I’m writing this from my laptop in a Memorial Hospital bed. I’m not really sure what is going on, but I wanted to write this down just in case I become unceremoniously vanished.
I had a vivid dream when they put me under. Or so I thought. I think I made a terrible mistake…
Acute appendicitis.
It can bring the strongest man low I’ve discovered. New depths uncovered to what pain can truly be. Having no previous surgeries or broken bones, I considered myself lucky and healthy until now. I have been sick before, albeit rarely. Usually, a day or two of increased hydration and copious amounts of sleep are the only prescriptions I need. I despise medication, always have. Feels like I’m relinquishing control of my body to someone else.
I was practically begging for it by the time my wife got me in the ER.
I spoke briefly with my anesthesiologist. Nice enough guy. I found an odd comfort in his hard, black rimmed spectacles. Even though I knew that glasses did not denote intelligence, I felt a childish reassurance that an ‘egghead’ was doing it. Dr. Carter was a similarly soothing presence. While she didn’t have the same nerdy aesthetic, she spoke to me as plainly as she would any colleague. Something about them not dumbing down the language made me comfortable with their expertise. Of course, having never been under the knife before, part of me was still apprehensive. Even with all the Dilaudid they pumped into me on arrival, likely contributing to my pliability now.
The reality of it was far less imposing when the time came. I had accepted my fate once I was down to nothing but a grimace and a gown. Yet no matter how many times I was reassured by the simplicity of this procedure, and despite my reluctant acceptance of it, I still couldn’t shake a niggling little doubt in the back of my skull.
My instincts were right. Just not the way I expected.
Within an hour, they laid me on a cold, metal slab. My mind instantly considered how easy this would be to roll directly to the morgue and slide into one of those frozen coffins. Though I steeled myself for this eventual moment, that nagging sensation of not seeing my family again would not cease. A pair of encouraging dark glasses invaded my vision with a reassuming smile and a plastic mask. No more time to doubt.
“Take five deep breathes, and you’ll wake up right away.” He claimed.
I made it to four.
I’d often wondered about near death experiences. Not being religious myself, I always assumed the mind played tricks on people at the end of their life. Either from the lack of oxygen to the brain or its own natural deterioration. Always tailored to their owner’s specific beliefs, knowing their regularly occurring dreams likely also contained the same farcical, religious dogma. I wondered what awaited me; no predispositions, no regular holy meetings to drill ancient myths into my subconscious. I was a blank slate, and often pondered if death would be as equally blank.
I was not met with blinding light or seething flames. No trumpets or pitchforks, welcoming angels or cheering devils.
It was a room.
A boring room at that. I was seated before a plain looking office desk. There were no objects on its surface. No paperwork, no name plate, no computer or paper or pens. The plane of well-crafted oak was covered in scratches. There was little of its surface not marred by some deep, gradual crevice. The leather chair across faced the similarly empty timber of the rear wall. No pictures, paintings, diplomas. Just two leather chairs, four blank walls, and a scarred desk.
A baritone voice spoke but seemed to struggle with the words, enunciating them individually with great effort, “Make… a-a deal.”
At this point I knew I was in a dream, and I knew this wasn’t always the case. That normally in such a state, one would act according to the reality they perceive. If you dreamed of say, robbing a bank and escaping on a unicorn, as absurd as the scenario and actors are, you’d still behave in a manner befitting the role. The “good” actor, as game theory expects. It’s a rare thing to be fully conscious within a dream, knowing you were in a dream, and making fully cognitive decisions within the dream.
I chalked my acute awareness up to the anesthesia and decided to have some fun with it. Knowing I was currently cut open with strangers’ hands rooting around inside me, I had time in need of passing.
“What kind of deal?” I asked from my own leather chair. It was quite comfy.
“A… baaarrrrgaiiiiin.” The voice seemed to struggle, lightly rattled the last word with fluctuating intonements riddled with clicks. It was bizarre, but then again, dreams normally are.
“What kind of bargaiiiiin?” I mocked with crossed arms; my propositioning counterpart still faced away from me.
It was quiet for a few moments. The chair didn’t move. I considered standing up and circling the desk, but for now I’d like them pitch their ‘deal’.
It finally spoke, but as a whisper. Tonally it sounded effeminate but with a raspy undercurrent, “Escape.”
This was the third voice I’d heard it use. Was it… experimenting?
“For me, or for you?” I asked as I leaned back, “If its for you, what do I get?”
Silence again. I felt a distinct impression of them struggling with not just words, but notions. I can’t explain how I knew, but I think it was trying to grasp concepts.
“Wiiiiiiiish.” It resumed the gravely clattering. Like the tail of a rattlesnake grew a tongue.
My turn for silence. It was a game, after all. Most negations are. After a full minute passed, I still felt no motion from my opponent. No words, no sounds. Just infinite pause. Whatever they were, patience was a strong suit.
Maybe it had no concept of time, either.
“Fine. I wish to live through this surgery.” I answered sharply. I suppose that little voice in my brain that believed I may not return to my loved ones possessed more sway than I cared to admit.
The chair moved slowly at first. Growing until it wiggled side to side in an exaggerated, excited rock. They made no audible noise, neither the chair nor its sitter. I wondered if it would remain soundless when it finally toppled. It halted in a jarring stop, upright once more. The voice spoke again, but this time a full, thirty second rattling moan preceded it.
“So.” A starkly baritone voice cut through the rattle clearly for the first word, only to be replaced by that raspy, near hissing tenor for the second, “Bargaiiiin?”
“Bargain.” I affirmed, now bored.
I heard the two women speaking before I could see them. The telltale, horizontal split of light ripped into my consciousness as my eyes fluttered open. The two nurses continued to discuss my blood oxygen level being too low, and how hypoxia would affect me when I awoke, not realizing that had already come to pass.
I felt groggy. Propped upright by the pair, my head hung limply forward between sagged shoulders. My abdomen was sore, as expected, but whatever drugs they had pumped me with were obviously in full circulation. I was in no pain.
My mind wondered back to the desk, to the deal. If I could have had any wish, why didn’t I go with something grander? Survival is at everyone’s forefront, I rationalized. Still, a few hundred million dollars would’ve made for a pleasant awakening from a commonplace surgery.
I smiled at the thought of second-guessing my patently unimportant dream decisions.
Eventually, I came the rest of the way through. Spoke briefly with my nurses, Candace and Lauren. Bastions of professionalism and care I recognized even in my drunken haze. They returned my cell phone to me; I texted my wife that I was fine. She’d return tomorrow after some important business meeting. I laid it at my left side, kept in close in case she wanted to call. The pair also showed me the button to reach the nurse station, how to adjust the bed if needed, and had a handy whiteboard near the door large enough to read from across the room. I read the word “Dilaudid” near the bottom in magic marker, and explicitly told them I would not be taking more of it. I understood its effectualness in pain management when I arrived, but also knew it was five times stronger than morphine. I would not be leaving this hospital with a new habit. In their ceaseless competence, they smiled and told me if I changed my mind, they would have it on standby.
I felt my stupor might have come off more aggressive than intended as they shut off the lights and left. I made a mental note to apologize to them later.
Even in the dark I slowly put together the rest of the room. Door to the hall on the left, door to the restroom on the right. That door was massive, made for the accommodation of wheelchairs and the morbidly obese, I guessed. It was impossibly wide, and I assumed the restroom itself was, too. A small, lifted desk on wheels sat near the leftmost wall. I surmised it was primarily for eating the legendarily subpar food of hospitals I had heard so much about. Wasn’t looking forward to that. A plain chair nearby faced the bed, which itself sat in the middle of a wall of instruments mostly in disuse. I couldn’t get a good view of them behind me, but the IV stand to my right and the vital monitor to my left held more tubes and cords than I could identify. At least I’d only be here a day, two at most.
I leaned back, closed my eyes. As groggy and exhausted as I felt, the large clock on the wall told me that two hours had passed since I last gazed up at those black spectacles. After what was essentially a medically induced nap, I found it difficult to go back to sleep. Even at one in the morning.
Then, it started.
At first my mind considered the instruments. Noises unfamiliar surrounded me now. Some beeped with intermittent consistency, some buzzed with a continuous, low hum. It was all alien. Yet I knew instantly that none of them were programmed to scratch. The sound of a rat in a wall. A small, singular, repeating, erratic sound.
Then I noticed the bathroom door. The massive frame just slightly ajar, leading from my realm of pseudo-darkness into a world of true black. It was not been open before. As my senses slowly pushed against the drugs, I came to the harrowing realization that the scratching was not coming from the bathroom.
It was under my hospital bed.
Part of me thought I was still dreaming. The surgery still progressed. I was still on a cold slab in good hands. It wasn’t unheard of for people to experience time differently inside their own minds. I’d read it before. People being unconscious for a few days but living out full years in their minds. Then again, with anesthesia supposedly out of my system, there could be a chance the remnants simply mixed poorly with the super morphine they administered prior to my waking. Protocol, I’m sure.
These hopes were dashed with the very real increase of heart rate when I heard that voice clearly in the room with me.
“Bargaiiiiin.” No baritone. No tenor. No male. No female.
It was dry and rattling. A vibration of vocal actuation forced into existence. It wasn’t…. natural. I don’t just mean the way humans form words, either. I mean the way cows moo, cats meow, birds caw. Barring birth defects or injury, these sounds are naturally produced by their respective species. Even if a dog had never heard another dog bark, they would still know how to bark. Our world is full of organically produced vocals that come naturally.
This sound… wasn’t one of them.
My eyes retreated behind their lids as the blinding light of God himself landed in the room. I also had a sudden belief God was a woman.
“Sir? What can I help with?” The consummately professional Candace asked as she entered.
I squinted. The bathroom door still slightly ajar, but the scratching was gone. I looked down at my hands and saw the hospital bed remote locked between gripped, clammy palms. Either I didn’t recall my brain’s order to retrieve it, or my body was so terrified it acted in self-preservation.
“I’m… ah…” Normally I was good on the spot with ladies; now not so much.
“What is your pain like on a scale of one to ten?” She asked with a disarming kindness. Stark contrast the minutes prior. My nerves still flared and tingled, regardless of their safety now.
“Um.” I blankly gazed down at the remote, slowly slid it to the side of the bed, “Two.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.” She said with weapon grade charm, “I’ll get you some water, ok?”
I nodded but said nothing. What the hell just happened? Did I actually go back to sleep and resume my dream with the rattle-lawyer? As the door shut behind her, a single calm hand reached back in and turned the lights off. I realized my error instantly.
I waited. I listened. My eyes instinctively watched that vertical slit of nothingness. The bathroom handle didn’t move, the frame didn’t creak. My world was again nothing more than some dimly lit medical displays and a few patterned beeps.
“We haaaaaad….” The voice rattled behind my bed.
I whirled with more energy than I meant to, hurting my neck and my abdomen simultaneously. I still couldn’t get a full turn, eyes wide and glaring from their corners.
“Baaaargaiiiiin.” This time, from the nearby chair.
I turned slowly; not the whip speed I attempted before. Yet as the chair came into view, the only thing I saw was a shadowy hand slide from the top and disappear behind. At least I think it was a hand.
I stared at that chair with a hunter’s tenseness. Waited for them to emerge from behind. If this was all in my head, consorting with it seemed a sure method to exacerbate my hospital stay. Doubtlessly including a premium room upgrade; one with those cute, padded walls and a complementary jacket. I resisted speaking to it.
I heard the scratching again. This time from the bathroom. I stared at that darkness. Waited. It didn’t speak this time, merely clawed absentmindedly at some unseen surface. A thought popped into my head that brought an irrational joy, given the circumstance, as my thumb quietly entered my cell phone’s password. It kept to its fidgeting nails. Gave no indication that it noticed, nor that it cared if it did. I lifted the phone from my left side, pressed the screen to my chest, smothered what little light it produced, and recorded.
Moments later, white blissfully invaded my world again. The scratches halted equal to the speed of light. I found that disconcerting.
Candace moved the small, rolling desk to my side and placed a styrofoam cup of ice water on it. Continuing her unblemished track record thus far, she had even brought a straw.
“If the pain gets bad just let us know, ok?” Literally an angel at this point.
“One second.” I said calmly, trying to remain rational. Well, as rational as I could remain, bobbing in and out of a realm where rationality was apparently unwelcome.
I pressed play. The screen remained black from the camera pressed flat against my gown. The sound of my breathing and the regular beep of my bedside equipment indicated it was playing.
No scratching.
She looked at me quizzically as the short, mostly black video ended. Only thirty seconds or so. I must have looked particularly deflated.
“Are you sure you don’t need some help sleeping?” She asked in a genuinely concerned tone, her implication clear as the light above me.
“No. Thank you.” I said with a defeated nod, realizing how medicated I still felt as my hand reached over for the cup, taking a less than direct course. Obviously, I didn’t need more.
I eventually grasped it with a surprisingly weak grip, but enough to pull it safely to my bed. I sat it in my lap and nervously thumbed the lid’s edge. As the angel left, darkness returned.
I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I considered it. Leaving the lights on seemed to be the pragmatic thing to do. Yet my abnormal decision stemmed from an abnormal situation. If it was my sanity breaking, I’d likely never realize it. But if I was still sane, a terrifying thought crept into my mind that would not dissipate, no matter my displeasure with it: What if this was to be a new, permeant companion? I doubted many answers awaited me in the relative safety of the light. To the contrary, I imagined that would quite piss it off.
I sat stewing in my anticipation. My lips pursed on the straw, pulling cool liquid into my core, like that would protect me. I found a small comfort in doing something though, anything other than sitting still and waiting. Even an action as basic as drinking granted autonomy. My eyes instinctively locked on the large door to my right, expecting my new business partner to return any moment.
He didn’t. For a long stretch, silence broken only by the almost merciful tones of medical equipment. At least their regularly timed dings and weak hums prevented me from being completely enveloped by the nothing. I placed my ice water back on the stand with some effort, slowly allowed myself to think I was safe. That the medication had finally run its course; my sanity preserved. That my mind had finally pulled free from the dream.
I slept then. Last glancing at the clock’s hands, soundlessly informing me it was almost two in the morning now. Heavy eyes finally arrived, and I rested. In the back of my mind, I feared I’d see that desk.
The long, drawn creak didn’t startle me. I felt my eyes crack open like a child finally catching their parent placing money under their pillow in lieu of a tardy tooth fairy. A quieted, fake sleep held as my eyelids barely slit open towards the bathroom door, itself slightly more open than before.
Scratching returned. It was… more, but not in volume per say. It was more nervous, more erratic, more impatient. The sound came directly from the darkened crack. I realized an added horror in that clawing noise: the echoing off the bathroom tiles.
It was real.
“You say,” It spoke. The rattle still present, but the words tinged an obvious frustration underneath. Like it was learning them.
I opened my eyes. Faking sleep was apparently pointless. I stared at the slightly wider gap. Only blackness regarded me in return. The scratching continued. At this point the mental levee broke: forcing all reservation, apprehension, and fear aside with a simplistic and time-honored human emotion:
Fuck it.
“The hell do you want?” I spoke out loud for the first time at the creature.
The scratching instantly stopped, and I had never felt such regret. I sensed unseen eyes regarding me, but not their emotion. The beeping pulse of the medical equipment suddenly became a terrible metronome, counting down full seconds of silence and pressure between us. My impulsive bravely routed as the air of uncertainty filled with that overbearing quiet.
The scratching resumed. Under my bed again.
I froze, felt my heart stop in my chest, core suddenly colder than any fluids I could possibly imbibe. Whatever faux courage I still had fled in full retreat. It said nothing still, just scratched, though more calmly than before. My hand instinctively found the remote, finger poised on the nurse’s call.
But I waited, as it waited.
After around fifteen minutes, I felt my pulse returning closer to normal. It didn’t speak again. I imagined it splayed beneath the frame, absentmindedly fiddling with the tile. A kind of sympathy built in me; a curiousness of their autistic nature grew. It seemed a rather lonely thing. I considered speaking again, but bizarrely opted not to because, of all rationalizations, I didn’t want to disturb them.
I reached for my cup pensively. I expected a dark hand to remove mine once exposed, or to pull me underneath to join in apparently their favorite hobby. They didn’t react. The parade of scratching continued. I pulled the thin white to my lips again, lightly drinking in the cold with as little noise as possible. I sat the cup in my lap, listening to the unseen nails as they diligently worked with a quieted serenity. Maybe they were going to sleep now. Does it need sleep? Then, in what I didn’t expect to terrify me as much as it did, it finally happened.
The scratching stopped.
Tension immediately filled the room, and I knew I wasn’t the only one that felt it. A graveled growl rumbled beneath me, rattling the bed with its vibration. My finger repeatedly mashed the call button at the same speed heart thumped, no longer interested in a personal interaction. My tachycardia grew as its groan faded. Moments later, the voice spoke again.
“Bargaiiiiiin.” It rattled, still beneath the bed.
I don’t know why I pressed my luck. I leaned to my right, leering over the side of the bed to the darkness beneath.
The desk to the left shuddered and rolled away with speed. My vision jumped to the lip of the bed, expecting its bulk to emerged from below. My breathing halted expectedly, but nothing rose. It can move things; it can touch things. This isn’t a goddamn dream.
“You will.” It spoke again, this time clearly, from the bathroom slit. Christ it felt like it lips were pressed right up to that damnable crack.
I waited. I watched. I listened. A long stretch of emptiness held sway; a pregnant pause waiting to birth.
“Keeeeeeeep.”
I played baseball in college. Track and field in high school. I’ve been an athlete my entire life. I’ve thrown frisbees, Olympic hammers, discuses, and every kind of ball you can think of.
I’ve never thrown anything as hard as I threw that cup when it spoke to me.
Moments of silence seemed to stretch by as I sat there in dumbfounded shock. The nervous clawing was gone, as was the voice, leaving the ever-dutiful beeps my only company.
Candace’s professionalism was severely tested as I lied about having a bad dream, claimed I passed out with the cup in my hand. A flailing man might’ve spilled it; not annihilated it against the furthest wall. She simply asked if I needed some “help sleeping” again, and for better or worse, I accepted.
After some thought, I knew I couldn’t remain awake the rest of my life. Though I did ask the lights remain on now. I need to test and see if this…. Thing can follow me in my dreams, too. If it can… I don’t know. Guess I’ll get a Starbuck’s rewards card.
I have my laptop that my wife so kindly brought with us. She had packed it with a charger, as well as a change of clothes and some other accouterments only a life partner would be thoughtful enough to remember. I texted her a simple “I love you”, the notification will be drowned out by the air of her CPAP machine. I feel better knowing it’s there all the same. The nurse just pushed my IV with something, I’m not even sure what. I didn’t ask. I’m done writing up the tale, so her timing continues to be exceptional.
I’m… not sure if this is a mistake. I can’t explain why but I feel like I have a better chance there than I do here. I can feel the heaviness setting in now. In a rare lapse of professional curtesy, Candace forgot my request and turned the lights off as she left.
Its dark again. My angel gone; the devil near. I could call her back, but I don’t care. Sleep is taking me anyway. I feel like when I first went into surgery; that final acceptance plagued with a niggling doubt. The only thing I can truly feel anymore is the loss of control.
I can’t see that dark crevasse on account of the laptop screen, and while I haven’t heard any more scratching, I feel like it is watching me now. Like it’s waiting, like it’s always been waiting. Waiting for a long, long time.
And now… its waiting for me to fall asleep. Maybe it’s time to fulfill my end of the bargain.
Whatever that is.