Flight into Folly

It was a drawn out and full blown yell that brought me up out of the engulfing darkness of unconsciousness; a protracted yell that seemed to have been generated by a gripping and near crippling terror. It seemed to have come from some far off source, and yet somehow I knew, in my cloudy, resurfacing consciousness, that it had been generated within me. My head felt as though it was floating apart from my body. At the same time, it felt packed-to-bursting with sodden cotton wool. I had a vague impression my tongue had been glued to the roof of my mouth, and try as I may, I couldn’t seem to dislodge it. However, my sense of taste didn’t appear to have been impaired, and what I was tasting then was anything but pleasant. It was as though I had been dining on carrion for some considerable length of time without the benefit of mouthwash. The odour of my breath must have been like that of a hyena after a glutinous feast on something in an extremely advanced stage of decomposition. Something in an advanced stage of decomposition seemed to niggle at the outer reaches of my memory, but I wasn’t yet quite conscious enough to grasp what it might be. Whatever it was, I had presence of mind enough to realise it would probably be anything but pleasant. I was awake, or at least aware, but everything was shifting shapes of varying shades of grey. Then there was a slight pressure on my left eyelid, a sudden flicker of glaring white light, and a female voice saying something that my foggy mind couldn’t quite understand. I instinctively turned my throbbing head away from the annoying light source and the pressure on my eyelid. “Well, doctor, it looks like he’s finally coming around,” said the female voice as a sudden sense of coherency flooded to my brain. The almost seductive sound of her rather silkily husky and well modulated voice had a strangely comforting effect on me, and I hoped she would say more regardless of whether or not I might understand it. I wanted, almost desperately, to see the owner of that voice. With a great effort, I forced my sticky eyelids to part. I had only just accomplished that when a male voice stole my attention: “So, you’ve decided to join us again. Good. You’ve slept quite enough for one week, mister. Do you know where you are?” the voice asked in somewhat less melodic tones than those of his associate. With no small amount of exertion, I blinked my gritty eyelids a few times to try and clear my vision and then, turning my head towards the sound of that voice, my eyes slowly focused on a craggy, lined, and well-tanned face topped with a tousle of curly white hair and sporting a cock-eyed smile hampered somewhat by a nasty looking scar running from the corner of his mouth to the base of his ear lobe. With a concerted effort, I focused on the stethoscope dangling from his neck and on the white lab coat that he wore. “A hospital would be my first guess,” I said in a forced croak that I hardly recognised as my own voice. I also noted that the doctor was a major in the Medical Corps, and I was so impressed that I would have saluted had I been able to lift my arm. As it was, all I could manage was a weak grin of appreciation. His smile straightened and broadened slightly and the scar brightened slightly as well. Then I recalled to my still fuzzy consciousness that seductive female voice and visually sought out the source on the other side of the bed. You know how the mental image that you generate for yourself from the sound of a voice is rarely the same as what it actually is? Well, that was certainly the case in this instance; though not unpleasantly so. The source of that enchanting voice was a fairly tall, Rubenesque blonde in a crisp blue dress with a starched white pinafore apron. She looked strong enough to have packed me around like a baby. Gone like a mist in a gale was the mental image of a sloe-eyed, lissom and full, pouty lipped Arabian nights belly dancer with waist length ebony hair. There certainly didn’t seem to be much wrong with my imagination. As she looked down at me with sparkling eyes that matched the colour of her dress and crinkled at the outer corners with laugh lines, she grinned from ear to ear as though she had just become a proud, new parent. Who knows, maybe the broad grin was because she had read my mind. I kind of hoped not. “I think he’s going to make it, Doctor,” she said in that golden, honeyed voice, and her chubby, pink cheeks dimpled prettily with her smile. “We’ll have a longer chat later, Corporal,” he said in a tone suddenly as crisp as the nurse’s apron. Maybe he had read my mind as well. “We can start him on solid food this afternoon, nurse.” “Yes, Doctor,” she said. Then to me: “Luncheon will be served at 1300 hours, m’lord.” With that she drew back the bed curtains, fluffed up my pillows, and gave me a sip of water through a bent glass straw in a blue plastic tumbler, while the doctor hastily wrote a few notes on a chart and hung it on the foot of my bed. As the nurse bustled around me, her fresh, clean scent wafted over me till I thought I was falling in love. It had seemed a very long time indeed since I’d smelled anything that clean and fresh. Then they briskly walked out of the room, leaving me in a sudden void to examine my new surroundings, at least visually. I was to see my Rubenesque angel of mercy only once more during my stay. That was when she reappeared later that day to remove the Foley catheter that had been monitoring my hydration and kidney function. It was hardly the form of intimacy that I had been fantasising about, however the fantasies continued unabated for some time anyway. That was probably a good indicator of my returning health and vitality. On that occasion, she also brought me a small tube of mint-flavoured toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a small bottle of mouthwash, which was probably a good indicator of the state of my breath and, embarrassingly, that she was very likely aware of it. From the looks of it, I had spent the week in a long room painted in two shades of restful, pale green with a narrow dark green stripe separating the upper from the lower colours. I noted seven other beds in the room, only two others which were currently occupied. There was evidence to indicate, however, that the five others were only temporarily unoccupied. From a pale blue sky, the sun was shining through four tall, narrow windows at the far end of the room, and three fans, down the centre of the white tiled ceiling, were lazily stirring the air. In time, I could have told you how many tiles there were in that ceiling and how many holes in each tile—not to mention the stain in one corner that resembled nothing less than Abraham Lincoln’s profile. A man in one of the end beds by the windows was bandaged from his head and as far down as I could see. One plaster encased leg was elevated and held in place by what appeared to be plastic-coated cables attached to an overhead bar and pulley contraption. There was no obvious evidence of the existence of a second leg beneath the sheet. From a tubular metal stand on one side of his bed hung two IV bags from which tubes led downwards, their destination being shrouded from full view by his bed sheet. On the other side of his bed was a rather ominous-looking tall, black box whose miniature green and amber lights flickered in time to the soft, rhythmic beeps emanating from it. From this box several thin, black cables extended down and also disappeared beneath the sheet. Poor bugger! I thought. He looked a lot worse off than I felt.