Tunnel Vision

21

At nine thirty the next morning, the nurse came smiling into Zack’s room. “Some of your friends are here to visit. Think you’re up for it?”

“Absolutely.” He felt better than he had yesterday, more lucid and stronger.

A moment later, in walked Anthony, Damian, and Geoff. “If it isn’t Zack Van Winkle,” chortled Anthony Lawrence.

“Hey,” Zack said, and greeted them all with hugs.

“How’s the head?” Damian asked.

“Better than it looks.” The headaches had subsided, but his crown was still tender to the touch. His hair was growing back and covering the scabs, and the facial bruises had nearly disappeared.

“Your bike’s feeling a lot better, too. Got the front wheel and the wires replaced. Good as new.” Anthony showed him shots of the repair job on his BlackBerry.

“You guys are the best.”

They chatted some more, catching up with what they were doing. “My mom says you helped keep the rust off the joints.” And he mentioned how he was scheduled for having physical therapy.

“So, what are they saying about getting back on your feet?”

“Thanks to you guys, maybe two weeks with a cane. Back to normal in a month.”

While they talked, Anthony fidgeted with his BlackBerry, taking photos of them. “By the way,” he said, “you were talking in your sleep.”

“I was?” Zack played dumb.

“Some kind of ancient language,” Geoff said.

“What’re you talking about?”

Anthony pressed some buttons and held up the BlackBerry. The image was fuzzy and the reception weak, but Zack could hear himself muttering. “Sounds like nothing.”

“Father Damian here thinks you were channeling God.”

“Huh?”

“I said you sounded like you were speaking in tongues.”

“Tongues?”

“It only sounded like glossolalia,” Damian said.

“You mean like when people babble at religious revivals?”

“Yeah. But it turns out you weren’t babbling,” Damian said. “Believe it or not, you were reciting passages of the Sermon on the Mount in Aramaic.”

“What?”

“The truth, man,” Anthony said. “They got some ancient language scholar from Harvard to confirm it.”

“That’s bullshit.” He played the video clip again. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“Then maybe it was God,” Geoff said, giving him an electric grin.

“Give me a break.”

“Just kidding. But it is wicked weird,” Geoff said.

“You’re not gonna start preaching or anything?” Anthony said to Damian.

“No, but you might consider the possibility that the Holy Spirit was passing through you. In fact, a lot of other people did.”

Then they told him how religious zealots had flocked to his bed for miracles. They also told him that for security reasons he’d been moved to this undisclosed room.

“That’s crazy. I had no idea.”

“You were in a coma, man. But it’s pretty much blown over now.”

“But still.” How odd that his mother hadn’t mentioned all that.

“Whatever, I’ll send it to your phone so you figure it out,” Anthony said. “So, when are they letting you go home?”

“Hopefully a few days. They still want to run tests.”

“Any problems?”

“Just some minor problems with math calculations.”

“There goes your poker game.”

“The doc thinks it’s only temporary. If nothing else, my mom will be happy. She’s convinced that Texas hold ’em is hastening the decline of Western civilization.”

“Well, you don’t need math to pull down the slots,” Anthony said. “Maybe when you’re out we can whoop it up at Foxwoods.”

“From the frying pan into the fire. I’m already in debt up to my ass.”

“We’ll keep an eye on you. Your mom has brought you to zero with us.”

“How about that?” Thanks, Mom. He remembered that he owed his Discover card a small fortune. He didn’t want to think of the interest compounded during his coma.

They chatted until the nurse came in to say Zack had to rest. They said their good-byes, and the nurse led them out, but not before Damian said a prayer for Zack’s full recovery. He watched them leave, thinking he was lucky to have such friends. Thinking that he owed his mother big-time. And thinking something else.

Anthony had left Zack’s iPhone on the night table. He picked it up and played back his coma mutterings.

The first time, all he heard was meaningless mumblings—not even distinct syllables or patterns, which made him think that the claims were even loonier than suspected. He didn’t know what Aramaic sounded like, but this was pure deep-sleep blather.

He played it a few times with his ear pressed hard against the tiny speaker.

Suddenly the string of nonsense morphemes took on a vague familiarity. He couldn’t determine if it was real language or not; and he knew that he didn’t understand a syllable of the mutterings. But just beneath the skin of things, he sensed that what he had uttered was embedded deeply in his brain.