CLOSURE
By Jim Lai
I hate hospitals. Too much suffering. Lately, though, my work has been taking me there more and more. This time, it was a kid. Drunk driver, hit and run.
As usual, I made it to the ICU unnoticed. Visiting hours were over, but nobody stopped me as I entered. I passed the nurses’ station, the security guard, the video monitors. Kyle Harden lay in bed, unmoving except for the mechanical rise and fall of his chest. The lights from the monitors and respirator lent color to the white bedding and Kyle’s pale, sunken features.
Ordinarily, Kyle would be a good-looking twelve and a half year old. Red hair, green eyes, freckles. His eyelids fluttered as I entered. He knew I was coming. They always do. I brushed my fingertips over his eyes and everything froze in place. Outside, the security guard’s coffee stopped mid-spill. The man halted, face frozen in surprise. In that moment between heartbeats, Kyle opened his eyes. He tried to say something, but the plastic tube in his mouth got in his way. I pulled it free so he could speak. Kyle looked unafraid. Growing up always seems to make people fearful. "What took you so long?" he asked.
Most everyone talks to me in that last moment, but nobody had ever asked me a question like that. I checked my schedule. I was right on time, as usual. "What do you mean?"
Kyle’s breath was ragged and shallow. I scanned his chart. Lots of broken bones, internal bleeding, ruptured organs, coma. The kind of thing that used to mean instant death. Kyle licked dry lips and took a hesitant breath. "I’ve been waiting for you for weeks," he rasped.
I am never that late. A few hours at most. "Weeks?" That couldn’t be right, could it?
"You’re Death, right?" A pierced lung reduced Kyle’s voice to a whisper.
I nodded. "I am." What other walking skeleton wears an Armani?
"Then you’re late," he said matter-of-factly.
I checked his chart. The accident had been three weeks ago. When the ambulance arrived, he hadn’t been breathing. The paramedics had resuscitated him twice on the road, and once more at the hospital. Kyle never woke up. He had depended on a respirator and an IV to stay alive. He would never walk again, if he ever woke up.
"I’m pretty messed up, huh?" The corners of Kyle’s mouth twitched. He took a breath to laugh, but only
managed to cough it back out. A few tiny flecks of blood spotted his lips and the white sheets. His face twisted into a grimace and tears welled in his eyes.
I set Kyle’s chart down. "Yes. The only reason you’re awake now is because I’m here for you."
I could see that even this brief conversation left Kyle in pain I could never understand. I moved closer and pulled up a hard plastic chair. "Are you ready to go, Kyle?" Reaching out, I smoothed his matted hair back with my bony fingers. Soon, he’d be one less person to suffer.
Kyle’s voice cracked. "Will it hurt?"
I brushed his tears away with a finger. "No, Kyle. It won’t." Throughout time, countless people had asked the same question. "Whenever you’re ready, Kyle." Some things never change.
"Promise?"
I drew an X across my chest. "I promise. Some say it’s like slipping into a hot bath. Shall we go?"
He nodded, trying to look brave.
"Let’s go then." I took Kyle’s hand in my left. With my right, I reached past his body and took hold of his spirit to draw it free.
Kyle screamed and lurched off the bed, eyes wide open. His spirit started to come free, but his body lashed out and held fast, searing my hand with life. I yanked my hand back, staring at the smoking bones. Kyle’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped, gasping, onto the mattress. His battered body shook and he coughed blood.
I wiped the blood off his face with a starched handkerchief. Kyle’s breathing slowed down and his expression gradually calmed. "What happened?" he asked, opening his eyes. "I’m still here."
"I know. I can only pull a spirit free at death, Kyle. Otherwise, the body doesn’t let go. If I try, this is what happens."
"But you said you were here for me now." Kyle winced again. His face twitched and he gasped. I brushed his sweat-dampened hair off his face. He bit his lip, fighting tears. "You said it wouldn’t hurt."
"I know, Kyle. I am so sorry." I slumped into a chair, staring down at my charred hand. I never make mistakes like this. But that isn’t what bothered me.
Kyle’s eyelids fluttered and shut. "You promised..."
That was what bothered me. I have made few promises, but I have kept them all. Especially promises like this. I come when it’s time, and I take a person peacefully. I’m never early or late, and I never hurt anyone. Not until now.
Kyle moaned softly. He was in pain, and it seemed like he would stay that way until I figured out what to do. He lay there, crying softly. Something was interfering with me, and Kyle suffered the consequences.
"Kyle?" I asked, touching his cheek lightly. "Can you hear me?" No response. His body had given into the shock of my failed attempt to free his spirit. But he still hurt, and I could do nothing about it.
My moment was running out. Already the world was creeping back up to speed. I reconnected Kyle to all the machines just as coffee hit the floor and the man outside blew, cursing, across scalded fingertips. I stepped into the corner of the room to figure out what to do. What bound Kyle to this world?
The nurses made their rounds as I waited and watched. There was only one other patient in the ICU, so they came quickly. They talked as they worked.
"Poor kid," said the younger nurse, a black woman with her hair tied back. She pulled down the blankets and changed Kyle’s dressings. "Who is he?"
"Kyle Harden. Nailed by a drunk on his way home from a school dance." The older nurse checked the machines. "Killed his girlfriend and left him like this. Hit and run." She shook her head and moved on to the IV’s.
"I guess he’s lucky then. He survived."
The older woman shrugged. "Right. Poor kid’s been lying there since he got here. They brought him back three times before he even arrived." She looked down at Kyle and patted his cheek lightly. "They should have just let him go."
"Then why’s he still here, Rose? Why don’t they pull the plug?"
"Parents. The ER guy didn’t want to bring him back the third time, but they threatened to sue." Rose wrote down Kyle’s life signs on his chart. "Those machines are all that’s keeping him here."
The machines! I smacked my forehead. They forced life on his body, so it refused to let go of his soul, whether Kyle wanted to come with me or not..
Chelsea shook her head and wiped Kyle’s face with a damp cloth. "My God..."
Rose was used to death and the dying, it seemed. She only shrugged her broad shoulders and continued her routine. She walked right by me to dump the used linens. I could have touched her. She shivered. "Hey, Chelsea, is it cold in here, or is that just me?"
"Don’t know. I feel fine. But it’s late. Maybe you should get some coffee or something."
Rose smiled. "Sounds good. I guess I’m just tired."
Chelsea chuckled softly. "Yeah."
Chelsea and Rose finished with Kyle and retreated to the nurses’ station. I stayed in my corner, thinking. I hadn’t much time left before my next appointment. I could leave. I could go to my next appointment, and Kyle would linger on until the machines could no longer keep his body alive and his name came up in my list again. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve changed my schedule.
I told myself I could do nothing for him, that somehow my schedule had gotten mixed up. But his voice echoed in my mind.
"You promised."
I looked down at him. His face was pale and drawn. Muscles tensed with pain, peeling his lips into a mockery of a grin. He breathed because a computer pumped air into his lungs. His body, battered as it was, remained alive because of those machines. While that shell lived, I could do nothing.
I shuffled to the doorway. As I was about to leave, three people shoved out of the elevator. One tired man in a white doctor’s coat pursued a couple. The couple ignored Rose and Chelsea and marched towards me. The doctor paused long enough to offer the nurses a pained wince, as if to apologize in advance for what was happening.
"How dare you suggest such a thing, Doctor? Our son is still alive!" Kyle’s mother jabbed a lacquered fingernail at the monitors showing Kyle’s heartbeat. "What kind of medicine are you trying to practice here? She stuck her arm right through my insubstantial chest, sucked in a deep breath and yanked it back, rubbing at the gooseflesh. I backpedaled for the far end of the room. Things like that had happened to me before, but it still felt bizarre.
The doctor sighed. I guessed he had made this speech before. "Mrs. Harden, Kyle is in a deep coma. He was without oxygen for a long time, and he needs machines to breathe for him. He’s suffered serious brain damage, and his EEG has flatlined twice. The chances..."
Mr. Harden stepped close to the doctor. He stood a head taller than his wife and was dressed in a steel gray suit. He had the same fiery hair and intense green eyes as his son. "I don’t want to hear about your chances, Doctor. We all know about comas. He could just as easily wake up tomorrow. Or an hour from now."
"Mr. Harden, Kyle’s brain has probably suffered too much damage. And besides..."
Mr. Harden silenced the doctor with a wave of his hand. "Not another word. Our son is alive. I will not allow you or anyone else in this tightwad hospital to take my son away from me. Are we clear?" He jabbed his finger at the doctor’s chest. "I love my son, and God help me I will sue this hospital faster than you can dial 911 if Kyle just happens to die because you weren’t fast enough in helping him. Are we clear?"
I couldn’t blame him. He loved Kyle. He couldn’t know he tortured his son.
The doctor just sighed and shook his head. "Yes, Mr. Harden. Someone will notify you if your son’s condition changes. Now please, sir, visiting hours are over."
Mr. Harden’s threats echoed down the hall long after his footsteps faded from my hearing. Near the elevators, Mrs. Harden shouted, "And turn up the heat! It’s a meat locker in there!"
The doctor slumped against the counter of the nurses’ station, shaking his head. "Idiots," he muttered.
Rose patted him on the shoulder and offered him some coffee. "What was that about?"
"Hospital wanted to pull the plug. They asked me my opinion, and I told them what I thought." He took the mug in both hands and sipped the steaming drink. "He’s not going to wake up."
Rose nodded. "Parents didn’t take that too well?"
The doctor shook his head. "Hell. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said. And then he starts talking about lawsuits..." I had heard enough. I returned to Kyle’s bedside.
My hands quaked as I approached. As much as I dreaded the idea of it, I knew I was right where I had to be. Kyle was helpless. His parents wanted to save him. For whose sake, I was unsure. They couldn’t. The doctor wanted to release him. But fear paralyzed him, so he couldn’t either. It was up to me. I knew what to do.
I shook my head. How could I have never even considered the notion before? I suppose I’d never had to. I wished I could have taken another moment between heartbeats, but everybody only gets one of those. I had to do this the hard way, and I knew it was going to hurt.
A light curtain encircled Kyle’s bed, mostly drawn back so the nurses could see him. I wedged myself between the curtain and the instruments as best I could. I looked down at Kyle, lying paralyzed and in pain. "I’m sorry," I whispered.
The temperature plunged. My breath formed a pale mist. I grabbed the side of Kyle’s bed to steady myself when I tripped over the IV pole. I became physical and quickly turned off the machines.
The respirator stopped. Kyle froze mid breath and started to gasp. Alarms went off at the nurses’ station. I heard cursing and the crash of chairs onto tile. I reached for Kyle a second time and took hold of his spirit. He sat up out of his body, looking dazed. I pulled him into my arms, flipped the machines back on, and faded out just as Rose and Chelsea arrived too late.
Kyle watched Rose and Chelsea trying to revive his body. He took a breath and stared at his hand while I slumped into a chair in the corner of the room. "Are you OK?" he asked.
I looked up at Kyle and nodded. "I’m sorry I hurt you, Kyle. I couldn’t free you the first time..."
He shook his head. "It’s OK. I feel better now." He threw his arms around my waist and hugged me. "Thanks."
It was time to go. I got up, still holding Kyle’s hand. The doctor shuffled in with Kyle’s parents hot on his heels. They were yelling about lawsuits. I smiled, glad to leave.
As I said, I hate hospitals.
