The Art of Breathing Underwater

Chapter 30

Somewhere deep in the abyss, I heard sounds.

An intense blue-white light, blinding.

My eyes fluttered open.

"Do you know where you are?"

I blinked in confused terror.

As the lacerating light retreated, I could make out white roof tiles. They seemed to move.

A face in a green surgical mask appeared in my line of vision. And repeated the question.

My brain struggled to play catch-up. "Work," I answered abstractly. "I'm on the aisles."

"You're in James Connelly Memorial Hospital." A pause, while my muddled mind mulled that one over. "Do you know your name?"

"Aaron." When I tilted my head, I made out other forms in masks and gowns. The toneless voice asked for my full name. Feeling frustrated, now, and disorientated, I said, "Aaron Murphy."

I realised the ceiling wasn't moving. On some kind of gurney. Incessant voice demanding my address. Memorial Hospital. Memorial? Something that serves to keep alive the memory of a person or event. Was I dead? No, that's a crematorium.

Eyelids shut.

Back to black.

I heard a dislocated whispering voice and mumbled.

Adrift on the dark river.

A loud voice dragged me out of my submerged state. "What. Did. You. Take."

My eyes flicked open.

Hospital?

Hospital.

"What did you take?" A memory shook loose from my nebulous brain. Methadone. Had to keep that a secret. Otherwise, I would be in serious shit.

"You overdosed, Aaron. We need to pump whatever you took out of your system."

Shutter coming down, protection against the acute agony of reality, slipping back to painless black.

"Stay with us..."

I wanted to sleep. Forget. Why couldn't everyone let me in peace?

* * *

I awoke from a crazed fever dream to those same white ceiling tiles with the distinct stink of strong-smelling chemicals permeating my nostrils. Amid the disorientation and panic, some anguished voice screamed, "Peter". Tormented shrieks sent shivers down my spine. Made me think of a Banshee—the mythical keening woman whose wails herald death.

The howls continued intermittently.

What kind of demented Hell was this?

Minutes later, a door swung open and rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tiled floor.

"Peter? Nurse, where's Peter?"

A female voice said in a soothing tone, "I'm sorry, your friend didn't make it, Mister Sheehan. Pronounced dead at the scene, I'm afraid." That precipitated another horrific howl.

My groggy mind began piecing the fragments together. Must be the emergency ward, I thought. Curtains around my bed cut me off from the other patients. They didn't shield me from the terrible screaming.

Every fibre of my being ached. Mouth arid. Head pounded. An IV tube was inserted in a vein in my leaden arm. I struggled to focus.

But I was fortunate to be alive, according to the silver-haired doctor who dropped by to check on my condition. By rights, I should be dead, like the friend of the howling patient, the passenger who hadn't survived the car crash.