Intensive Care
by Bill Robertson
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: A tragic accident brings back some old memories and guilty thoughts.
_____________________________________________________________________
The air in the waiting room hung thick with tension. The number of people crammed in there made for a claustrophobic atmosphere. At random intervals, nurses in surgical scrubs would swish into the room and everyone would look up with a mixture of expectation and dread wondering if it was their turn.
I scanned the walls to avoid making eye contact with anyone. I focussed on the fading montage of pamphlets and posters spread across the wall. My eyes felt swollen and sore. It felt as if someone was trying to push them out of their sockets. The muscles in my face ached from keeping an impassive expression.
The door swung open; another flurry of swishes, heads swivelled as another nurse appeared.
‘Gary Watson?’
Gary’s family heaved a collective sigh and began to rise from their seats. I remained fixed to my chair, unsure what to do next. Gary’s dad gestured to me.
‘This is Gary’s best friend. Would it be ok if he came with us?’
The nurse looked me up and down with a brisk, professional eye as if assessing my potential to cause further harm to her already critical patients.
After a long beat, she nodded. ‘That won’t be a problem. However, Ward policy dictates that we can only allow you in two at a time.’
Gary’s mum opened her mouth to say something but the nurse cut her off.
‘If this were any other ward I could probably bend the rules but you have to understand that this is the Intensive Care Unit. All of our patients, including Gary, are in an extremely critical condition and we cannot risk upsetting them.’ I could see Gary’s dad squeeze his wife’s hand as the nurse spoke. It was as if he was trying to transfer some strength to her. There was a shocked blankness in her eyes.
‘It’s ok,’ I said. ‘I can wait here with Jenny while you go on ahead.’ Jenny was Gary’s little sister, subject to much teasing in the past by the pair of us. Now I was the one who felt small and helpless.
‘Very good,’ said the nurse. She looked at me: ‘Someone will come for you once Mr and Mrs Watson are ready to leave.’ She put her hand on Mrs Watson’s arm and made to lead them into the ward. ‘I’ll show you how to scrub up before you get to the bed.’
As the doors shut behind them, Jenny and I returned to our seats. I resumed looking at the walls. Off in the distance I could hear a muffled tannoy calling for a doctor to report to radiology.
***
Gary’s parents had returned. They sank down into their chairs as if being physically crushed by what was happening to them. Jenny and I got to our feet and joined the nurse waiting at the swing doors. It was like the changing of the guards. We passed down the corridor following the soft pad of rubber soled nurse feet. The sharp smell of disinfectant assaulted my nose and made it itch. The nurse took us to a small cleaning station equipped with a hand basin and bright cartoon posters telling you how to wash your hands properly. I followed the instructions and washed diligently but secretly I wondered if a dose of MRSA or C-Diff was going to make any difference to Gary anyway.
We made our way to Gary’s bed. The ward was long, and shafts of light poured onto the shiny floor through the windows standing between each bed. Gary was at the far end on the right.
I approached filled with dread. Now that I was here, I was really wishing that I could go again. Did I really want to see my best friend in this state?
‘Are you ok?’ said Jenny turning to face me.
I had to swallow a little to clear the knot that had formed in the back of my throat. ‘Yeah,’ I said, still not sure.
She took my hand and gave a weak smile. ‘Come on, let’s do this.’
I could hear her breath catch in her throat when she really saw him for the first time.
The top of his skull was covered in heavy bandages to conceal the catastrophic damage his head had sustained. He was naked from the waist up, his body covered in an ugly sunset of bruises that ranged from a sickly looking yellow to a deep angry purple. Across his chest, you could see the deep indentations left by the seatbelt before it had snapped and sent him through the windscreen. His mouth was wrapped around a corrugated plastic tube connected to a ventilator. The machine pumped in a steady rhythm as it fed air into Gary’s battered lungs. He was surrounded by a huge bank of electronic equipment that looked like leftovers from the set of a fifties B-movie. Digital readouts flashed and beeped in their coded machine language, sending their secret status reports out into the ether.
‘Gary is in a coma,’ the Doctor had said. When you hear that word coma, the image you get is one of passivity. You expect someone in a coma to be just lying there, inert, separated from you by thick walls of unconsciousness.
Gary was anything but inert.
His eyes were open but unfocussed. They rolled around in their sockets, not fixing on anything. He moved continuously, head lolling from side to side as far as the thick padded cervical collar wrapped around his neck would allow him. His fingers clawed impatiently at the sheets. Watching him move was like watching someone trapped inside a nightmare.
‘Oh Gary…’ Jenny managed to say before choking on a sob. I forced my own nerveless fingers to squeeze her hand for comfort. I felt numb, dislocated – as if I was floating, viewing the scene from above.
I pulled her closer. ‘Let’s sit down’.
The nurse had told us to talk to Gary as it might help him to regain consciousness. I considered how ridiculous the request sounded in the face of Gary’s condition. What was I going to say to him?
Jenny broke the awful silence first. She took his hand and started to stroke it. ‘Well, you’ve really gone and done it this time,’ she said. ‘Same old Gary, always in a hurry to get everywhere.’
He groaned and carried on with his restless movement.
‘Aye, that’s you all over mate,’ I said forcing a cheery tone into my voice. ‘Always in a hurry but never on time for bloody anything. You ought to see the get up they have you in right now, mate – bit of a change from your usual designer threads. If word of this gets out, your street cred will be in tatters.’
Jenny gave a soft laugh. ‘Aye, I dinnae think Trinny and Susannah would be very impressed if they could see you in those old man’s pyjamas.’
Our banter sounded stilted and hollow. We lapsed into silence again.
‘Do you remember the ramps?’
I grinned at the memory. ‘Aye, that was Gary and me going through our Evel Kneivel phase. It was his idea to stick you under the ramp and jump over you.’
‘I might’ve known.’
‘Do you remember that, Gary? You and me bombing around on our bikes? We nicked those bricks from that building site, and then you’d fished that bit hardboard out a skip.’ I could almost hear the sound of the playing cards machine-gunning through the spokes as we pumped our legs up and down on the pedals. We would haul our bikes to the top of the hill, hurtle downwards towards the narrow strip of wood, and launch ourselves into the air. We would egg each other on to go further and faster. Two bricks high at first, then four and then Gary had suggested Jenny could lie underneath the ramp.
‘Dad would’ve had a hairy fit if he’d ever caught the pair of you.’
‘Why did you do it then?’
‘Gary told me he would pull the heads off my Barbie dolls if I didn’t.’
Jenny’s face was red. Hot streams of tears ran down her cheeks as she held her brothers’ hand. My own face felt clenched and frozen as I fought to keep my emotions in check. Gary ignored us and continued with his struggle in the pits of unconsciousness.
‘There’s no hope is there?’ I asked her once she had the crying back under control.
Jenny shook her head slowly. ‘The consultant keeps saying encouraging things to mum and dad but you can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t really believe all the stuff he’s telling them. He thinks it’s just a matter of when.’
Gary rolled one-way and then the other in his bed and moaned. His eyes stared sightlessly into the air as his head began lolling back and forth once more, as if he was reacting to what we were saying. Jenny started at the sound. I caught the wide look in her eyes and shivered a little.
‘He can’t really hear us, can he, Davie?’
There was a long pause as we both looked at each other. Jenny’s voice dropped to a whisper. A flush of guilt spread across her face.
‘Can he?’
Swearwords: None.
Description: A tragic accident brings back some old memories and guilty thoughts.
_____________________________________________________________________
The air in the waiting room hung thick with tension. The number of people crammed in there made for a claustrophobic atmosphere. At random intervals, nurses in surgical scrubs would swish into the room and everyone would look up with a mixture of expectation and dread wondering if it was their turn.
I scanned the walls to avoid making eye contact with anyone. I focussed on the fading montage of pamphlets and posters spread across the wall. My eyes felt swollen and sore. It felt as if someone was trying to push them out of their sockets. The muscles in my face ached from keeping an impassive expression.
The door swung open; another flurry of swishes, heads swivelled as another nurse appeared.
‘Gary Watson?’
Gary’s family heaved a collective sigh and began to rise from their seats. I remained fixed to my chair, unsure what to do next. Gary’s dad gestured to me.
‘This is Gary’s best friend. Would it be ok if he came with us?’
The nurse looked me up and down with a brisk, professional eye as if assessing my potential to cause further harm to her already critical patients.
After a long beat, she nodded. ‘That won’t be a problem. However, Ward policy dictates that we can only allow you in two at a time.’
Gary’s mum opened her mouth to say something but the nurse cut her off.
‘If this were any other ward I could probably bend the rules but you have to understand that this is the Intensive Care Unit. All of our patients, including Gary, are in an extremely critical condition and we cannot risk upsetting them.’ I could see Gary’s dad squeeze his wife’s hand as the nurse spoke. It was as if he was trying to transfer some strength to her. There was a shocked blankness in her eyes.
‘It’s ok,’ I said. ‘I can wait here with Jenny while you go on ahead.’ Jenny was Gary’s little sister, subject to much teasing in the past by the pair of us. Now I was the one who felt small and helpless.
‘Very good,’ said the nurse. She looked at me: ‘Someone will come for you once Mr and Mrs Watson are ready to leave.’ She put her hand on Mrs Watson’s arm and made to lead them into the ward. ‘I’ll show you how to scrub up before you get to the bed.’
As the doors shut behind them, Jenny and I returned to our seats. I resumed looking at the walls. Off in the distance I could hear a muffled tannoy calling for a doctor to report to radiology.
***
Gary’s parents had returned. They sank down into their chairs as if being physically crushed by what was happening to them. Jenny and I got to our feet and joined the nurse waiting at the swing doors. It was like the changing of the guards. We passed down the corridor following the soft pad of rubber soled nurse feet. The sharp smell of disinfectant assaulted my nose and made it itch. The nurse took us to a small cleaning station equipped with a hand basin and bright cartoon posters telling you how to wash your hands properly. I followed the instructions and washed diligently but secretly I wondered if a dose of MRSA or C-Diff was going to make any difference to Gary anyway.
We made our way to Gary’s bed. The ward was long, and shafts of light poured onto the shiny floor through the windows standing between each bed. Gary was at the far end on the right.
I approached filled with dread. Now that I was here, I was really wishing that I could go again. Did I really want to see my best friend in this state?
‘Are you ok?’ said Jenny turning to face me.
I had to swallow a little to clear the knot that had formed in the back of my throat. ‘Yeah,’ I said, still not sure.
She took my hand and gave a weak smile. ‘Come on, let’s do this.’
I could hear her breath catch in her throat when she really saw him for the first time.
The top of his skull was covered in heavy bandages to conceal the catastrophic damage his head had sustained. He was naked from the waist up, his body covered in an ugly sunset of bruises that ranged from a sickly looking yellow to a deep angry purple. Across his chest, you could see the deep indentations left by the seatbelt before it had snapped and sent him through the windscreen. His mouth was wrapped around a corrugated plastic tube connected to a ventilator. The machine pumped in a steady rhythm as it fed air into Gary’s battered lungs. He was surrounded by a huge bank of electronic equipment that looked like leftovers from the set of a fifties B-movie. Digital readouts flashed and beeped in their coded machine language, sending their secret status reports out into the ether.
‘Gary is in a coma,’ the Doctor had said. When you hear that word coma, the image you get is one of passivity. You expect someone in a coma to be just lying there, inert, separated from you by thick walls of unconsciousness.
Gary was anything but inert.
His eyes were open but unfocussed. They rolled around in their sockets, not fixing on anything. He moved continuously, head lolling from side to side as far as the thick padded cervical collar wrapped around his neck would allow him. His fingers clawed impatiently at the sheets. Watching him move was like watching someone trapped inside a nightmare.
‘Oh Gary…’ Jenny managed to say before choking on a sob. I forced my own nerveless fingers to squeeze her hand for comfort. I felt numb, dislocated – as if I was floating, viewing the scene from above.
I pulled her closer. ‘Let’s sit down’.
The nurse had told us to talk to Gary as it might help him to regain consciousness. I considered how ridiculous the request sounded in the face of Gary’s condition. What was I going to say to him?
Jenny broke the awful silence first. She took his hand and started to stroke it. ‘Well, you’ve really gone and done it this time,’ she said. ‘Same old Gary, always in a hurry to get everywhere.’
He groaned and carried on with his restless movement.
‘Aye, that’s you all over mate,’ I said forcing a cheery tone into my voice. ‘Always in a hurry but never on time for bloody anything. You ought to see the get up they have you in right now, mate – bit of a change from your usual designer threads. If word of this gets out, your street cred will be in tatters.’
Jenny gave a soft laugh. ‘Aye, I dinnae think Trinny and Susannah would be very impressed if they could see you in those old man’s pyjamas.’
Our banter sounded stilted and hollow. We lapsed into silence again.
‘Do you remember the ramps?’
I grinned at the memory. ‘Aye, that was Gary and me going through our Evel Kneivel phase. It was his idea to stick you under the ramp and jump over you.’
‘I might’ve known.’
‘Do you remember that, Gary? You and me bombing around on our bikes? We nicked those bricks from that building site, and then you’d fished that bit hardboard out a skip.’ I could almost hear the sound of the playing cards machine-gunning through the spokes as we pumped our legs up and down on the pedals. We would haul our bikes to the top of the hill, hurtle downwards towards the narrow strip of wood, and launch ourselves into the air. We would egg each other on to go further and faster. Two bricks high at first, then four and then Gary had suggested Jenny could lie underneath the ramp.
‘Dad would’ve had a hairy fit if he’d ever caught the pair of you.’
‘Why did you do it then?’
‘Gary told me he would pull the heads off my Barbie dolls if I didn’t.’
Jenny’s face was red. Hot streams of tears ran down her cheeks as she held her brothers’ hand. My own face felt clenched and frozen as I fought to keep my emotions in check. Gary ignored us and continued with his struggle in the pits of unconsciousness.
‘There’s no hope is there?’ I asked her once she had the crying back under control.
Jenny shook her head slowly. ‘The consultant keeps saying encouraging things to mum and dad but you can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t really believe all the stuff he’s telling them. He thinks it’s just a matter of when.’
Gary rolled one-way and then the other in his bed and moaned. His eyes stared sightlessly into the air as his head began lolling back and forth once more, as if he was reacting to what we were saying. Jenny started at the sound. I caught the wide look in her eyes and shivered a little.
‘He can’t really hear us, can he, Davie?’
There was a long pause as we both looked at each other. Jenny’s voice dropped to a whisper. A flush of guilt spread across her face.
‘Can he?’
About the Author
Born in Perth and now living just outside Aberdeen, Bill Robertson has created a large body of work showcasing a tendency towards the darker side of life and stories which leave an indelible impression on the reader long after the final word is read.
An active member of Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree Writer’s Group, Bill’s work has appeared in Journeys, an anthology of work from the group, and most recently in a chapbook, Himself by the Seaside. He has performed some of his stories as part of the Word and New Words festivals and other events around the north-east. He has also self published two e-books: Reindeer Dust, a short Christmas story, and When the Revolution Comes, a collection of linked short stories concerning an uprising in a fictional eastern European country. A number of his stories have featured on the website http://www.shortbreadstories.co.uk, where he has been chosen as the featured Friday story a number of times and has won a number of competitions with his short stories and flash fiction pieces.
If you would like to hear an interview with Bill and listen to him read some of his work, please go to this link to hear Bill’s appearance on Mearns FM's Smith on Sunday show. You can also keep up to date with Bill’s work by visiting http://www.billrobertson55.wordpress.com, where he often shares work in progress as well as finished stories.
An active member of Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree Writer’s Group, Bill’s work has appeared in Journeys, an anthology of work from the group, and most recently in a chapbook, Himself by the Seaside. He has performed some of his stories as part of the Word and New Words festivals and other events around the north-east. He has also self published two e-books: Reindeer Dust, a short Christmas story, and When the Revolution Comes, a collection of linked short stories concerning an uprising in a fictional eastern European country. A number of his stories have featured on the website http://www.shortbreadstories.co.uk, where he has been chosen as the featured Friday story a number of times and has won a number of competitions with his short stories and flash fiction pieces.
If you would like to hear an interview with Bill and listen to him read some of his work, please go to this link to hear Bill’s appearance on Mearns FM's Smith on Sunday show. You can also keep up to date with Bill’s work by visiting http://www.billrobertson55.wordpress.com, where he often shares work in progress as well as finished stories.