Chapter 6
Auggie
“As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up, she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus, it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless. ”
I closed the book, looking at the John Doe on the bed.
It had taken a few visits, but I’d finished every last word of Peter Pan.
The ending was more resolute than I expected.
When I watched the Disney adaptation, it seemed pretty clear that Peter Pan was meant to be interpreted as a dream, with only some hints that the adventure in Neverland might have been real.
Some other adaptations told the story of Peter Pan more literally, but, like many people, it was the Disney version that I remembered best. Obviously, adaptations need to change some things, but I expected at least the ending to match.
But no. In the book, Peter Pan is most definitely not a dream, or a metaphor. He’s real, in as much as a fictional character can be real.
He was also not the sole focus of the book. Peter Pan may have been the book’s main subject, but in many ways, Wendy was its heart. The story of Peter Pan is a tale of Motherhood as much as it is a tale of childhood.
Overall, the story was still familiar, but it was also different enough from what I expected that reading it out loud felt like I was discovering it for the first time.
As I sat there, thinking about what I had just read while the life support machines beeped overhead, my thoughts automatically turned to the patient lying beside me. Everything he had with him—at least what could be found after the fire—was purely functional. Clothes. Blankets. A few toiletries.
Except this book. The story of Peter Pan had apparently meant enough to him that he sacrificed space in his single backpack to keep it with him.
Why?
What did the story mean to him?
Would I ever get the chance to ask him?
A knock on the door startled me out of my thoughts.
“Hey, Auggie,” Newt called softly from where he leaned into the doorway. “Just letting you know visiting hours are almost over.”
I snapped my head around to peer at the clock on the wall.
Was it really that late already?
I’d been here longer than I thought.
“Oh, thanks. Sorry, I lost track of time.”
“It’s no problem,” Newt replied, his smile sincere. “Honestly, I’d let you keep reading if I could, but we’ve got some work to do with our John Doe.”
I paused, stilling my hands in the middle of packing up my bag. “Work?”
I got my answer almost before I finished the question. When Newt stepped into the room, another man followed him. One I’d never seen before.
Based on his uniform, he clearly worked at the hospital, though he wasn’t wearing the same scrubs as a nurse. Taller than Newt, though not as tall as me, he had a lean athletic build, and a very enviable set of braids.
I couldn’t help staring.
When I was younger, I’d considered putting my hair in braids, but I never had the patience to let it grow out enough.
Then when I joined the military, uniform regulation meant I had to keep my hair cut high and tight.
After living with the same haircut for so many years, it felt too late to change my style now, but seeing this other man now reminded me of when I was younger.
His braids were down to his shoulders, and I could tell that they were his natural hair and not extensions. I remembered the long, frustrating process just trying to grow an inch of hair, and I was impressed by his fortitude.
“This is Frankie,” Newt said, gesturing to the other man. “He’s one of the physical therapists here at the hospital and has recently started working with our John Doe.”
“Ha! One of,” Frankie laughed as he bumped Newt with his hip. “More like the only physical therapist at this point.”
It was clear the two were friends, because despite being rudely brushed aside, Newt didn’t look upset at all and actually smiled.
“There’s still Carlton.”
“Ha!” Frankie laughed again, louder this time as he rounded the bed to get a better look at the John Doe patient. “Please. Carlton is two years from retirement and doesn’t do shit. Honestly, I’d be better off with a leaking blowup doll as an assistant than having him around.
It was then that Frankie seemed to remember a guest was still in the room. He jerked his head to look up at me, braids swaying around his face, and his expression turned wide.
“Oh, um. Sorry. That was unprofessional. I mean… we’re just a little understaffed is all, but it’s fine.”
His embarrassment made me laugh out loud. “Don’t sweat it. I was on active duty for twenty years, and some of the foulest mouthed people I ever met were some of the best soldiers. There’s literally nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before, or worse.”
Both men breathed an audible sigh of relief, before Newt reached over and slapped Frankie’s arm.
“You’re lucky this time, but your mouth is going to get us in trouble one day.”
Frankie rubbed at his arm but otherwise didn’t look particularly upset.
“Perhaps, but today is not that day. Now, didn’t you say the patient in room T563 needs to be prepped for surgery? You should probably get on that and leave me to fend for myself.”
Newt looked like he was about to argue more but then paused to check his watch. Frankie must have been telling the truth, because Newt immediately seemed to forget everything else and hustled out of the room.
I reached out to grab my bag and get out of the physical therapist’s way but stopped before I even touched the strap as a new idea occurred to me.
“If you’re short staffed, is there anything I can do to help?”
Frankie considered it for exactly three beeps of the life support machines before he shrugged to himself and smiled.
“Yeah, I don’t see why not. This is the kind of stuff we’d let a patient’s family or friends help with if they were here, and it would be easier with a second person.”
Frankie directed me to the other side of the bed, where I needed to simply help hold the John Doe up in a sitting position.
At first, I was too afraid to grab onto him.
Most of the John Doe’s upper body was wrapped in bandages, and I couldn’t stand the idea of aggravating his burns, even if he was unconscious.
However, Frankie assured me that the man’s burns weren’t as delicate as they looked.
A significant portion of the flesh had already healed, and the parts that hadn’t healed yet were scabbed over.
“The bandages are mostly to protect the newly healed skin and the skin grafts,” Frankie explained, partially unwrapping one of the bandages on the John Doe’s forearm to show me. “You can touch. It won’t hurt him, so long as you don’t yank him around too much.”
Despite Frankie’s assurances, I still grimaced as I carefully slid a hand under the comatose man’s back.
The exposed skin under that bandage was alarmingly thin and pink and looked about as sturdy the first fall of snow.
Yet, just as Frankie had said, the burns were no longer open or raw, so I would have to trust his judgment. He was the expert, after all.
When I sat the John Doe up—making sure to support his head the whole way—I was surprised to find he weighed almost nothing.
I’d expected him to be light. Just from looking at him I could tell he was on the thin side, but until then, I’d only seen him lying in bed under the hospital blanket and the few brief times I’d patted his shoulder hadn’t given me an accurate picture of the condition of his body.
The man must have hollow bones like a bird. It was the only explanation. If it weren’t for the bandages weighing him down, he probably would have floated right off the bed.
For a moment, as the John Doe leaned within the cradle of my arms, I nearly dropped him from the shock of how little he weighed. Yet, Frankie showed no surprise at all as he picked up one of the man’s limp arms.
“For comatose patients, it’s important to still keep the body moving,” Frankie explained as he gently manipulated and stretched the arm in his grip. “Not only does it help prevent bed sores, but it keeps the muscles from atrophying and promotes better circulation which helps the body heal faster.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t my first time going through the process of helping someone heal.
Over my years in service, I’d seen many comrades suffer every kind of injury imaginable, from simple lacerations and broken bones, to debilitating ailments that would forever change their lives.
Not every injured soldier had the luxury of a caretaker waiting for them at home, so I’d nursed a few of them back to relative health myself.
The benefits of physical therapy were not new to me.
This was, however, my first time helping someone who’d been in a coma for so long. In some ways, it was similar. In order to heal, the human body basically needed the same basic things.
But in other ways, it was completely different.
The John Doe’s complete helplessness was what really caught my attention.
Sitting next to him while reading, I’d known that he was unconscious, but I hadn’t felt the weight of what that really meant.
Now that he was in my arms, completely limp and vulnerable, it hit me that I could do anything to him at that moment and he couldn’t stop me.
He wouldn’t even know anything had been done to him, since he was unconscious.
As soon as that thought entered my mind, I automatically held him tighter and pulled his body a little closer.
Under Frankie’s instruction, I helped the physical therapist stretch and manipulate each of the John Doe’s limbs in a strange imitation of a yoga class.
Due to the freshly healed burns, some parts of his body couldn’t be moved as much as needed for the therapy to be effective.
For these parts, electro-therapy was used to stimulate the muscles instead.
The unassuming little box connected to the John Doe patient with leads that stuck to his skin.
Then, with the push of a button, an electrical current was passed through the targeted muscle.
The charge was low, just enough to make the muscle twitch.
I’d had this same treatment done to me several times when healing from past injuries and knew that it didn’t hurt a bit.
Yet, the moment the sticky pads of the leads touched the John Doe’s skin, his brows furrowed slightly, as if he’d somehow noticed them even in his unconscious state.
I placed my hand on the John Doe’s head, trying to smooth away his furrowed brow.
“Hey, it’ll be okay. Trust me, it doesn’t hurt, and it’ll help you get better.”
But it turned out I was a liar without even knowing, because the moment that machine was flipped on, things weren’t fine. The small electrical stimulus did its job, activating muscles that couldn’t be moved otherwise, but it also caused a horrible, muffled wail to build up in the John Doe’s throat.
I’d been through this treatment before. I knew it didn’t hurt, and yet, the unconscious man on the table reacted as if he was in immense pain. His hands even curled up into claws, grabbing fistfuls of the bed sheets like he meant to tear himself away.
Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed his hand and laced my fingers between his, letting him hold onto me instead. Whatever he was going through, I couldn’t stop it, but hopefully, I could at least provide a more stable outlet for his pain than the flimsy blanket.
The treatment didn’t last long. Barely more than two minutes. Yet, every second felt like a year until Frankie finally turned off the machine.
“I hate using this treatment on him,” Frankie said as he packed up the electrical stimulus machine.
“If the patient could be moved enough for regular manipulation, I’d stick to that.
It clearly distresses him for some reason, but unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of other options.
I just hope he doesn’t remember it when he wakes up. ”
The John Doe didn’t relax until the electrical leads were removed from him. Then, the moment the adhesive pads no longer touched his skin, he immediately fell back into complete unconsciousness. His hands were limp, and there wasn’t a twitch in the expression on his face.
The only evidence of his recent distress was the sweat that lingered on his brow.
Grabbing a clean washcloth from the nearby closet, I wiped his face clean.
What had caused such a reaction?
It wasn’t physical pain. Even if the patient was somehow conscious enough to feel what was going on, the treatment didn’t hurt.
So, his reaction must have been mentally based rather than physically based, and that was a mystery I couldn’t solve.
The John Doe’s thoughts remained locked inside his head, completely out of my reach.
I’d never know what he was thinking until he told me himself, and while I hoped that day would eventually come, I couldn’t help but wonder in the meantime.