He caught his breath.
It was there in the room with him.
Death.
The nightmare he had fought for so long and from which he had tried to flee.
Death.
Quickly he recited to himself the Platitudes of Acceptance: Everyone dies. No one has a lock on the next ten minutes. Who does Erico Ramos think he is to be granted immortality? Everyone eventually faces their final moment. How will Erico Ramos measure up? Be a man, Erico. There are people watching. They’re not only watching, they’re taking extensive notes.
How will Erico Ramos go out? What will those who see him die think of his departure? If I must die, thought Erico, I want to do so with dignity, although dignity is a tough thing to manage with a piece of plastic stuck up your dick.
The automatic cuff began squeezing his arm as the tiny air compressor grumbled into his left ear with the sound of a monotone machine fart. All of his vitals would be up on the video screen, but he wouldn’t be able to see the screen unless he could face it. He could feel the sandbags against both sides of his head. Broken neck? He wiggled the fingers of his right hand and the toes of his left foot, somehow pleased that he wasn’t paralyzed.
The back of his head hurt and he could feel that the pain had been numbed by pain killers. But his breath was short. It was as though icy fingers were gently gripping his throat, squeezing, cutting off the flow of oxygen.
Erico knew he was getting enough oxygen. He could feel the nose piece hissing into his nostrils, smelling of stale plastic, drying out his nasal membranes. The icy fingers were nothing more than his fears. Fears of death, fears of knowledge. Ignorance is not only bliss; at times it’s a bloody necessity.
Still, his breath was short, panic began gnawing at his resolve to lie still in bed. He forced himself to lie motionless. After all, he might not be dying. It’s possible. Ripping out his IV and trying to run from the room might kill the one chance had of staying alive, and staying alive was the point of all of this expensive equipment, wasn’t it? Besides, he still had that piece of plastic stuck up his dick.
Nonetheless, Erico’s cosmic accountant was in there hard at work making up the final tally. That was your life, Erico. What had you made of it? Nursing school when you could have been a physician or a great research scientist? Hell, thought Erico, I did save some lives and helped to save many more. The fleeting nature of this accomplishment, however, was never clearer. The law was still on the books: everyone dies. No one ever lost money by betting on death’s eventual victory.
There were other things, though. A childhood that was lonely, save for a brief flirtation with a street gang. No one, nothing, left behind. Not even a kitten.
That was the fear of death, he thought. Finding out your ticket’s expired and you hadn’t yet had your turn on the ride. Dying without having lived. He could feel the tears running down the sides of his head. It was no longer possible for Erico to remain confined within his own head and he opened his eyes. Because of his tears the images were smeared, but he blinked them away. Above was the acoustic tile set into the room’s false ceiling. A corner of one of the tiles was cracked. There was a brown spot on another. Coffee? Feces? Blood?
He looked down and to his left. Next to his hand, hanging from the raised bed rail, was the combination call button and TV control. Beneath his wrist were the leads leading to the contact patches attached to his chest. The TV, hanging above the foot of the bed, was off. He looked up and to his left and saw the edge of the video monitor’s side. The screen was pointed toward the foot of the bed and he couldn’t view it. There was a clock on the wall and it registered a little after nine in the evening. He pushed the call button, feeling somehow ashamed for doing so.
A face appeared in the doorway. Female. Unfamiliar. “Hi. Mr. Ramos? I’m your nurse for tonight. My name’s Helen. How are we doing?”
“You’re half of us seems to be doing very well,” answered Erico, his voice sounding strange in his ears. “I still don’t know anything official about my half.”
“Well, you certainly sound better.” She checked the video monitor, cycled the blood pressure cuff, and took a note or two. “I can get you a little broth, if you’re hungry. How about a ginger ale?”
“Nothing. How am I doing?”
“Well, your blood pressure and pulse are very good. Are you feeling any pain?”
“Not overwhelming. My head mostly. I’d like to know my condition.”
Helen’s face showed the nightmare. Judgment call. Tell me, nurse, am I dying? She reviewed her options and selected the elsewhere road. “The doctor’ll have to tell you that in the morning. I can say you’ve been in a bit of a scrape, but we’re taking care of you now. Your neck’s been injured, so for the time being you have to remain on your back. If you need help or a bedpan, just push the button.” And, before the waves of her final audio communication landed upon Erico’s eardrums, she was long gone.
Of course by not answering his question she had answered it, changing Erico’s question from “what?” to “how long?” He closed his eyes as a chill traveled the length of his body.
He didn’t want to travel the extent of his fears again. He opened his eyes, reached for the control, and turned on the television. After running around the available channels twice, the amount of time he had left and what he was doing with it began to plague his thoughts. If he only had seconds or minutes left, did he want to go out listening to Jeopardy or reruns of Cheers ? High school basketball? Oprah and women married to midget mimes with body odor?
He punched off the set and took a deep breath, letting it out as a ragged sob. Another face appeared in the door. Hesitant. Dark. “Rene.”
“Yes.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I’ll go, if you want.”
“No. No, don’t go. I wanted to see you — talk to you. I just didn’t know it.” A pause. “How did you know it?”
Rene smiled sadly. “I told you before, man. I just know.” He entered the room and stood at the right side of Erico’s bed, looking down at him. His usually smiling face carried a grave cast. “How can I help you?”
“Do you know how bad a shape I’m in?”
“No. I just got up here. Did you ask the nurse?”
“I asked her and she told me squat.”
Rene nodded. “That tells you something.”
Erico closed his eyes. “Yeah. About her as well as me.” The fear that was choking him made his eyes jump open. “I’m scared.”
Rene Boniface took Erico’s right hand in both of his and held it. “I know, man.”
“I’m so damned scared of dying I can hardly breathe. What did you do to those people? Rachael Raddenburg, Alicia Fuentes, all of them?”
Rene glanced down, his face troubled. “I have a gift. Maybe it’s a curse. Anyway, I took them to death.”
“What?”
“Death. Dying. I showed them what it’s like. I can take you there. I can show you it’s nothing to fear. In fact it’s the most wonderful thing you’ll ever experience.” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “That’s all I do.”
“That’s it? No catches? No money?”
Rene nodded. “Oh, there’s a catch; a payment.”
“What?”
“If I do this for you, Erico, you agree to share your death with me.”
“Share my … death?” The fear climbed into Erico’s throat, the physical sensation of being strangled. “How do I share my death with you?” he whispered. “And why? What do you get out of it”
Rene squeezed Erico’s hand. “Like I said, man, it’s the most wonderful feeling you’ve ever had.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You’ll see. And don’t worry about how I do it. I could take it. If I wanted I could take your death and share it without your permission. But I don’t do that. I ask first.”