Heart Beats
It’d been ten minutes since my heart stopped beating. The pain had stopped, and my body no longer responded to my commands. My eyes stared blankly up at the garish white light and occasionally a tool would be passed over my head to relieve the boredom.
I could see the doctors working on my body, or at least I could see parts of them. a hand, an elbow, sometimes a masked face. There was a woman leading the rescue operation and my mind went back to hearing about a woman’s motherly instincts to save people. I remembered lectures in college, where feminist teachers would suddenly throw a jive about how women were once barred from the medical field because heaven forbid they have to operate on a naked man. If I could control my face I’d have smiled. We are making progress toward equality, little by little.
A jolt in my upper body brought me out of my reverie. My chest hurt again. They were using the shock pads to try and get my heart pumping. It hurt so much, but the pain subsided. My heart remained still. Another wave of electric pain and nausea passed through me. Then it too subsided. I could hear them shouting for tools, the rustle of scrubs and sheets.
The smell was the strangest part of it. It started out with that sickeningly clean smell hospitals always have, the smell of chemical sterilizers and ammonia that always gave me headaches. On top of that there was the smell of burnt hair and flesh, stinking sweet and pervasive.
It’s strange the things that come back to your mind on the edge of death. I remembered sitting with my best friend and ex-girlfriend. We were all teenagers, the sound of Queen played softly in the background as we all drank root beer floats and mused about the meaning of “killer queen.” It’d been easy times then, one of those happy moments.
Another flash of pain and my mind drifted to my college graduation. I remember the look on my fiance’s face when I received my diploma. When I walked out of the auditorium that night she threw her arms around me and tackled me to the ground in my robes. She whispered in my ear soft congratulations as she cuddled against my prone form on the ground. My parents walked up and I remember their faces as defining of each of their personalities. My mother was blushing and frowning disapprovingly of our display, while my father was laughing and shaking his head, happy for my achievement and too old to be upset about our affections.
My heart took a tentative beat, then stopped again, the pain was worse than before, but it subsided and left me remembering another time I was in the hospital. She was three hours into labor and drenched in sweat. Her sweet hair clinging to her brow and shoulders, her eyes wild and panicked as another wave of pain wracked her body. I wondered vaguely if I was feeling anything like what she felt as they tried to restart my heart. She squeezed my hand, and I was wise enough to make it the one not wearing the ring. The pressure had already rearranged the bones in my hand, but I didn’t complain. I’d read about wedding rings getting bent by the pressure, and then I finally believed the stories.
The next flash of pain left me staring into the eyes of my daughter’s first boyfriend. He was a tall boy, handsome, but I he seemed so dense. That relationship hadn’t lasted long, but it changed so many things about her. After him she turned bitter for months, and she had trouble trusting any boy who showed interest in her. It’d taken her years to find a guy who she would stay with for more than a few weeks.
The doctor stopped moving. “We’re not going to get this one back.” She said and suddenly everything stopped. Every eye turned to her but mine. I could just see her nose at the edge of my visual field as she pulled down her mask. A piece of hair had fallen out of her cap, it was blond and curly. It reminded me of my second daughter’s hair. The doctor reached forward and closed my eyes for me, relieving me from seeing that garish light. I wanted to scream that I wasn’t dead yet, to rage against the sheet they pulled over my head before wheeling me out of that room.
I heard my stretcher clatter over a bump on the floor and a pair of doors slid closed. Machinery hummed and the doors slid open again and I was being rolled down what I can only assume was either another hall, or a very large room. They eventually brought me to a stop, and left me there, like a parked car to wait for processing.
I wanted to sit up, to reach out and pull the cold sheet off my face. It was chilly here, but I would have walked away naked if I could just move. Slowly, I lost feeling. It started at my heart, that steady motionless organ. The cells died, and I lost the ability to feel them. It spread from there. My organs were stopping and dieing, until my brain began to slowly shut down. I heard a garbled voice saying something, and the rumble as my stretcher began to be moved again.
All that’s left is my memories, as scenes play through my mind over and over again. The end isn’t far now, probably just seconds away, but it’s amazing what the mind can review, can recall and relive in just a few seconds. I remember…
Reply
