by Aaron Dries
67845 followed by the # key.
Lucette—who was repeating the entrance code over and over in her head—peaked into the rooms as they walked by, seeing other patients lying in bed or sitting up, some alone, some with family around them. At least each interior had a window, though there wasn’t much sun anymore. The clouds had won the day.
She wasn’t sure she could have explained it if asked, but being here in the hospice made her feel even more adult. This wasn’t school with its silly games and boring lessons. This was a grown-up world full of grown-up problems. Despite the sadness that hung in the air, Lucette felt privileged to be here, leaving her to think that maybe getting older wasn’t quite as bad as she’d assumed.
They stopped at an open door and her mother rapped on the jam.
“Come in,” a soft voice said.
The first thing Lucette saw as they stepped into the room was the origami crane that she’d made for him sitting on the table by the bed. And then, of course, there was Robby reclined against the mattress. She knew he was about her age, though he looked like a little old man in a twelve-year-old’s body. Except for his eyes. They sparkled just like hers.
“Hello there, I’m Robby.” His nostrils were chapped and red, obvious that he’d been blowing and wiping his nose a lot.
At first there were no words. Her mother touched her shoulder again. A gentle squeeze. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that affirmation until it was given. “Hi, I’m Lucette.”
“So you’re the one who made me the crane, huh?”
“Yeah. I know it’s not the best.”
“I think it’s great. Maybe you could teach me how you do it.”
“Sure. I’m working on another one right now. Cranes are the hardest origami to do.”
“What’s the easiest?”
“Probably a bat.”
“Will you show me?”
Lucette looked up at her mother. Emily nodded and let her go. Lucette walked over to the bed and climbed into the chair beside it, slipping off her backpack and digging through it as she went. “A bat should really be done with black paper. I’ve only got white.”
“It’ll be an albino,” Robby said with a laugh, and for a moment he didn’t look quite so old.
Lucette took it nice and slow, explaining each fold as she went, repeating certain memorized passages from her book word for word. Five minutes later, she had a decent looking bat, and even demonstrated how you could make the wings flap by squeezing the middle section.
“That’s cool, Lucette. You think you could teach me?”
“Sure thing. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to get that crane right. Maybe we can work on it together.”
“That sounds great,” Emily said, startling Lucette, who had almost forgotten her mother was in the room. “But it’ll have to be another time. Robby needs his rest, and we need to go.”
“Come on, Mom, just a little bit longer.”
“I have to stop by the grocery store on the way home, my shift’s over, and now it’s time to say your goodbyes.”
“Can she visit me for longer tomorrow?” Robby asked. “I’d like to learn how to do this origami stuff. It gets real boring here by myself.”
Lucette turned to her mother and gave her a pleading look.
“Fine. How about tomorrow I bring Lucette over right after lunch and you can spend the afternoon visiting.”
“Awesome,” Lucette said. She knew tonight she’d have to endure another of her mother’s extended lectures about rules, do’s and don’ts, and appropriate behavior, but endure it she would. She craved companionship every bit as much as the sick boy on the bed.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Robby,” she said, placing the albino bat on the table next to the malformed crane.
“I can’t wait.”
Taking her mother’s hand, they stepped back out into the hallway where Mama Metcalf was waiting for them. “Heading out?” the old woman asked them.
“Yeah, we are. I just introduced Lucette to Robby.”
“Did you just? Oh, that’s a fine idea. There’s no better medicine than a friend.”
In the harsh Corridor 3 light, Mama Metcalf managed to look even older. Every wrinkle of her skin was illuminated. But that’s what Lucette figured this part of the hospice was: A place of truths. The old woman struck her as tired looking, more tired, in fact, than she ever imagined someone could be without falling over. It occurred to Lucette then that the patients were not the only people within these walls in need of medicine.
Mama Metcalf took a step closer, almost excitedly; passing her weight from foot to foot in a manner that Lucette’s mother would refer to as a mean case of ‘ants in your pants’.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” she began. “What are you and the young’un doing Christmas night?”
***
Emily walked her daughter through the hospice in the direction of the front exit. Was she still angry? Yes. But the burn of that anger, at least, had dissipated. Rage could be a powerful thing. It encompassed all else, blinding her to where she wanted to be—on the other side of the moment, in a future where there was happiness. And Emily was almost there, thanks to three definite ticks in the pro column.
First:
Mama Metcalf had helped with her warm-hearted invitation to spend Christmas evening together at the older woman’s house. Emily had accepted without missing a beat. This way, at least, they could be together.
There’s no better medicine than a friend.
She hoped that was true.
Second:
Lucette had followed the rules, hadn’t gotten into trouble, and as a reward, had been allowed to visit Robby. That meeting had also gone well. Better, perhaps, than Emily had expected it to. The boy was in Corridor 3 for a reason. It was where the dead went to die, though that wasn’t to say humanity had to be checked at the door.
And third:
Emily’s anger had been eroded by pride. Good old-fashioned chest-pumping pride. And not the kind evoked by movies either, or a damn fine novel; rather, the pride a mother feels for her child when she knows deep down in her bones that the right thing has been done, and that it was her own flesh and blood with the nerve to enact it. Nobody would deny that, by the book, Lucette had done wrong, but the reasoning behind her actions was commendable. Sometimes wrong was right—a fact that Emily couldn’t voice to her child, not yet. Part of being a good parent was learning when to hold back how you felt, to censor when necessary, and to judge when honesty was appropriate. Lucette was growing up. When you stopped learning from your mistakes, you started to make your way down your own private Corridor 3.
Evolve or die. That’s all there has ever been.
They were almost out of the building when Emily saw something that made her cold all over. She stopped, Lucette continuing on ahead before reaching the limitations of their interwoven hands.
“What is it, Mom?”
Lucette’s question rung in her ears, echoing on and on, fading; the thrum of shoes dwarfed this sound. Three men and two women were being led toward them by Mrs. Woods. It was these visitors’ inconspicuous clothes that gave them away, that and their matching stares—seemingly vacant, only not.
Woods led them by. Her boss didn’t spare a glance for Emily, unlike her entourage. They trailed her face as they passed, their eyes twisting without moving their heads, like the glare of portraits in a gallery that you knew were watching, whilst not watching. A nothing that was a something.
The Crowners.
Emily watched them slip out of sight. She turned back to face the exit and ushered her daughter toward it. Not even gin would help her sleep that night.
***
Geraldine Leonard spared a thought for the nurse and the kid as she rounded a corner and shadowed the warden down an adjoining hall. This was no place for tots, and anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. But with desperation enough, anything was possible. This, Geraldine had seen more than once.
No doubt the woman—likely a single mother—couldn’t find a sitter or daycare willing to take her girl, and as a result, was forced to bring her to work. As to why she wasn’t at school, well, that Geraldine didn’t allow herself the effort of speculating. And of course the warden would have let the nurse do this; the warden may have done it herself over the years. And why?
Our capacity for desperation is one of the few things that binds us.
This facility was just the same as any other across Chicago, across the whole Godless country. Whilst all around them society descended into over-regulated conservatism (cinema, television, the Internet, and literature taking the hardest prohibitive hits—people had actually been fined for reading banned ‘supernatural’ books and comics featuring the undead, even those published well before the outbreak), religion had taken an unexpected backseat.
Geraldine had been of the assumption that the apocalypse, which she’d always known would come on slow, would end up sending people flocking back to the church. Only no. Faith, itself, had been infected. Though in the end, at the pitiful, sad conclusion of it all, most people came around. Death made believers out of most.
And that was her role amongst the five; and there always were five.
One Ministry official, someone to ensure policy was enacted.
Three conscripted Ministry workers, drawn through an automated selection process, to serve as ‘witnesses’. Geraldine had read that the firing squad consisted of people whose weapons were loaded with blanks—bar one gun. No members of the squad, who then fired in unison, would ever know whose bullet had ended the life. This helped assuage guilt. Being a witness was a political expression; those three were present to dilute the responsibility. It was a graceless, essential role.
Geraldine was pastoral care. Multi-faith, when she had to be.
The warden led them into their secured ward, what the five—and in all likelihood, the staff also (because why wouldn’t they?)—referred to as ‘death row’. A thing may have a name, but more often than not, peeling back the political correctness to reveal the nasty honesty beneath was healthier.
So this was death row. If the men and women within it avoided their intervention, well, then they would become zombies. Or bone eaters. Or smilers. And they, the five, were Crowners. That sounded a lot healthier than ‘End of Life Policy Counselors’, which was what it said on their tax returns.
They all had a job to do, one that Geraldine had been doing for too long. There had been a time, in Nicaragua as a missionary, when she thought she’d seen the worst this world had to offer. Today, like the day before that, would only prove how incorrect she was.
Bed C-2. Name: Mabry, Edward. That was what it said on the file. That was who they were here to ‘counsel’.
The warden had the nurses in Corridor 3 close all of the doors to the rooms except ‘Eddie’s’. The man’s next of kin, someone named Vick, stood nearby; he insisted on staying by Eddie’s side until the very end. Personally, Geraldine disapproved of private citizens being present for the crowning, but they were allowed as long as the patient had given prior written consent, which Eddie had done.
Granted privacy in the hall, the warden and two of the witnesses flicked the brakes off the bed and wheeled it out through the wide-set architrave. Eddie was no longer attached to any floor-mounted apparatuses, just a cordless mobile syringe-driver the size of a deck of cards. Geraldine saw it now as they passed her by, latched to his bone-white arm, pumping the poor soul full of morphine.
Once you were hooked up to that device there was no going back.
The bed wheels squeaked, rattling off course like an out of control supermarket cart. Geraldine watched them wrestle with its weight, a small glimmer of humor in this otherwise humorless place.
They didn’t speak, not conversationally, anyway. Why indulge in idle chitchat when there was nothing of worth to be said? That was her approach. Always had been. Most of the rules that got her through Central America in the 1980s still held true today, her ability to only use the words that counted being one of them.
And nothing mattered more than those slipping from her mouth now, as clattering yet whispery as the rosary beads beneath her layman’s jacket, slightly muffled by the mask over the lower half of her face. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
Her prayer was the only sound, that and the screeching wheels, as they entered the security-locked antechamber at the end of Corridor 3. The wide windowless door opened to reveal the equally windowless room. As expected, or perhaps dreaded, the abattoir tiles had been recently cleaned for their arrival.
The warden flicked all four bed brakes with her heel and gave them a curt nod, which was all that was required. Geraldine admired the woman’s efficiency, a trait that would see her go far in the pursuit for dignity. It was the sentimental that made the difficult jobs of this world hard to accomplish. And when it came to difficult vocations, being a Crowner was second only to the Cloth.
With the warden gone and the door locked, the five were ready to complete their work. They did so with an appropriate detachment, each of their movements syncopated and well-rehearsed, a ballet. The only music was Geraldine’s recital of the Lord’s word.
Vick took up position in the far corner of the room. Geraldine noted with approval that the man did not cry, merely stood rigidly and watched with an expression of stoic resolve.
The crown itself was kept in a Ministry-enforced, monitored, and maintained cabinet set into the wall. It was locked away, just as it should be, and was only accessible to those with a government-issued skeleton key. This added security measure made sense: only those with the appropriate authority to use the apparatus would ever need access it. Of this there were no variables. Or excuses.
They unlocked the cabinet and withdrew the crown, a heavy and industrial looking instrument that clashed with any notion of the modern world. It was something from a junkyard, a medieval throwback. It was, however, very effective.
Geraldine held the man’s forearm. It was as cold as she expected it to be. His face had sucked back in on itself, as though there were a vacuum inside him. All of his hair had fallen out and his mouth was now set in the smiler’s grin that lent the offensive term its name.
“Amen,” she said, stepping back to let another one of the three witnesses—the rookie, Geraldine suspected, on account of the tears—place the crown over Eddie’s head. She referred to him as this and not Edward because ‘Eddie’ was listed on his file as his preferred name.
In life, there was dignity in addressing peoples’ predilections. There should be no difference in death. Anything less was a butchery.
And there was going to be butchery enough here.
The crown was called so on account of the six retractable bolts affixed to its metal headband. Geraldine watched the rookie place it around Eddie’s temple. It was a one-size-fits-all apparatus, so little maneuvering was required. The five of them returned to the cabinet, faced it, and saw the five red switches along its lower sill.
Geraldine let her eyes drift shut, as she always did, and in the cloying quiet of the chamber listened to the man—who was loved, who was someone’s son once, someone’s employee, someone’s hope—take his final breath. It hitched and gargled, evidence enough that the right decision had been made.
The government official set off the timer next to the crown’s holster. A five second countdown clicked into life on a small screen. It used to be a ten seconds, but an operator survey from two years’ before revealed that workers found that too long a time to wait. Five seconds of agonized patience was more than sufficient.
Five.
Behind Geraldine’s eyes she could see the jungles of Nicaragua. The faces of the people she helped save. Broken faces, reset jaws. All smiling. A missing finger on a hand gripping the habit she used to wear back then.
Four.
The mosquito net she’d strung over her bed in her missionary villa. Stagnant air. Hundreds of blood-hungry insects
trying to bite her through the thin cloth she’d patched with Band-Aids.
Three.
There was the husband she almost took before her calling. It had been at university in Idaho. His name had been Benjamin, and her parents found him a fine suitor. Geraldine could see his cleft lip now, etched against the black of her eyelids with the delicate definition of cracked tissue.
Two.
She forced it all away now, the descent of the mist. What prayers lingered were for the benefit of herself. They ran through her emptying head, light through the gloom.
One.
Nothingness. Fullness. Her throbbing pulse.
Zero.
They flicked the switches in unison, and as Geraldine did every time, jumped at the hiss-thump of the crown shooting its retractable prongs into Eddie’s skull with quick, painless precision. She opened her eyes, knowing that the worst was not yet over, but too frightened by the nothingness in the dark. That, more than anything, terrified her.
She listened to the crown withdrawing its impalers, the tick-tocking of a backwards running watch. And then, the rain.
That was what she told herself. Only this rain was red. Soon the spurts subsided and the five braced themselves to turn, each unaware of who had dealt the deathblow, and hoping against hope that it had not been them.
Eddie gave a final kick. His arm dangled over the side of the rubber-covered hospital mattress. He was still now, as graceful in death as Geraldine hoped he had managed to be in life. Though of that, she wasn’t the judge and jury. Yes, the world may be ending, but she still believed in some things.