“Take him in.” The triage nurse left my stretcher heading back over to the door to bum-rush the next one. The sound of the gurney’s wheels spinning strangely put me at ease.
A rainbow of volcanic ash. The clear sky turns to smoke. A death died a thousand times. Alone on Baekdu mountain on the shores of Heaven lake: The picture perfect place to turn to stone.
A few more nurse and doctors types surrounded me. I could see up all their noses. Count the hairs in their nostrils. Feel the warmth of their hands. Tell you what they’d had for lunch. “He’s already stitched up?”
“Is this your Dr. Frankenstein work?”
“What kind of sedation is he under?”
“Looks like he’s barely there.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump off the pushcart and run away. I wanted my mind to shut off, but wouldn’t let it because maybe that would mean death. No body justifies paralysis. No mind equates shock. I started the simple exercises in my head. It wasn’t enough. If only I could remember how to apply chemistry to everyday life. The current moment of doubt called for a concise interpretation. Quantum physics would merge into the surroundings, united.
A musty draft travelled the emergency room. Orbs danced in my mindsight. A cacophony of curtains yanked open and shut. Patients peered out, flooding the room with fear and hopelessness, relieved when they were in better shape than their neighbor. There was moaning, but not the screams we were waiting for. I wanted to be the one to let loose, but my moment had yet to arrive. My throat felt unbearably sore like my entire head was trapped in the gap between the 3 train and the platform.
“I know you can’t talk back, but just try to relax.”
“What’s your take on it nurse?”
“Missed the carotid arteries and internal jugular. Luckiest guy in here all night. What’s with the stupor? Either he’s like that all the time or someone gave him too much Morphine or Fentanyl.
“Pupils aren’t constricted. Breathing is still rapid. It’s something else What happened to his hand?”
“Cop shot a chunk of it off.”
“Blood levels?”
“Amazingly under control.”
Another poor sucker gets wheeled in. He looks at me sympathetically like he knows me. I think I recognize him, but I recognize everyone now.
“Hey buddy what the hell are you doing here?” Brodie was bleeding from a head wound. Both his hands were bandaged at the knuckles. He was piss drunk.
“You know this man?” The nurse immediately cut in.
“I do. This guy saved my life. A lion tracked me and tried to do me in. Thanks to him I’m still ticking.”
“A lion? What’s his name?”
My body began jerking around with no control. Stitches threatening to burst. The air was inside me, but it wasn’t travelling right.
“He’s convulsing.”
“It’s shock.” A team rushed around me again.
“Pulse is weakening.”
“Close the window. Bugs are getting in.” It was the first beautiful day since winter killed everything alive and Missy was trying to shut us in.
“Go kill some mosquitoes then. That’s what you’re good at.”
“If you want some air. Why don’t you go outside?”
I left on her command… returning a few hours later. Missy was waiting for me like only seconds passed. She left the dead mosquito on both palms. Smudged against her skin to make her point.
“You have to know when to quit Farrow.”
“Six thirty-eight.” The doctor stated my time of death and left the room.
{LII}
THERE WASN’T ENOUGHT ROOM FOR me in the morgue. Nude under the half-zipped body bag, I waited on a gurney in the hallway. Bodies were quadrupled up on the trays. The heat wave was doing us in. A cloud of flies travelled in a swarm. An itchy feeling slowly brought sensation back to my skin. I couldn’t move to scratch it. The chemical paralysis was wearing off. I was beyond dehydration. The two lonely workers chipped away at their duties. Speed metal and merengue poured out of their headphones. The last thing they would expect is for one of their cadavers to get up and stumble out of the joint. I was sure they fantasized about it. I highly doubted they would notice me gone.
“NYPD. I’m looking for a John Doe.” Sgt. Bethany Powers dropped in like a regular at a local dive.
“We got a few dozen. Take your pick.” The guy working didn’t give a shit, but enjoyed the relatively warm female company.
“Male. Early thirties. Throat slit. Decrepit.”
Decrepit. I would remember that. Take that to my grave. Sgt. Bethany Powers rolled my gurney behind the largest stack of bodies she could find.
“Farrow, I know you’re still with me. See your mind works, but your body doesn’t. You know why you’re in a waking coma? A pharmacist I brought in traded me this for skipping a court date. Evil genius.” Sgt. Bethany Powers waved a cloudy ampule labeled Evil Genius in front of my face.
“We brought Missy in. She filled me in on everything. I’m on her side Farrow. You’re not even human. You’re just a book. Paper and lines. A recluse losing his mind. And some books are better off not existing. They’re better burned.” Sgt. Bethany Powers shook the hair out of her face, looking back over at the two workers.
“Make sure he gets picked up for cremation. I’m paying for it personally. That was his last request.” Then she leaned over and gave me her lips. It was a long kiss. The kind that wakes up every nerve in your body. The kind that ends in a bite so vicious you have no choice, but to fall in love with the black widow.
{LIII}
ALIVE AMONG THE ROTTING. THE morgue workers shook off the chills and got back to work. The waking coma drug seemed far-fetched. Science made perfect sense and for that fact alone was light years behind this town. Life was floating in and out of consciousness regardless.
“I’m here for a pick up. A guy with a slit throat.” I couldn’t make out the voice and it bugged me out how I was more popular dead than alive.
“You got a coffin? No corpses leave without a coffin.”
“In the hearse.” The voice became almost recognizable, but I’d heard so many.
“Alright sign for him and he’s all yours.” Something familiar. A pen scratching paper. The body bag zipped over my head. The wheels were rolling again.
“Humans are flawed Farrow. You desert people when they need you most.”
The world saw me as dead. The inside of the body bag left a whole lot of nothing to be desired. I could feel the car cruising down what felt to be an expressway. I wondered if it was really a hearse. Dodging the definite possibility, I visualized a red Ferrari cliff hanging through the Swiss Alps, an orange Super Bee blowing dust past the Laredo border. I wondered who was driving. A land of too many faces. Why could I only see my own? An ancestral scream, no longer repressed tries. I felt the wound on my neck start oozing. No sound comes out to find the future.
“I’ve never deserted writing Percy.”
Covered in fireflies, I sunk into the casket’s mattress somewhere within the stone maze of Calvary Cemetery’s arrogant tombs. Gotham’s peaks appeared to be in arms reach. A lunge towards the skyline beaming through the sinister opacity. Clenching my free hand around the Empire State Building. Trembling and twitching - more insect-like than human.