Breath 20
The Indian guy checks his bandaged wound,
it seems fine, no signs of anything leaking or something,
he lay propped up on the stiff hospital bed,
arms crossed, glaring at the soap opera playing on the wall-mounted TV.
His side throbbed where the other stitches pulled tight,
a reminder of what his wife had so lovingly introduced to his abdomen
just hours ago.
They had called it a “domestic misunderstanding.”
The doctor had raised his brow.
The officer taking his statement had scribbled half-heartedly.
But he knew better. This is not a misunderstanding.
This situation is powered by months of planning.
His wife had possibly run off with another person.
Who? And how did she met this person?
Their gardener? She seems to be more cheery around him?
The grocery boy who she tips well?
Damn. This is really getting shitty.
One thing’s for sure though,
She had stabbed him. With intent.
And then vanished.
His phone buzzed against the tray table.
A notification lit the screen: LOCATION LOCKED IN: CHECK MAP LINK.
He opened the tracking app he’d installed on her phone
that reports directly to his.
The blinking dot hovered in the middle of nowhere.
Desert terrain. Near the border.
He did a quick online search with the coordinates.
Fuck. She’s at Crab Point.
But why? That’s way off the border, but actually on second thought,
she’s not that far off from the border.
He stared at the soap opera playing on the television,
the wife ran off with a girlfriend, her husband chasing her by the stairway.
His breath caught.
The bitch definitely was running.
And she wasn’t alone. That’s for sure.
Outside in the hallway,
Nurse Clarice was wheeling a mechanical monstrosity
towards Room 319, the Indian guy’s room
It clattered and groaned like a possessed shopping cart.
A tangle of clear tubes snaked around a metal
arm ending in a nozzle that looked questionably military.
Clarice squinted at her clipboard and practiced under her breath:
“Mister whatever your name is, due to an intestinal blockage
revealed on your X-ray,
your doctor ordered insertion of a clearance device—”
No. Too technical.
Bitch Nurse Chief, why did she assigned me with this patient?
First of all, this is technically my first night on the job,
fresh from Nursing school and she’s expecting me to perform this weird treatment?”
“Okay, okay bear with me for a second... it’s gonna sting a little but you’ll
be fine”
LIE. Everyone screamed. Every single time.
Clarice wiped sweat off her brow.
“Ok, I have to be honest with you, this is my first night on the job, so
obviously I had not done this before. The only experience I had with this kinda
stuff is when I inserted my you know what on my boyfriend’s you know where”
Fuck. What’ wrong with me?
When I signed up for Nursing school and passed the State exam,
I never realized that I also signed up for inserting this humongous medical device
on people’s private orifices.
Nurse Clarice took one last look at the weird medical device on her cart.
She reached Room 319, took a deep breath, slightly pushed the door open,
and yanked the curtain aside like a game show host.
“Hey Mister..let me check my patient sheet for your name and to confirm
your Patient ID… I’m here to—”
The bed was deserted.
The sheets crumpled.
The IV pole tilted like it had witnessed a crime.
Clarice stepped forward, her foot snagging on the trailing end of the IV tubing—
and then her whole world flipped.
She stumbled.
Lost balance.
And as fate would have it, she fell backwards—directly onto the upright IV needle still sticking out of the stand.
“GAHHHHH—”
There was a sickening pop, and she froze, eyes wide, mouth open like a stunned fish.
Then everything went black.
——————————————————————————————————-
The Indian guy bolted down the back stairwell,
one hand gripping the rail, the other fumbling with his hospital gown
which flapped open behind him like a cheap superhero cape.
Damn. I should have grab an underwear.
But there’s no time for modesty.
The phone trembled in his palm—his wife’s location blinking steady.
Moving southwest.
Towards Crab Point.
It seems she’s almost there.
And that’s only give or take ten minutes from the hospital.
He shoved a hand inside his hospital gown
and yanked out a tiny revolver he’d been hiding inside his gown
ever since the stabbing, he never trusted anyone.
Not the doctor and certainly not any Nurses.
Who knows what they plan on doing to him.
Inserting stuffs and all that?
It had pressed uncomfortably against his thigh through the whole damn hours.
But God bless American gun laws.
“Did you think I’d stay stabbed?” he muttered through clenched teeth.
He burst through the stairwell exit and into the parking lot,
still barefoot, gown fluttering indecently.
A woman pushing a stroller screamed. He ignored her.
Car. Car. Car.
Locked. Locked.
Click.
He froze. A silver Toyota. Unlocked.
And blessed be, the keys were dangling from the ignition.
“Thank you, lazy suburbanites,” he whispered.
He slid inside, pulled the door shut, and rummaged in the back seat.
A wrinkled pair of hospital scrubs.
He yanked them on over the gown, the fabric stiff and two sizes too big.
Still barefoot. Still armed.
He started the engine.
The GPS on his phone buzzed again. She was getting closer to Crab Point.
“Crab Point it is” he snarled, slamming the gear into drive.
“You picked the wrong snake to marry, darling. I'm bringing the antidote.”
The tires squealed.
The sun dipped lower.
——————————————————————————————-
Darkness.
Clarice blinked. Or at least she thought she did.
Her eyelids moved, but it was still pitch black.
She couldn’t breathe. The air was thin.
Her arms were pressed tight against her sides.
Where the hell am I?
She felt motion—wheels. A stretcher. She was being moved.
Then muffled voices.
“Room 319. Indian person. Goner, apparently. Stab wound must’ve reopened.”
“Poor guy. Shame. Bag her and tag her.”
BAG HER?? INDIAN PERSON????
Clarice screamed—but it came out muffled and pathetic.
She was inside a body bag.
The zipper was up. Tight.
She kicked. Wriggled. Screamed again.
“AHHHHHHHH!”
The stretcher jolted, veered sideways, slammed into a wall.
“Oh my God!” someone yelled. “The corpse is ALIVE!”
The zipper was yanked down and bright light flooded in.
Clarice gasped like she’d just escaped a casket underwater.
A panicked intern stared at her, clutching his chest. “You’re—you’re not dead?”
Clarice, red-faced, drenched in sweat, and hair like a frightened raccoon, stared at him with murder in her eyes.
“DO I LOOK DEAD, YOU DUMBASS??”
She heaved herself upright.
“I fell on a goddamn needle! You zipped me into a body bag!”
The Student Nurse nodded slowly, still stunned.
“Well... you did look kind of... peaceful.”
The other Student Nurse who’s jotting some notes weighed in,
“Yeah she does look kinda peaceful, but we have to follow protocols”
Nurse Clarice almost scream, “Protocols? What Protocols?”
“This protocol” Before Clarisse can scream again, the student Nurse
jammed a huge needle on her neck.
She passed out.
“So should we wheeled her to the mortuary, that was really weird scary.”
“Yeah we should. I don’t know how to document this, maybe something
like, Patient appeared to be alive again probably her last active reflexes,
protocol needle inserted, patient deactivated on spot. How does that sound?”
The other Student Nurse smiled, “Sound’s pretty rough but direct to the point.”
