Sing

CHAPTER 45.

JONATHAN

It was bright. The people around me had voices that spoke like robots to each other and in fake kindness to me. They narrated what they were doing, but all I knew was, I was strapped to a gurney, staring at the ceiling, with no way to see what was happening around me.

“Okay,” said a man somewhere behind me. “I’m Doctor Chen? How are we doing today?”

“Ask yourself half the answer.”

“Right. Okay. I’m going to put this mask over your face. You need to just breathe and count backwards from ten.”

“Wait.”

He bent over to look at me. Asian guy. Mid thirties. Cap. Hissing gas mask in his gloved hand.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Uhm...” He seemed put-upon by the question. “Three.”

“Exactly three?”

“One minute til.” He started to lower the mask again.

“Wait.”

I looked around the room as far as my position would let me. Five people stood around me in the light blue uniform of doctors and nurses, hands up with the palms facing toward their shoulders. More scuttled in the background.

“Unstrap me,” I said. “One hand.” I didn’t think it was loud enough over the ambient noise of the room. Dr. Chen, cleared his throat, and exchanged some silent communication with the other doctors.

“Mister Drazen—“ he began.

“Please.”

“You shouldn’t be moving, now—“

“Please!” The plea came louder than I thought I was capable of.

Dead silence followed. The clock ticked, and though I couldn’t hear or see it, I was aware of it in the beating of my fucked up heart. I had, maybe thirty-five seconds.

“Mister Drazen,” said Dr. Emerson. “You need to calm down.”

“I’ll calm down. Just do it. Please. Half a minute.”

I couldn’t see his face past the mask, but his eyes stilled, and he glanced at an instrument before turning back to me. “No flailing.”

“No. No flailing.”

He nodded to someone, and I felt movement at my left wrist. I didn’t realize how tense I was until they let it go. Overwhelming gratitude flooded me, and a helix of fear unwound from my torso, though my limbs. When it reached my fingertips I slowly raised my hand.

“Can you tell me when it’s exactly three?” I asked Dr. Chen.

He looked at the wall clock, and I noticed the rest of them standing, in silence, all looking in the same direction.

Chen counted down. “In four, three, two...”

I put my fingertips to my lips.