Devine Intervention

by Martha Brockenbrough

  Megan whipped it open. There, in front of them, stood the security guard.

  “I’m going to have to ask you and your dog to come with me,” he said. He slid his flashlight out of his holster and tapped it against the meat of his hand as if to show he wasn’t afraid to brain a girl and her terrier in the name of hospital security.

  Heidi trembled beside Megan and spoke. “We surrender.”

  Megan looked down at her as if she’d gone bonkers. She pulled off her jacket and threw it at the guard, who dropped his flashlight and pawed at his covered face. Megan lifted Heidi across her chest and ran.

  “Which way?”

  Heidi sniffed. A riot of scents — flowers, sickness, Tic Tacs, tears. She pushed aside a split-second bout of despair. She could do this. She took one last whiff and panted, “Cinnamon gum. To the left. Halfway down the hall.”

  Megan’s shoes squeaked as she turned. Heidi hoped she was right. Even more, she hoped she’d have just a minute left to see her family and her body before she disappeared.

  They ran.

  “Stop!” The guard was after them again.

  They reached the door. Megan held Heidi to the window and she saw her mom. Her dad. Rory. They’d gathered around the bed that held her, and while it was a terrible thing to see herself pale and still, with an octopus of tubes curving out of her nose and mouth, she felt something more powerful than fear. In her separation from her body — her gross, giant, hesitant body that was a laughingstock on at least two continents — it had turned into something different in her mind.

  Something, she realized with a pang, that she loved.

  Appendix G: The Ten Commandments for the Living

  I. THOU SHALT HAVE COURAGE.

  II. THOU SHALT BE LOYAL.

  III. THOU SHALT TELL THE TRUTH.

  IV. THOU SHALT HAVE FAITH IN THYSELF AND OTHERS.

  V. THOU SHALT FORGIVE.

  VI. THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE.

  VII. THOU SHALT RESPECT ALL LIVING THINGS.

  VIII. THOU SHALT FEEL GRATITUDE.

  IX. THOU SHALT BE KIND.

  I BEAT THE car to the hospital and watched it drive up. When it got close enough, I could see the squirrel hanging on to its bumper. The car stopped in front of the hospital entrance and the squirrel slid off, shook the water from his coat, and crawled into a shrub. I got that. If there was a shrub big enough to shield me from everything that was happening, I’d dive in too.

  Heidi and Megan got out. They walked to the hospital’s sliding doors and stopped. Perfect. Alls I needed was Jiminy’s soul and I could get this show back on the road.

  “Don’t move!” I told them, even though they were too far away to hear.

  The car drove off, clearing the view of the sidewalk. Sure enough, there was Jiminy, still running at us like crazy. Gotta give credit to that mutt. His legs might be little, but they don’t quit. For a second, I hoped he’d see Heidi there, or at least his body, and decide he wanted back in. But then Megan picked Heidi up, stuffed her in her coat, and took her inside.

  “Come here! Come here, boy!” I said. I was gonna stick with the plan, see it through.

  Jiminy obeyed. I couldn’t believe how easy this was. Like it was meant to be.

  “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “Stay,” I said.

  He did.

  Then I walked all calm-like over to the shrub and took the sack of nuts out of my pocket. I hadn’t even cracked it open when Jiminy stopped sitting and staying and started jumping up against my hand like he was starving. Which he probably was. He knocked the nuts out of my hand and they flew all over the parking lot. He started snorfing them up. He was eating my last chance. His too, actually.

  I scrabbled on the ground for them, but I couldn’t keep up. That’s when I spotted the one last nut. I dove for it and got it. Then I went over to the bush, holding it out to the squirrel. He sniffed the air, rubbed his whiskers, and crept forward.

  But he’d wised up to me. This time, he shot forward and snatched the nut. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened. He shoved it in his mouth and swallowed it, and when I made a grab for him, I felt this huge kind of pulling on my soul, worse than the time Mike stuck a toilet plunger on my head, which was shaved down on account of lice.

  The pulling felt like the shoop on acid, all these flying colors and crazy music that filled my insides so much the soul map fizzled out. Then the spinning stopped and I was surrounded by leaves, looking up through them at Jiminy’s tongue and teeth. I was inside the squirrel.

  I said something that gave me a shock so big the squirrel felt it too. He shot out of the bush. Jiminy followed. I tried to steer the squirrel’s body toward the hospital door, but he wasn’t having any of that business. I can’t say I blamed him.

  I tried to hop out of his body, but my soul was stuck inside, held there by that nut, surrounded by a hundred-percent squirrel. I could feel the rain in his fur and the puddles on his feet. I could feel his lungs breathe in and out. I could feel the blood whooshing through his veins. I could feel his heart thumping in his chest. It was like a whole separate animal at the very center of him and me, and it made me hurt all over from remembering what it was like to have something like that living inside of me.

  The soul map was completely busted, so we had to turn our head to see where Jiminy was. In a word, close. So when the squirrel skittered up the nearest tree, I didn’t complain. There was a chance that mouthful of celestial nut or the body full of me might mean Jiminy could do us some real damage, and I didn’t want to take any chances of that, not with Heidi so close and all.

  The squirrel climbed like nobody’s business, but every so often he turned his head to look down through the branches. The parking lot was full of wet cars. The warm ones steamed in the rain. A parked ambulance had its lights on, looping shadows all over everything. We were up pretty high. Jiminy watched and barked from below. My fear of heights was making an alarm of death ring full blast.

  I tried talking with the squirrel, explaining that we needed to go inside the hospital, preferably through the door. But here’s another fact: Squirrels aren’t much for conversation.

  We climbed higher up the trunk of the tree, winding around the thinner and thinner branches, stopping every so often to check on Jiminy. The situation wasn’t good. Each time he barked, all four of his paws lifted into the air a bit. That’s probably how he figured out he didn’t have to keep his feet on the ground. His face was all, “Look at me! Dudes! Look at me!” as he rose in the air toward us, like someone had him on strings.

  Pretty soon, there was no more tree left to climb. So the squirrel took a flying leap over to the side of the building. When he got to a windowsill, I was hoping he planned to knock and ask to come in. But no, he just looked. That’s when his little heart started pounding even harder. I looked past his reflection in the window, hoping he’d maybe read my mind and seen Heidi.

  But it wasn’t Heidi’s family in the room. It was a woman having a baby. That was like the last thing I wanted to see, what with her face all sweaty and red and her hair sticking out in all sorts of directions and … let me just say it was so gross that it made me glad I was going to die as a virgin for the second time. From the look on her husband’s face, I think he would’ve agreed that was a better way to go.

  With our eyes full of that mess, we started climbing. The side of the building wasn’t as easy to go up as the tree, so he stopped again for a breather at the next window and that’s when I saw her. Heidi.

  Alive, but not for much longer. I could tell.

  She lay in bed with all sorts of tubes coming out her nose and arms and her forehead. Her mom sat by her, leaning in, holding Heidi’s hand. Her little brother’s nose was red from crying and maybe also from chewing his weird, spicy gum. Maybe the saddest was her dad, who only had one hand to wipe his tears because he was holding her mom’s free hand with his other.

  I know I’m not an expert in much of anything, but I know what a
dad feels when his kid is gone. It isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Not only was I trapped outside, I was too late.

  A nurse was in the room with them, pointing at all the plugs and showing how he was going to take them out of Heidi. I was thinking that he’d unplug one thing and be done, but that wasn’t how it went. He unhooked the tubes and machines one at a time, starting with the one that fed Heidi. He moved all slow, like a stoned panda. It was killing me. I started pulling on my soul, trying to get it out of the squirrel.

  Below me, Jiminy was getting closer. I could hear his breath and practically feel it on the squirrel’s feet. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the room, even if I hadn’t been afraid to look down. Heidi looked like she was sleeping. That was the only time I felt like a good guardian angel, when I watched her catch Zs. She looked so sweet and peaceful. Would her face change when she died? I was scared to find out. But I wasn’t going to let her die alone, no matter what.

  I didn’t notice right away that Megan and Jiminy had arrived. The door swung open and Heidi’s soul started leaking out of Jiminy’s body and she looked terrible — cracked and fuzzy, like an old mirror. As soon as she was all the way out, Jiminy’s body dropped.

  Behind me, I could hear his soul panting. He’d almost made it to the window. The squirrel said a string of things that would have fried my brain, and I guess I was maybe scared that was going to happen, or maybe my soul wanted to be with Heidi’s and finish this thing more than it wanted to be wrapped around a beating heart, because I managed to launch myself out of his body and right through the glass.

  Jiminy took a flying leap, not realizing his soul would pass through the squirrel and the window too. He busted into the room right after me.

  Appendix G: The Ten Commandments for the Living

  I. THOU SHALT HAVE COURAGE.

  II. THOU SHALT BE LOYAL.

  III. THOU SHALT TELL THE TRUTH.

  IV. THOU SHALT HAVE FAITH IN THYSELF AND OTHERS.

  V. THOU SHALT FORGIVE.

  VI. THOU SHALT BE HUMBLE.

  VII. THOU SHALT RESPECT ALL LIVING THINGS.

  VIII. THOU SHALT FEEL GRATITUDE.

  IX. THOU SHALT BE KIND.

  X. THOU SHALT LOVE, THOU SHALT LOVE, THOU SHALT LOVE.

  HEIDI’S SOUL ROSE out of Jiminy’s body. She stopped fighting it. He couldn’t have much more time left, she ached to realize. More, though, she didn’t want anyone else’s flesh — even as beloved as her dog’s — between her soul and her body during its last moments. Jerome’s handbook hit the floor with a slap. Too late for that now.

  Only a few steps separated her from her physical self, but the distance seemed vast, unmanageable. Her vision was hazy, which might have accounted for the glow she perceived around her motionless body. Her toes, her fingertips, her hands, her throat, her cheekbones, her forehead … the edges of each were lit. She traced them with her eyes.

  Separated from Jiminy, her soul seemed to expand and absorb everything. She felt sadness ooze from her family, a humble sense of purpose from the nurse who’d slipped the feeding tube out of her nose and then turned off the whooshing respirator. And then, in the clean silence of the room, Heidi first felt, then saw, Jerome, followed by Jiminy’s bounding spirit.

  Jerome. He’d brought Jiminy. The one thing she’d wished for, besides her own life back. Somehow, Jerome had known. And he’d known where to find her, even if it was too late to save her. It was all right, Heidi realized. Really, it was. It meant everything for her to be understood that well by another soul.

  Jerome looked different somehow. It took her a moment to understand why. The green canvas jacket was gone. She followed the squared edges of his shoulders up past his neck, to his face. The arrow. It was gone too. On his unshadowed face, she noticed his lips and his nose and his eyes. They were brown, the color of chocolate and spring mud. Without that arrow, he looked — he looked exactly as he was meant to look, like someone she knew well enough to draw by heart.

  Jerome said something, and she said his name, and without stopping to consider that he might reject her, or that she might be embarrassed, she moved toward him and wrapped her arms around him, every bit of anger she’d felt replaced with a greater share of love. She held him and gasped to feel her soul and his, together. She knew what she felt, and it was deeper than words.

  All around her was the feeling of music, not made by any person or being but rather the vibration of their two souls that for one perfect moment had become one. Jerome looked into her eyes and she knew he was going to kiss her, and even though she wasn’t sure that was necessary or even something she particularly wanted, it seemed like a good way to spend a last moment. He pressed his warm lips to hers, and before she could figure out how to respond, there was a whoosh, as though he’d fallen through a skin of ice on a pond.

  And then he was gone.

  At first I thought he was chasing me — but no, he’d seen his body on the floor and was sniffing it. He whined a little bit and I think he understood what had happened.

  “Hey, little buddy, it’s dinnertime in dog heaven,” I said. “Go.”

  But he didn’t. He slipped back inside his quiet little self and wagged his tail — thump, thump — and I couldn’t take looking at anything that hopeless. When I was standing there, Heidi’s family looked up and I swear they saw me, because of the shock on their faces, but maybe they were watching the security guard drag Megan off, or looking at the nurse, who said, “And now, I’m going to unhook the ventilator. This will be quiet and peaceful.”

  Shows what that applehat knew.

  He unplugged it and it stopped its hissing and Heidi and I saw each other, and like we were thinking the same thing, we both turned our heads and looked at her body.

  Her chest stopped going up and down and she had this look on her face and I don’t care who knows, but it was beautiful. And I could swear her soul was made of music because I could hardly hear anything over the sound of the stupid angels singing.

  I looked at her soul and I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you. I’m sorry I didn’t help you see who you really are,” and I closed my eyes because I thought she was probably going to hit me again, but she didn’t. She shooped up to me and called my name, Jerome, like I was someone who mattered.

  And then we stood together with no space between us. I felt her soul and my soul mix together like you’d put them in a blender, and that’s when I knew something sort of huge. We might get born alone, and we might die all by ourselves, sometimes with some help from our cousins, but the best part of life is when you find someone you can be with, and you’re good enough and they’re good enough and no part of you wants anything else. I knew what the feeling was, and the word happiness didn’t do it justice. Not even close.

  I looked in her eyes and did the one thing I’d been thinking about since I pulled her out of that pond. Only in my imagination, I slipped in some tongue.

  But there wasn’t enough time before I felt a horrible pulling, like the kind you feel on those spinning amusement park rides that slam you up against a wall and press your cheeks into your ears. It was like gravity times ten, ripping my soul down like the Destroyer himself had grabbed ahold of my ankles. I felt my essence tear from Heidi’s, and the sound was terrible and I knew that I was headed down to the lowest level of Hell — maybe a whole new level created just for me — and there was a part of me that was glad to feel her heart break as I left.

  I thought about telling her something I’d only just figured out because I am slow even when I’m paying attention, which was this: I loved her. But instead, I called out something that would maybe be more useful.

  And anyway, I got the feeling that she knew.

  His last words to Heidi weren’t the ones she would have expected or hoped for. But they were the ones she needed to hear.

  “Don’t miss,” he said.

  She took one final look at her body, the body she’d come to love all the more for its flaws and its vulner
ability. Without the ventilator, her chest was still. The heart monitor beeped, growing slower by the moment, a mechanical echo of the sound of a person bouncing a basketball.

  Don’t miss.

  This time, she wouldn’t.

  THE BOTTOM LEVEL of Hell wasn’t what I expected. It was loud. Dark. Wet. And kind of pink, like maybe it had been decorated by the love child of Elton John and a mermaid. But it was punishing, all right. I wasn’t sure I could take an eternity of the kind of abuse I was getting, which I can only describe as what a chicken probably feels like when a farmer is wringing its neck.

  I used to think it was worse to kill chickens with an ax because of the way they would sometimes run around without their heads. Me and Mike were once talking with this friend of my dad’s who told me that he knew of a headless chicken they kept alive for a week by squirting water down its throat with an eyedropper. Fact: There was no way a chicken could live for a week getting the kind of squeeze I was getting.

  It was so bad I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t have sworn if I tried, which was fine because my brain was having a hard time remembering any words, good or bad. I could hardly remember anything besides Heidi, Xavier, Gabe, and the taste of corn dogs.

  For the longest time, I thought this was the Destroyer’s way of making me suffer, giving me nothing to think about but the sensation of being crushed to death every sixty seconds or so.

  And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.

  The crushing let up and my eyes were slammed with the brightest light — way brighter than the flashlight the security guard at the mall used, and that one had a setting meant to give people seizures. It was a killer light and I was cold and naked and someone was fiddling with my belly button and whipping me through the air and putting me in a cold, metal basket.

  “It’s a boy,” a voice said. “A perfectly healthy boy.”