Salt and Pepper Short Stories and Poems

by Susan Sowerby

  ****

  Joel felt less like a Picasso painting and more like a human being the next morning. Having spent what he considered a couple of days in torture tied to a hospital bed, he was restless. He’d always believed adventures kept him sane, or there abouts. To distract himself from worrying about JD’s abandoned emotional state, he thought of the boot man. Just a little harder against that lamp post and he could have been in the same situation. Jason had been very vague about the guy. There was as good a chance as any that the man was in this hospital. It wasn’t that far from the incident. He wondered where the coma unit was, so he slyly asked one of the younger nurses.

  ‘If I’d bashed myself senseless and was in a coma where would they put me?’

  ‘Sixth floor, in the big ward, but if you were a high risk like someone wanted to murder you, you would be in security right up the end,’ she chatted away airily as she changed his bottle and checked the catheter. Joel reflected on how lightly nurses converse while they do strange things to embarrass their victims. He decided there probably was someone in security, or why would she bother to mention it?

  When she’d left, he considered his situation. Damned bottle! Maybe he could go for a wander if he shoved it down the leg of his pyjamas and held it there. He still felt weak and his head seemed like it belonged to somebody else, but all these sensations steadied after he stood upright for a while. He un strapped the bottle off the side of his bed and proceeded cautiously. It made him walk in an awkward manner, but he couldn’t bear another moment tied to that hospital bed. He wove his way unsteadily to the lifts. Other patients were wandering the halls, some wheeling trolleys with strange apparatus dangling from them, so he knew he blended in among the odd looking parade.

  He followed a laundry trolley into a lift, and got out on the sixth floor. The whole place seemed as foreign as any he could imagine. The walls were bare, clean and white - so very inviting. If he could do a job on all these at least no one would get lost, not ever again

  He padded down the corridor on floor six. All seemed so quiet and devoid of life. There wasn’t even a nurse to be seen. He wondered if he was in the morgue. Then he remembered the patients were all comatosed. It was like being in the city at night when every one but him was asleep. That was comforting. Finally he reached the ward marked

  ‘security.’ It looked grim. The windows were too high to see into, like a jail and the door needed a special tag to open it. He knew he shouldn’t be there, but the halls were so clean and stark there was no where to hide. It was nothing like a regular dirty street. Joel was used to being places where he shouldn’t be, but there were always hidey holes. This place made him feel like a rabbit under a spot light.

  A lift bumped to a stop and opened. A cheerful, laundryman who looked as though he was from India, pushed a trolley out of a lift, and conveniently left it outside ‘security.’ He greeted Joel without question and re entered the lift. Joel bobbed down gratefully behind it, a little awkwardly as the bottle obstructed him.

  After what seemed an eternity, a nurse came along and ‘blimped’ the door. She left it ajar as she performed hasty duties. Joel slid in like a ghost, and, keeping her on the other side of the curtain, slipped into a niche behind a bed-side cabinet. After checking all the monitors, she left and locked the door. What a silly move this is, reflected Joel. How long would it be before someone else came in? He’d certainly be in trouble if he got caught. He looked at the unconscious man and then at the name on the clip board at the end of the bed. Abraham Port-Robert. At first, he didn’t think it was the same man, but as he looked more closely, he became certain it was. The guy’d lost a lot of weight while in the coma. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was surrounded by beeps and blimps from the equipment. Joel stood in confusion for a moment. The pride he’d felt in saving a man’s life slowly faded away. What did the man know? What had he done to cop this?

  Suddenly there was a movement outside and Joel hastily stepped between the bunched curtain and the window. A woman, a girl of about twelve years old and a small boy were ushered in. Joel barely breathed. Mr Port Robert’s Family!

  As soon as they saw the man, the girl and the mother began to cry. The nurse folded her arms and stood by the door. It was obvious the scene had been re enacted many times over the past few weeks. The little boy happily got down on his hands and knees and began to drive a small truck around under the patient’s bed.

  ‘Daddy didn’t deserve this,’ sobbed the girl as she picked up his hand and put it on her cheek. The mother wiped her eyes and bowed her head as though praying. The little boy played closer and closer to Joel’s hiding place. Finally his truck bumped into his toes. Slowly he looked up the length of Joel’s body. Joel winked tightly.

  ‘Look mum, a boy!’ squealed the toddler. This is it, thought Joel. How could he explain this one? Got lost and ended up in security? Hardly!

  ‘Shush Ari,’ said the mother, ‘this is a quiet place.’

  ‘The boy will wake daddy up,’ sang Ari, at the top of his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered his sister, ‘please wake daddy up, Ari.’

  At her invitation, the little boy sprang like a monkey over the end of the bed and landed astride his father’s thighs, shouting, ‘Wake up lazy old daddy, you make mummy and Rachel cry.’ With all his small might, he threw his metal truck which bounced off the unconscious man’s skull, then clanged loudly against the monitoring equipment. Joel winced. His own head still felt a little delicate.

  Horrified the mother grabbed Ari off the bed. It was only then that the little boy began to cry. He was obviously trying very hard to do the right thing and yowled at his mother in hurt tones. The nurse hastened over to wipe the trickle of blood off Abraham’s brow as the family hurried out through the door. She left soon after them. In the mayhem, there was no way Joel could get through, and worse still, his bottle was filling up! Locked in again, he looked anxiously around. There didn’t even seem to be a bathroom attached to this room and he realised people wouldn’t need one if they were in a coma. There was a small area like a pantry containing a basin and medicines, but the nurse had locked it.

  He glanced at the unconscious man again. One thing was certain. If he could get in this easily, Mr Port-Robert wasn’t all that safe, but then again, if no one knew he was there, they wouldn’t come for him. Now he understood why Jason wouldn’t tell him anything about the man.

  He hoped they hadn’t missed him. Understaffing might be useful at times! He waited another agonising fifteen minutes. Finally the door opened and a nurse accompanied by a burly orderly, entered. Joel sized him up as was his habit. He wouldn’t want to be caught anywhere he shouldn’t be by that huge guy! The nurse and the orderly bantered with one another and walked very close together. Joel could see they had some mush going on between them and that was all the better! Maybe they wouldn’t notice him. They’d come to turn Mr Port-Rober onto his side. The nurse took care of the wires while the orderly turned and propped his back. They’d left the door ajar for the moment, and while they were occupied, Joel made a desperate bid for freedom. He squeezed through the slit making sure his bottle didn’t clank against the door, but he was looking over his shoulder to see if they’d spotted him and collided with someone in the otherwise empty corridor.

  He felt a sickening wrench as the bottle fell from his grasp and landed on the floor. Urine rolled in all directions and there seemed to be an endless amount of the stuff. How could it go so far? He looked to see who he had connected with in such an inelegant way and found it got worse. Sharon Lander! He stood with his back against the wall looking as white as a hospital sheet, breathing hard. Sharon shook her head as she bent down and picked up the bottle, the catheter and attachment that had parted company.

  ‘One hell of a way to remove a catheter,’ she muttered. ‘You, boy, are a walking disaster!’ She was obviously annoyed and in a hurry

  Joel was too overwhelmed by body shock to register embarrassment. He stared w
ith pained amazement as the urine slick appeared to reach a mile down the corridor and was still rolling. Sharon grabbed some dirty towels from the trolley and threw them on the rapidly expanding lake. Luckily, the laundry-man returned just then and Sharon yelled ‘accident here, can you do a mop?’ The man nodded obediently as he glanced at the name tag on her pocket, but his eyes opened wide at the extent of the flood.

  Joel finally managed to rasp, 'What are you doing here?’

  She scowled at him. ‘I’m a physio. I work in hospitals. The better question is: what are you doing here?’

  ‘Exploring,’ replied Joel, contritely, trying to look as though the pain wasn’t as bad as it was, ‘I got sick of being in bed so I went for a walk and got really lost.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Sharon, ‘You could have asked directions, but then again, men prefer to get lost. Come on I’ve gotta get you back to the ward. I’m supposed to be working, I'm late and this is my first day in coma.’

  Joel looked at her, uncertain whether he like being lumbered with all other men’s defects ‘I bet you get lost in this place too,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be irritating,’ she chuckled, ‘I’ll forgive you because you’ve given me an excuse to be late. Are you OK to walk?’

  ‘Almost,’ muttered Joel as he stepped out shakily. One leg of his pyjamas was soaked in urine, and he was glad Sharon did not look up and see ‘security’ written above the door of his hasty exit. He wondered about fate. What were the chances of colliding with Sharon Lander? He wasn’t a mathematical genius, but he knew they would be very few.

  She took him by the elbow and led him to the lift. ‘My younger sister’s a Sister,’ she said conversationally, ‘You might have seen her around.’

  Joel gave her a blank look, thinking, of course your sister’s a sister. The sensation of the lift seemed to be robbing him of the ability to think or to stand upright.

  ‘No silly, I mean my sister works as a Sister on your floor.’

  Joel didn’t remember hitting the floor.

  When he woke, he found himself back in the hated hospital bed. An irritable conversation was going on between Sharon and the old ward Sister.

  ‘He’ll have to go home tonight because we need the bed.’

  ‘His home isn’t suitable. He doesn’t seem well enough,’ Sharon was saying. Joel closed his eye again, quickly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ answered the head Sister, ‘We’ll check out that everything is working down below before we kick him out. We were going to remove the catheter today, though not quite in that manner,’ she laughed harshly, ‘he might pee a little blood, but that will pass. If anything else is wrong, his parents can ring us back.’

  Bitch! thought Joel, in one of his moments of lesser charity.

  ‘Then he’ll have to come home with me,’ sighed Sharon.

  ‘Fine,’ was the haughty answer, ‘just get him out by six.’

  The young nurse came in and pulled a face at the head Sister’s receding back. Joel could see a likeness to Sharon in her. She began to do the weird hospital ritual of tucking him in so tightly, he felt he couldn’t breathe. Sharon helped her.

  ‘He’s pretty cute, this young kid,’ commented the little nurse.

  ‘What do you mean ‘cute,’ was Sharon’s tart retort. ‘If you ask me, Emm, this boy's a whole bag of trouble.’ There was an edge to her voice and Joel wondered what darling Mal would think of his lady love bringing home the stray cat he’d rejected two days before. Apparently she and Jason shared the same penchant for picking up strays. Though this was great luck for furthering his plans, he really wanted was to see JD as soon as possible. Before he could stop it, a sigh in the form of a weak puppy whimper escaped his lips.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ asked the young nurse, puzzled. She looked under the bed. ‘There can’t be any animals in here.’

  Sharon suppressed a smile, ‘Look kid, if you want to come home with me you’ll have to behave as you look.’ Joel wondered about his chances for survival around that Mal fellow. He might end up killed and dumped in a skip bin somewhere, but he decided there was no time for morbid fantasies.