Blink {Featured}

Chapter Twenty Two

JOHN FINNIE

When John woke up something was different. The doctors were all over him, taking blood, reading data from the machines, and rushing around like a frenzied bee colony, and he was the queen. They poked and prodded him, shone lights in his eyes and ran gadgets up and down his body.

John smiled, he actually smiled. It almost felt alien to him for the muscles in his face to move, it itched as his skin stirred, but it felt wonderful. The months of sitting or lying in his bed, wearing nappies, having other people clean him had made him a bitter man. Sarcasm reeled in his mind, and he wanted to loose it on the world. But that was over now, wasn't it?

Eight hours he sat through tests, still unable to move, but he was definitely different. By the end of the first day there was one doctor left in the room, it was late. Her back was to him as she poured over his notes. A blonde ponytail swished behind her bobbing head. The white lab coat she wore was immaculate, and as he watched she scribbled notes down on the clipboard she held. She put the pen in her mouth, scrunched her nose up, and then underlined two words. Body responsive.

Something about her seemed familiar. No, not her, someone like her. John couldn't shake the feeling. She placed the clipboard at the end of his bed, then pushed her glasses back onto her nose. She smoothed the bed sheets out and sat down, facing John.

'I bet,' she said, 'That you're wondering what the heck is going on, eh?'

John sat half propped up, still unable to move. So he smiled. That, at least, he could do.

'Well,' said the doctor, 'we still aren't sure what happened. You know you have been in a coma for seventeen years, yes?'

John smiled again. Did she expect him to nod? To say yes? Pffft.

'Good,' she said. 'During that time you died at least twice a year. You were resuscitated each time.'

John's head spun. He died? What the fuck! He died... Remember me... Eh? Remember who. Oh Christ, he'd died. How was he still here? Was he still here, was this real? His stomach lurched. Oh God, he felt sick.

The machines to his left beeped, the doctor looked over. She took a gadget out of her pocket and tapped at the screen. A feeling of melting drenched him--something she pumped into his veins.

'Morphine,' she said. His smile came easy. Her glasses looked funny. 'It will help you relax and get rid of the pain.' She smiled. 'Better?'

No drugs...Why no drugs? Man this felt cosy. And her glasses, so funny.

'Great,' she said. 'Seventeen years is a long time John, during this time you suffered many strokes. You had a large amount of damage to your brain, almost unrecoverable. Or so we thought.'

She reached for the clipboard again and wrote something else down. 'Anyway, we watched the CC television feed. When you sneezed, something happened. It looks like your spinal cord was pressurised near the axis of your skull. Somehow we missed this.' She paused for a second, then shook her head. 'Okay so,' she continued, 'this pressure was somehow released when you sneezed, and the electrical signals are now firing off in one hundred percent of your brain. Do you understand what I am saying John?'

John smiled again, now fully immersed in the warm and comforting embrace of the morphine. Inside he giggled. The doctor's glasses sat on her face like a praying mantis rocking on a leaf.

'So,' she said again, 'It looks like you will regain full control of all your body's functions over time. It will take a lot of rehabilitation John. And some substantial surgery as your tendons are shortened in your left arm and left leg. Yet the prognosis is good.' She laughed. 'What am I saying! The outlook is wonderful.'