ALLEGRO

“Do you know where you are?” the voice said. Her wedding and life with Kurt in Berlin had all been so real. What was it he had said? What is it with this voice and these questions; this man is a real pest. He won’t leave me alone, Fiona thought, in her dream. She remembered looking up searching for the man and his voice. Her eyes refused to focus, nor her brain for that matter. She wondered if they had heard what she just said. So she repeated it. But this time when she spoke, it was with a bit of sass and emphasis, the voice was not quite an irritation, but it was getting close. She so wanted them to stop asking her these silly questions. Not one to speak cheekily, maybe this time they’d let her alone. So they wouldn’t ask her again, she thought. She said, “I’m on a Mediterranean Cruise on the Love Boat with my husband Kurt Hochsaenger. We left port just yesterday and I woke up to what I thought was this morning. And you keep asking me these silly questions.” Those in her room gathered closer to her bed to listen to her comments. They included her parents, Maureen and Ian, her doctor, and Jake. They listened intently and with deep concern. Fiona continued, “But when I woke up it was so dark, I decided that it was,” she paused, “Well, it was still actually in the middle of the night. But the B-E-E-P was so loud; it was just like an alarm clock. I figured the last people in this cabin had unfortunately set the alarm clock for the middle of the night! “Yes, Miss, it was quite loud.” She heard the voice again but still hadn’t opened her eyes to see who it was that spoke to her, even now in her dream she wondered who it was. “Now kindly find my husband or send me someone who has some answers. All you seem to be doing is asking me stupid questions.” “I understand Miss, if you’d only open your eyes, and allow me to ask you one more question,” the voice said again just like the last time. She remembered the doctor asking her these questions and that her answer was rather glib thinking if the doctor didn’t know where he was they were both in a lot of trouble. “Actually, Miss, could tell me, who is the President of the United States?” said the doctor. She was hoping that he knew the answer to this mundane question. “Well that one is easy, George Bush.” Fiona said with a nod of her head, “Yes, that’s it. Why do you want to know about Mr. Bush, has something happened?” she said, questioning. “I was hoping you would ask me that, Fiona. You see, I’m your doctor, you are in the hospital. Your Mother and Father have been sitting vigil in your room ever since you were brought in here two months ago.” The voice paused, rather, the doctor paused. “Hospital? Where am I?” Fiona said, as the alarm bells in her head were suddenly going off and were now showing on her face. “You are in NYU Medical Center, ICU room number 1311,” the doctor said. Feeling more uncertain about her true surroundings, Fiona said, “No, I’m on the Love Boat. This is my honeymoon. You arranged it for me. Daddy, what have you done with Kurt?” “Fiona, listen to me now,” her Father said firmly. In her dream, she remembered her Father’s tone. It was sweet and caring but yet it was still full of concern. “It is the year 2015, they told us that after your swimming workout at the YMCA you fell in the showers and hit your head pretty hard. They rushed you here and you’ve been in a coma ever since.” “A coma?” Fiona said even more alarmed at her health status revelation, then realized a bit more, though still her brain felt like the cobwebs were anchored in deep. “Doctor, am I alright?” She said in her dream. Fiona’s memory of her time in the hospital was fading in and out in her dream. She remembered hearing the “B-E-E-P” sound again, even now in her dream. That sound was a stranger in the dark, but she could hear it loud and clear. It wasn’t the ship’s horn, or from traffic outside. Finally, her more rational brain led her thinking, well, her dreaming. “B-E-E-P.” There it was again, in her dream she finally remembered what it was, it was the nursing call button of a patient in the room next to Fiona’s. Each time someone had come into or exited her room when the door was open, the too familiar “B-E-E-P” invaded the privacy of her hospital room and now the silence of her dreams. She knew that if she was ever going to wake up to another alarm clock, she wouldn’t have the alarm tone be set to beep; she would, instead, choose something else, something more soothing. Perhaps, she thought, the operas of Wagner on a sound machine, set to wake her up at the appointed hour. Perhaps the first opera he wrote, dedicated to a town he knew only too well, Füssen: Opus 1.