Chapter 1 #2
This also happened all the time, and I let them keep their dignity. I didn’t call out to the listening adults, or draw attention to them, but I did make sure to pitch my voice loud enough that it would carry to the far side of the room where they were sitting.
Years of running military drills and calling out orders to other soldiers had unexpected benefits. I now knew exactly how to control my vocal chords in order to give my voice force without making it sound like I was yelling.
Children’s books are short, so in my allotted reading time we managed to get through half a dozen of them. We ended with Grandfather Twilight, as planned, and as I closed the last pages I was glad to see several of the kids nodding off and on the verge of falling asleep.
The children were carted off back to their rooms and I packed up the books that I’d brought. I was just about to leave, my mind already wandering off to how I would fill the remaining hours of my evening, when I was stopped by one of the nurses.
“Wait, Mister Conway,” the young man said, staring up at me with large blue eyes. “Would you mind staying a little longer and reading to one more patient?”
The young man was slim and didn’t even come up to my shoulder.
Bright red hair contrasted his fair skin and was currently a disheveled mess in need of brushing.
He definitely fit the appearance of an overworked nurse, yet there was a vibrancy to him most nurses lacked.
His scrubs were patterned with fun cartoon characters that I didn’t recognize, and despite clearly being tired, his eyes never lost their sparkle as he stared up at me waiting for my answer.
The nametag on his uniform read Newt. It was a short, cute little name that fit him perfectly.
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed with a shrug, already pulling my books back out of my bag. “I always have time for another patient. Where are they?”
I would have agreed no matter what, but Newt’s enthusiasm for his job and eagerness to help his patent made it even easier to follow him deeper into the hospital.
To my surprise, we left the children’s area behind and headed toward the long-term care ward.
“It’s a John Doe patient, actually,” Newt explained as we headed into a section of the hospital that could have almost been mistaken for a hotel.
The pale green paint on the walls had been replaced with a more soothing taupe color, and the white laminate flooring that was easier to clean was instead swapped out for low-pile carpet.
Even the artwork on the walls changed, displaying peaceful landscapes instead of mass-produced modern art that looked like it had been created by a computer algorithm.
The lights in the long-term ward were turned down lower for the evening, and there weren’t as many beeping machines or buzzing alarms as in the busier parts of the hospital. A person could actually hear themselves think here.
“Wait, you said it’s a John Doe patient?” I asked as Newt’s words finally caught up with me.
John Doe was the name given to someone whose name was unknown. Since retiring from the military and becoming a detective, I’d heard it plenty of times in reverence to unidentified victims, but never in the case of a living hospital patient.
“Yeah,” Newt said as we approached a door. “It’s a long story.”
He gestured to the room inside, but neither of us stepped through the doorway.
We didn’t need to. We could see plenty even from the hallway.
The patent inside the room lay quietly on the bed, but they could never be mistaken for sleeping.
Bandages covered large portions of their body, and they were hooked up to several tubes and IVs.
There were even a few bandages around their head, with little tufts of frayed hair sticking out between the cloth strips.
Their face looked mostly uninjured, but the bottom half was covered by a breathing mask.
Only their eyes were completely unobstructed, and those were tightly shut in an unnatural sleep.
Newt nudged my arm, urging me into the room.
“He was caught in a warehouse fire. The building was abandoned and known for attracting homeless people, so we think he was living there. If he had any ID, we can’t find it, and no one has come looking for him, so he’s just a John Doe, for now. We don’t know his real name.”
As he spoke, Newt checked some of the machines hooked up to the John Doe. Whatever they said apparently brought positive news, because Newt smiled for a moment, but his joy was interrupted when the body on the bed suddenly moved.
It wasn’t much. Just a slight twitching of the unknown man’s hands. However, even that little movement sent the machines connected to him beeping like they were trying to communicate in Morse code.
Yet, the worst was the sound. The John Doe’s throat bobbed with effort, but his mouth barely moved as he wailed out two syllables.
It was obvious that he was putting a lot of force into whatever he was saying, yet it sounded like he was yelling into a pillow.
Barely coherent, and as rough as raw gravel.
Compelled by morbid fascination, I couldn’t help stepping closer to listen.
The word he was saying almost sounded like “Meehaw” but that didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t a name, or any sort of identifiable word.
The John Doe had put such effort into speaking, even while unconscious, the message must have been important, but I couldn’t translate it.
Apparently, neither could the hospital staff.
“He used to do that a lot more when he first showed up here,” Newt said, completely unsurprised by the John Doe’s reaction.
“Now, he’s settled down more, but we sometimes still get a reaction out of him.
It gives us hope that he has brain function so he should wake up someday, but…
” With a sigh, Newt patted one of the few spots on the John Doe’s shoulder that wasn’t bandaged.
“He’s been in a coma since he came in, and despite his activity he hasn’t shown any sign of coming out of it.
Plus, we have no way of finding out who he is.
The few items he had on him are over there on that shelf, but none of it helps identify him.
All we can do is keep him in this room and monitor him. ”
Over on a shelf on the wall, several items were sealed in individual plastic bags as if they were homicide evidence.
Most of it was so badly burned it was nearly unidentifiable, but I could make out the straps of a backpack and some fabric that was probably once clothing.
On first glance I thought it was a shirt, but the shape wasn’t right. The fabric was too long.
Pushing the bag around to get a better view, I realized the burnt and ruined fabric had once been a dress.
“Was there someone with him?” I asked, my brain already kicking into detective mode.
“That’s what we thought at first,” Newt said when I held up the remains of the dress in the bag. “We hoped someone would show up looking for him, but no one did. So, he’s still just our John Doe.”
With a careful hand, I placed the dress back among the pile of items. They were so damaged they were beyond saving, so there was no reason to be so careful with it, but this was all the man owned.
Even if it was basically trash, I couldn’t help treating these few ruined items like they were the finest jewels.
Something square on the bottom of the pile caught my eye. Among the backpack, clothing, and blankets there was a book. It was more ash than paper at this point, but the title was still legible.
Peter Pan.
This nameless man, who had likely been living on the streets, had devoted what little luxury he could afford to reading about flying off to another world. Where people never aged, magic did exist, and lost boys had a home.
“What can I do to help?”
The question slipped from my lips without my consent, not that I would have taken it back even if I could.
I volunteered at the hospital to try and make people’s lives a little bit better, even if it just meant easing their pain for a few moments.
Anything I could do to help the patient on the bed, it would be done without a second thought.
Maybe then, I would finally be able to sleep soundly at night again.
“Read to him,” Newt said while adjusting something on the patient’s monitor.
“I know he’s technically unconscious, but if he’s responsive enough to react, then maybe he can hear us.
He lies in this room all day, with only the occasional nurse to visit him.
That’s got to be boring, so I was hoping that some positive stimulation would help him get better. ”
Read to him?
Yeah, I could do that. I had a whole selection of books with me already, and nowhere else I needed to be tonight.
However, as I pulled up a chair next to the bed, I realized a problem. Along with the children’s books, I always brought a few adult books just in case. I had plenty of reading material, but what should I pick? Usually, I’d let the patient decide, but that wasn’t possible in this case.
“Meehaw” definitely wasn’t the name of a book.
My gaze drifted up to the shelf holding the collection of half-burned items. The man had probably already read Peter Pan before, but he’d clearly liked it enough to keep carrying it around with him.
Setting aside all the books I’d brought, I pulled out my phone instead.
Thanks to the hospital’s lousy Wi-Fi, it took me a while to pull up my Kindle app and find the book I wanted, but after a few minutes of frustration, I eventually, managed to get myself settled in beside the John Doe’s bed.
Above my head, the life support machines continued their steady beeping as I cleared my throat.
“All children, except one, grow up.”
The words poured from my lips as I spun the tale of the boy who never aged, and the magical world he lived in.
It was a well-known story, but like many people, I only knew Peter Pan from its many adaptations.
I’d never actually read the original novel.
So, I was interested to see how it differed from the story I thought I knew.
Yet, as I read, my attention kept shifting to the man lying in the bed beside me.
He didn’t make any other movements or cry out again.
If it weren’t for the machines telling me that he was alive, and the slight rise of his chest with each breath, I would have thought he was dead.
His skin was unhealthily pale—the parts of it that weren’t bright pink from new burns—and there were heavy circles under his eyes.
I wondered what color they were. Based on the color of his eyebrows, his hair was probably dark brown, but that didn’t tell me much. His eyes were the only part of his face I could see, and they remained stubbornly closed.
The longer I read without any reaction, the more foolish I felt, but I pressed on. I’d been asked to do a job, and I was going to do it.
Yet, as my own voice echoed off the walls of that room, I couldn’t help but wonder.
What was it like, being in a coma?
Was he aware of what was going on, or was it the same as sleeping?
Did he dream?
Or was it an endless nightmare?