nurses scurrying to clean up the mess. “Who” none of them stopped to pay attention to my small voice. “What was his name!” I shouted in between another set of sobs.

            The room stopped moving. Everything grew painfully quiet and I heard one of them whisper.

            “Go call Dr. Swaresh, I'm not telling her.” My body was a boneless rag of emotions. Why did I see that boys face? I thought I knew the answer but I had to be certain. Until Dr. Swaresh had sat by the bed with the hospital chaplain on the other side of me I didn't really have all the pieces.

            “Your vehicle was hit, side on, by a truck.” Dr. Swaresh held my hand while the chaplain explained the details. “The push of the accident caused your vehicle to slide across the road and strike a man who was using a handcycle to cross the intersection.”

            “What is that?” The bandage was wrapped securely around my eyes which gave me an odd sense of living in a radio show. Perhaps none of this was real and I was still in a coma.

            “Hmm? Oh, a handcycle is a bicycle that someone without the use of their legs can operate with just their arms.” the chaplain continued his explanation of events. “The driver of the truck suffered a stroke, which is why he ran the red light but at this point he seems to be doing fine.”

            “The cyclist?” I knew the answer but I had to hear him say it.

            “I am sorry. He was in surgery for quite some time, he fought hard but his wounds were too severe. He passed just minutes before you were brought in for your surgery.” His words sounded loud and obscene in my head. I saw the boy, his face, just moments before my car hit him. He looked surprised and scared. I couldn't scrub the image away.

            “Would you like someone to stay with you?” his offer was kind but I was never good at public grieving. I told them they could leave and when I was finally alone I gave in to all the tears that had built up. For my sad situation. For that poor boy and the driver who's bad luck had started it. For all our sadness.

            “Here” a plastic straw brushed my lips. I knocked my head on the bed rail when I sat up suddenly to face the new voice. I hadn't heard anyone come in. I drank thankfully, all that crying had tired me out.

            “Thank you” my voice, no longer the timbre of a swamp toad was nonetheless scratchy and stiff from all those tears.

            “Why are you all worked up anyway?” he sounded genuinely confused. “I heard what the priest said, you didn't hit that guy on purpose.”

            “That's not the point,” I didn't mean to get angry at him but his question felt like he was mocking me. “If I wasn't there. If I hadn't been driving at that spot, he would be alive right now.”

            I sat back in the bed, arms crossed and felt a little pouty. Who was this nurse to tell me how to feel about something like this? A little chuckle poked at me from across the room.

            “You sure do get your back up don't you Princess?” The prankster! I should have known. Without a second thought I launched a pillow in the general direction of his voice.

            “What do you know about me? I'll feel grief however I damn well please.” With my sadness replaced by anger I could feel red hot emotion blooming in my cheeks. He whistled some kind of cowboy tune from an opposite corner of the room.

            “You still have horrible aim.” his voice was happy and playful. I realized he was trying to goad me into getting upset so I tried to calm down.

            “You really are a beast of a person. You can't possibly be a nurse, I've figured that out already. Who are you?” My attempt at looking severe, arms crossed over chest and chin thrust dramatically into the air must have looked comical at best.

            “Alright then, I'll tell you, but only because you're pouting about it. I don't think you're going to like it though, don't blame me.” his voice had gotten closer while he talked and I could feel the pressure of someone sitting at the foot of the bed.

            “Housekeeping” a timid voice chimed into the room. I sighed loudly and flopped back on the bed.

            “Yes, please come in. Don't mind my friend here, we're just having an argument.” I swept my arms around the room, “somewhere around here is the pillow I threw at him. Please send it back up to me when you have a chance. I may need to pitch it at him again.” I smiled slightly thinking of giving him a good whack with it.

            “Would you like me to let you know when he's back in the room miss?” she placed the pillow, neatly changed into a new case, back behind my head. I was confused.

            “I was just speaking with him when you came in, he was sitting on the bed.” I extended an arm to indicate the exact position I felt him sitting at.

            “I apologize miss, there was no one in here when I came in. Maybe your friend went out to get a coffee and didn't tell you?” she scurried around the room, tossing away the garbage and cleaning the furniture. Besides the noise of her sweeping and wiping I couldn't hear anything else. What was this?

            After she left I spent a long while clutching that same pillow while thoughts and questions piled on top of one another in my head.

~~~

            It was days before I heard him again. In the interim, Dr. Swaresh had explained in comforting words and gentle tones that my eye wraps were there because of some scratching that had happened during the accident. I had come to rely on his constant comforts and reassurances. He told me with confidence that my sight would return, though I might suffer some blurred vision for a time. The nurses were told to remove the wraps by the end of my second week.

            Burnt Out nurse was attending, she let me know several times not to get my hopes up. She had seen any number of worst case scenarios and mine looked suspiciously like a few
of
them. After her third attempt to make me understand the unfortunate position she was put in by being the one to reveal my deformity I decided to tune her out. That's when I heard the whistling.