2 Years, 2 Weeks, 2 Lives

by Phil Cocker

asked, his voice croaking as he opened his eyes for the first time.

  “Hospital Sweetie.” Emma leapt up pout of the chair. She’d been reading a magazine, but tossed it across the room when she heard her Son speak.

  “Why?” He coughed a couple of times before running his tongue across his lips.

  Emma held a glass of ice chips to his mouth. “Just take some tiny sips, nice and easy.”

  Eric coughed a couple more times, but felt his voice coming back to him. “Why am I here Mum?”

  “You fell downstairs, don’t you remember?” She asked, a little concern in her voice.

  He thought about it for a second. “No.” He stopped and his eyes searched the room as if clues there would be stuck on little yellow notes everywhere for him to see. “I remember a thunderstorm at school today, and Mr.Higson nearly catching me out for watching that and not listening to him, but Tom helped get me on track.”

  “Tom.” Emma Peterson’s voice caught in her throat, and she stroked his hand as she explained. “Tom’s caught some strange illness, and he’s not feeling too well.” She gulped trying to contain all the emotions. As strong a character as she was, having to explain all of this to her son was very daunting and emotional. “We thought it was just food poisoning from the pizza, but you haven’t got it, and it’s got worse.”

  As if on cue, the door of the private side room where Eric was being cared for opened and in came Tom, sat in a large hospital wheelchair being pushed by his Mum and Dad. “Yo mate, we’re hospital buddies.” He smiled as well as he could at Eric. “We’d just been chatting next door and heard all of the commotion in here and realised that either something good or something bad had happened.” He smiled again at seeing his friend was looking better than he had. “Thankfully, looking at the fact that you’ve opened your eyes for the first time in 3 days, it’s the first one.”

  Eric smiled back, then asked “Mum said you’re ill?”

  “Yeah, they can’t find out what it is.” He lifted up his shirt to show him a series of blisters across his stomach. “Cool aren’t they.”

  Eric laughed out loud at how Tom could find a mysterious illness that was completely baffling the doctors as being cool.

  Both boys spent the next couple of days in their rooms, or being wheeled from one to the other in between the regular and very frequent visits from what was colloquially known as the hospital Vampires, who came to draw more and more blood from them to be tested, interspersed with being prodded and poked by the Doctors. Eric went for an MRI scan, which was a highlight on one day, but the cold corridors as he was pushed by the Porter through to the back of the hospital where the facility was based was a little too much for his bare lower legs.

  A week went by, and Eric woke up after an afternoon snooze. He’d had a reasonable lunch consisting of a plastic bowl filled with soup with a dry bun. Then it was a mince and mashed potato mix, which they had called cottage pie, but it was nothing like his mums. Desert was best as it was ice cream. He’d enjoyed it all and had then drifted off whilst watching nothing of any importance in the afternoon slots of daytime TV.

  As he woke up he stretched and let out a huge yawn, reaching for the controller to flick through the channels of countless nothings when he heard his Mum talking very quietly to someone just outside the door.

  “Thank you again.” Emma Peterson said.

  “Not a problem.” A strange deep and slightly posh voice said. “It was just lucky that I was passing.”

  “I just can’t bear to think what might have happened if…” Her voice drifted away.

  “Don’t worry Emms, we are looking out for him, I promise.”

  His soft cool and slightly posh voice caused a tiny memory to twang a little at the back of Eric’s mind, although as soon as he tried to retrieve it, it disappeared like a cloud on a windy day.

  “Look, let’s just say that I was very lucky to be in the right place to help. I saw a flash of light, thought the worst and simply reacted.” The stranger continued. “I realised that it could have been really bad, so got in and was there just in time “

  “Ridiculous, you know very well that I know how these things work.” Emma’s voice had a harsh edge. “You were under orders, most likely, from Gordon.” She replied.

  “Sort of, I’d been placed into close watch, but had arrived to assist the look-see team across the road, check up on the comings and goings, check for any irregularities.”

  Eric tried to listen harder as he was missing little pieces of the conversation, being so far away from the almost closed door.

  “And?” Emma asked.

  There was a pause.

  “No, this was purely a hunch, and I’m glad I came.”

  More silence followed.

  “So am I.” Emma replied with a deep sigh.

  “I’m sorry but I had to break the door.”

  “Oh forget about the door, you saved both boys.” She smiled at him. “Have you been to see Tom as well?”

  “Yes, I’ve just been in but he’s sleeping as well, so I thought I’d come and see how Eric was doing.” He added.

  “That’s very kind of you.” She half giggled. “It’s so funny how fate works in such ways.”

  “Fate?” He asked.

  “How you just happened to be there at that very moment.” She paused a second. “I’d call that fate, wouldn’t you ?”

  “I don’t believe in fate, Emma, anyone would have done the same.” He was very humble about the whole incident. “So, you say he remembers nothing of that time.” Casually deflecting the subject away from himself.

  “Nothing at all. The doctors have run test after test, but there’s complete memory loss for the best part of 3 weeks.” She explained. “Come in and see him, it might help.”

  The door opened and Eric watched intently as in walked Emma Peterson followed by a well-dressed tall, and slightly stickily built man.

  Eric sat himself upright and said “Hi.”

  “You don’t remember me do you Eric?” The man asked.

  Eric looked him up and down for a few long seconds, making very certain before he answered, “Nope, sorry.”

  “Not a problem, I was helping your school as an advisor, and we’d met a couple of times last week, I’m Mr. Jackson” He held out his hand for Eric to shake.

  Eric felt the strong grip of this mysterious visitor that knew his Mum so well. “Sorry, but I don’t remember you at all.” Eric shook his head.

  “Like I said, it’s not a problem.” He then turned to Emma Peterson. “I think I’ll leave you two alone now.” With that he turned and very smartly and briskly marched out of the room before anyone could add anything else.

  He’d left the door open and both of them watched him walking away along the corridor. It was only when he’d turned the corner at the far end of the ward did Emma Peterson speak, “That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”

  Before Eric could say anything else, a loud and insistent bleeping noise started somewhere outside in the ward. As it bounced off all the walls up and down the corridor, he couldn’t tell where it had originated.

  “Fire?” Asked Eric, concerned that he may have to get out of the building quickly.

  “No, an emergency somewhere.” Emma replied, a touch of concern in her voice.

  There was a scuffling of many feet as staff ran down the ward.

  “Oh dear, I think something’s gone wrong somewhere.” Emma said as she got up to look round the door. “Oh no!” She slapped her hand over her mouth as she turned back to Eric with soulful eyes.

  “What?” Eric asked, “Who is ……” He stopped his question in mid-sentence as he realised that his mum would only know one other person in there. His body tensed and he took a deep gulp before he reluctantly asked, “Tom?”

  Emma Peterson nodded slowly at her son, watching his features crumble. “I’ll be back in a second.” She had to go check, to be 110% certain, as
she knew what this could mean to her Son. Emma took one long look at Eric, and waited for him to compose himself and nod his acceptance before walking out of the room to make certain.

  Tom’s room was adjacent, and the crash team had cared into there. As Emma Peterson arrived in his doorway she heard the ominous call by a doctor. “Clear!”

  Everyone stood back and a very dainty Asian lady, the smallest and frailest looking person in the room, dressed in a long white coat pounced on Tom with the charged paddles. There was the inevitable shudder as the electric charge coursed through the lifeless and frail looking body on the bed, before it went limp once more. The doctor flicked back a rogue lock of her long dark hair that had been mainly arrested in a bun at the back of her head. Handing the paddles over to a colleague she leapt up onto the bed and started giving him a heart massage. “Come on Tom, breathe, one – two – three – four, one – two – three - four.” She stopped and leant forward over him, pressing her mouth over his and his chest rose artificially. “Come on, just one big gasp Hun.” She asked him, as she carried on pressing his chest. The various machines that were parked all around Tom’s room were now starting to buzz and bleep more and more, as they’d been quickly disconnected when the crash team had arrived, but no one really heard any of them.

  After a few more arduous minutes of CPR the Doctor’s shoulders slumped and she climbed off him, slowly. Looking up at the clock in the room, Doctor Taylor said in a quiet, sad, yet slightly angry voice. “3:18pm, time of