Breathingwas the only activity Henry could manage, so he took the nurse’s advice.
Oncehe felt returned to the real world – albeit tired – he remembered the surgeryroom. He remembered the smothering. Panic momentarily washed away fatigue. Heglanced around.
Therewere eight beds. Five were empty. Two slumbering patients occupied the others.Two nurses – a man and a woman in proper, modern scrubs, monitored the ward.
Ofthe caped nurse, there was no sign.
Somehours later, they wheeled Henry into a hospital room. The second bed was empty.No roommate was expected. At least, not that evening. Henry muttered a thanks.
Heslept. A real sleep of exhaustion and lack of rest and perhaps a touch offlushing out the last of the anesthetic drug.
Amale nurse, square-faced and tan, woke Henry.
“Needto check your vitals.”
Henryproffered an arm to the squeezing blood pressure cuff. The room tilted alittle.
“Crap.What did they gas me with?”
“Wedon’t use gas anymore.” The nurse laughed. “We just give you a shot.”
Henryremembered the needle in the I.V. bag, the one he hadn’t felt in his arm. Hadthey injected his arm?
“Butthat smell.” Henry shook his head, the memory strong enough he felt smotheredagain. He took in a deep breath to dispel the sensation. “The stuff packed awallop.”
“Youmust be a little disoriented. From what they tell me, you’ve had a longtwenty-four hours.”
Amemory rose from Henry’s past.
“Mymother. My mother had her tonsils out when she was a child. On the dining roomtable. A doctor who made house calls. He gave her ether. She counted from tenbackwards and didn’t finish before she was out. She never described the odorthough. An ether soaked wad of cotton.”
“Ether?”The nurse put on a casual smile that didn’t hide the growing concern on hisface. “Do you think we’re savages? Ether went away, long before gas did! Haveyou been reading historical medical journals?”
Henryforced a casual smile of his own.
“No,no. I guess I’m jumbled up, like you said. I’ll get some rest now, if you’refinished.”
Thenurse’s expression relaxed.
“I’mall set. You go ahead and get your rest.”
Henryslept, drifting between heavy slumber and near wakefulness. A few nightmaresbolted him upright, heart racing. He could not remember details of the dreams.He suspected the cause, sepia-haired and white-masked. He dismissed thoserecollections as soon as they appeared.
Hefelt the urge to piss and it was real, not a phantom sensation from a kidneystone. For that, he was thankful. No bedpan convenience for him, he wasexpected to get up and move. The room was quiet, evening settling in. Heshifted off the bed, clutched the I.V. stand, and wheeled it along to thebathroom.
Hepissed through the mesh and paper colander – a precaution in case they mightcatch some stone fragments to analyze. Post-op blood colored his urine with arosy tinge. The stinging wasn’t too bad.
Heheard someone in the room. Nurses always picked the best times to check in.
“Outin a minute,” he said over his shoulder.
Hewashed his hands, checked that his johnny covered his front and his ass cheeks,and paused at the threshold into the room.
Hehad a roommate.
“Dammit.”
Whoeverhad brought the patient had disappeared quickly. The patient wasn’t hooked toany monitoring equipment and neither were they I.V.ed. The bed had beenswitched. The buttons, railings, heavy frame absent, it wasn’t a bed at all. Itwas a gurney.
Achill crawled down Henry’s spine. No one could have walked out with that bed inthe time he had taken to piss. They would have needed to dismantle it.
Halfthe room had changed. Not Henry’s half. Where the separator curtain would havedemarcated the territory, the floor tiling changed from uniform beige toalternating brown and white tiles. Tiles he had seen in that lost, mysteriousentrance hall where he had first arrived. Only now he recognized the brown wassepia. A three-dimensional photograph overlaid on half his hospital room.
Hestepped forward, I.V stand’s plastic wheels clacking across the floor.
Hishead started to ache. The same white noise throb he’d felt in the waiting room.It got worse the closer he approached the room division. It wasn’t an evenlydistributed headache pain. The left side of his head felt warm and wet, scrapedraw. He put his hand there, pulled it back to look, expecting blood but hishand was clean.
Theman on the gurney had the same wound. The same man. The one abandoned in thecorridor with the out-of-place clothes and boots. Not the man who’d come inthrough the emergency doors clad in leather and modern motorcycle boots butthis phantom.
Sheentered through the door. Henry knew she would. For some reason her dark caperetained its navy blue color but the rest of her was a sepia portrait walkingtall, shoulders back and head high. She stood beside the gurney and stared atthe prostrate man.
Thescent of ether. A cotton wad in her hand, so soaked it dripped, drops splashingfloor where she stood.
Hermasked face turned to Henry. He saw her beautiful eyes swelling with tears.
“Youknew him. Who was he to you? A husband? A lover? A brother?”
Sheignored Henry and pushed cotton wad against the ghostly man’s face.
“You.”Henry’s eyes went wide. “You killed him!”
Sheraised her hand of sleep and death.
“Youeuthanized him.”
Shestepped away from the dead ghost and turned toward Henry.
Shelet her mask fall.
Henrycouldn’t understand why he’d screamed in the operating room. She was lovely.
Untilshe crossed the boundary. Then her face held all the charm of death, a skeletalrelief of malice.
Henrybroke his trance, gave an inarticulate cry and stepped back. He had forgottenthe I.V. stand, and he tripped over it. His ass hit the hard floor. The nurseof death loomed over him.
“It’snot me!” He wanted to shout but he clamped down on his hysteria. After thewaiting room incident and what he had told the nurse about being gassed, thestaff were already eyeing him warily. He didn’t want to be carted off to alunatic asylum. “I wasn’t the motorcycle crash! I’m not the one repeatinghistory! He already died!”
Hepointed at the bed. “Whoever that man was, whatever year he died, he wasn’t me.Isn’t me. Leave me alone!”
Herskull face leaned in close. Henry smelled an undercurrent of perfume while theether stench overwhelmed his nostrils. She held her hand of merciful death toher side, pausing and
