Id

by P. Craig

  Dr Rubinstein grabbed his white coat from the back of the door and then gestured for the man to step out into the corridor; he followed immediately behind, guiding the man onwards with a gentle hand on the shoulder.

  “We have, given your somewhat celebrated status and the need to give you peace and quiet in which to recuperate, decided to reserve a private room for you at the end of the main neurology ward,” said the doctor. “But, as I said, I would hope to have you out of here and home before boredom sets in. I trust you have no objections to such an arrangement?”

  The man shook his head. Although he hadn’t really expected any preferential treatment, he thanked the doctor for his kindness and consideration.

  “Think nothing of it,” said the doctor, dismissing the man’s gratitude with a wave of the hand, though the small upward curl at the corner of his mouth and the sudden puffing of his chest suggested he had taken the comment with a healthy dose of pride. “Now, I’ll introduce you to the nurse who will be taking care of you between now and tomorrow evening, when at about eight o’clock we shall proceed with the operation. She’ll guide you through the whole process, and if you have any questions at any time, she will gladly do her best to answer them.”

  The man smiled in appreciation, though his mind was already elsewhere. As he followed the doctor through the department, he tried his best to listen while Dr Rubinstein explained the surgical procedure and talked about some of his previous patients. But the more the man tried to focus on the doctor’s voice, the more he found his mind wandering off, delving back and forth between feelings of hope, optimism and reassurance, and ones of worry, fear and absolute dread.

  As they entered the main neurology ward, the man’s eyes focussed on the multitude of patients lying asleep on either side all along the length of the room. The man’s gaze fell upon one woman in particular. Her hair had been shaved off and her head was marked by a red, raw scar a centimetre or two above what would have been her hairline; worryingly, her face, even though her eyes were closed and her chest was rising slowly and deliberately, was a mask of tortured pain.

  “One of the unfortunate few, I’m afraid,” the doctor muttered, gripping the man’s shoulder a little more firmly to encourage him not to linger. “Now, as I said, Nurse Bouchet will supervise the...”

  The man peered over his other shoulder and gawped at the woman and the plethora of wires and tubes linking her to the myriad of machines surrounding her bed. She was in a coma—little doubt of that—but even though she was in a state of consciousness far beyond the reaches of the real world, it was disconcerting to see pain so evidently etched across her face.

  Is it merely a reflection of a battle raging within her own mind—a war between the dark forces pulling her towards Death and her own will urging her back to life?

  Or maybe, the man thought with a shudder, it’s just simple, unfettered pain, wreaking its havoc upon her exposed, defenceless body, as it will undoubtedly do upon my own in the immediate hours following the surgery.

  As a younger man in his army days, he’d once broken some bones in his left foot—even now, he well remembered the pain and difficulty that had caused—but what he was about to soon undergo—complex, delicate surgery to his brain—was something that he knew was on a whole other level of severity and hardship. There was every chance, despite what the doctors had suggested, that he might, like the woman, end up hooked to some machine or other, his head more or less just a skull filled with grey mush.

  Feeling a sudden squeeze on his shoulder, the man snapped out of his morbid thoughts and looked round to find the doctor looking at him expectantly. “Sorry, what was that?”

  “Your last meal, my friend—what time would you say you had it?”

  The man’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment; suddenly realising why the doctor had asked him, it furrowed a little more, this time with concentration. “Breakfast time, I think. About seven-thirty, give or take five minutes or so.”

  The doctor’s mouth crinkled into a smile. “Then it may be worth having something light to eat before the cut-off time in preparation for surgery. I’ll have Nurse Bouchet arrange something suitable, if you are hungry?”

  Not even remotely, the man wanted to say, but he knew he should try to keep his strength up as much as possible. “That would be great, thank you.”

  A moment later, they reached the empty private room at the end of the ward, where the doctor ushered the man into an armchair positioned next to the solitary bed. With a little smile, Dr Rubinstein promised to return with the nurse once he had tracked her down.

  As the minutes ticked by with no sign of either person appearing, the man moved over to the bed and lay down on the cold, hard mattress. With his hands behind his head, he stared up at the white ceiling above him, hoping his mind would empty of the dark thoughts still swirling around inside.

  Several minutes later, as nervous fatigue and the stresses of the day’s events finally took their toll, he fell asleep.

  ***

  The man awoke suddenly, disturbed by the sound of metal scuffing against metal.

  Panicking, his eyes flitted around the room; with no little relief, he spotted the nurse who had attended to his every need since his arrival the day before. Shaking his head, he smiled in amusement at his sudden outbreak of paranoia.

  “Hello, Nurse Bouchet,” he said finally, letting her know he was awake now.

  Nurse Bouchet was standing with her back towards him, quietly preparing something on top of the trolley that she had brought with her into the room.

  “Good evening, sir,” she said, looking over her shoulder and giving the man a warm smile. “Did you enjoy your nap? I hope I didn’t disturb you from too pleasant a dream.”

  “No, not at all,” said the man, shaking his head before letting it drift back down onto the pillow. “I can’t even remember what it was about, to be honest. Must have been a good one, I guess.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s always the way with dreams, isn’t it? It’s only ever the bad ones that really stick in the mind.”

  The man knew that much was certainly true. He had experienced plenty of bad dreams in the last few weeks; unfortunately, one nightmare in particular—the one where a doctor had told him he had a life-threatening condition—had already come true.

  “Now,” said Nurse Bouchet, as she picked up something from the trolley and turned to face him, “I’m afraid this”—the man’s eyes fell on the syringe in her hand—“might hurt a tiny bit, but it really shouldn’t feel any worse than a scratch.”

  Smiling ruefully, the man held out his arm, turned his head away and then waited for the inevitable jab. The nurse had poked and prodded him more than a dozen times since his arrival in the hospital and he well understood what she expected of him. The somewhat apologetic manner in which she broached the subject was always, amusingly, the same too. She’s a kind woman.

  “Is that it?” he asked, grimacing as the needle pierced his skin.

  “That is almost it,” said the nurse. “One more after this one, I’m afraid to say.”

  The man could feel the drug beginning its long winding journey round his body, gradually dulling his senses one by one. “There’s... there’s another one?” he asked slowly, his eyelids suddenly feeling unbelievably heavy.

  “This is the preliminary anaesthetic,” came the reply, though her voice sounded more distant and fainter than he had expected, not that he really cared now in any case. “The anaesthetist, Dr Morgan, will administer the final injection and then monitor you throughout the surgery. You’ll be in excellent hands.”

  The man tried to nod his understanding, but the numbing effects of the drug had sapped the strength to do so from his body. With his eyes barely open, and with his head facing away from the door, he was only vaguely aware of other people entering the room; their footsteps sounded distant and remote, almost like they were in another building altogether.

  “And I think that ought to be him out for the count.
”

  To the man, it felt like he was floating peacefully over a great expanse of calm water that was dark in colour like the night sky. Looking up, he had a sense that there was a light coming from somewhere, allowing him to see in the darkness, but it was a strange, ethereal light, almost as though it wasn’t there at all, as if it had been conjured forth by his imagination.

  Not that it matters, he thought. For in this place of tranquillity, in this place of silence and absolute peace, he wasn’t sure that anything mattered at all.

  Yet for all this calm serenity, he had a feeling, a sense, that something wasn’t quite right, that he didn’t quite belong there, that there were things that mattered to him. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t quite think what these should be. He wasn’t even entirely sure of himself, either, but he had a sense, a feeling, that he was a person, a someone, with people in his life who shared his hopes and dreams—and whose hopes and dreams, in turn, were very much part of his own.

  Two people in particular, he reminded himself; two people that mattered greatly to him, that meant everything to him, but in this sea of nothingness that filled his world from horizon to horizon, it felt like they were fading away, cut off and adrift, if not already lost to his mind.

  Looking up again, he saw a number of different faces around him, yet they all appeared somewhat blurred, somewhat indistinct, as if somehow altered by the same ethereal light that had perplexed him earlier. In truth, for all he knew, they may not have been faces at all, but there was something about them, something familiar, which told him that they were. Faces meant people, he realised, but these faces, whoever they belonged to, were not faces of any importance; they were not the faces that he wanted to see.

  He guessed that there were several people around him, though it was difficult to tell with the light, such as it was, playing tricks on his mind. All he wanted were the two people that mattered, the two that he knew he loved; these others, these blurs, these faceless, nameless things, meant nothing in comparison.

  The ethereal light burned away, replaced by a harsher, stronger light, a light that cut down through the darkness, erasing the nothingness and filling in the details that the man suddenly realised had probably been there all along. The faces around him were more distinct now, but he still couldn’t see their features clearly; they kept turning away from him, facing the light that was hanging in the air like a miniature sun, spherical and glowing white. Surely a light too blinding to look into directly?

  The odd manner in which the light bobbed up and down, occasionally moving from side to side, reminded him that he was moving, though he had a feeling that he was no longer floating serenely over the still, dark waters that had once seemed to be never-ending. But, then, nothing lasts forever. Even this new journey, wherever it was leading, and whoever was taking him there, would eventually end. And then what...?

  The light faded away, plunging the world, limited and sparse though it was, back into the shadows and the tentative touch of what lay beyond—a void, a nothingness. The darkness was strangely comforting, though, and the man didn’t begrudge its intrusion. Neither did he object to the silence, which had once again swept all sound away from his ears. He had a sense that his companions, the faces surrounding him, were still there in the darkness, still keeping guard at his side and carrying him—yes, carrying me—to whatever location they had in mind.

  The man lingered on that notion, wondering why anyone would want to take him anywhere at all, especially if taking him somewhere meant taking him away from the peace and tranquillity that, he thought with anxiety, seemed to have been left behind. He could maybe have understood it if they’d intended to take him somewhere better, somewhere even more serene. But how can any place be better or more serene than the black sea of nothingness they have snatched me from...?

  He felt panic at that thought—of being snatched—for that was what had happened. But the question remained—why would anyone do such a thing?

  The light returned and brought forth detail in the shadows and vague outlines that had dominated during its brief absence. Those around him were suddenly clearer, and their faces, though still turned to the light, were now joined by their bodies—their white, strangely unnatural bodies; bodies that seemed to radiate as much light as that thrown out by the small sun that was once more beckoning them on.

  Then it struck him, a sudden thought that sent fear racing through the man’s mind. The light was no ordinary light. It was the light—the one at the end of the long, dark tunnel between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

  In that moment, he realised something else. These white beings surrounding him, carrying him towards the light—they weren’t people at all.

  They are the servants of the light.

  They are angels sent by the Maker to escort me to the other world.

  My time has come.

  Panicking now, knowing that his end had come too soon, the man tried to rise from the stupor that had made him willingly acquiesce to those around him. He reached out blindly with his hands, trying to push the beings away. His fingers caught one of their robes and, gripping tightly, he pulled hard, hoping he could stop them, make them realise that he wasn’t ready to go.

  Looking up, the man watched as one of the faces finally began to turn round, and then suddenly, shockingly, he realised he had been wrong. An angel’s face should have been pure and beautiful, but what he saw, what he recoiled against, what he shielded his eyes from, was a face of horrid ugliness, a face so black that even the light couldn’t penetrate its darkness. It was a face so inhuman that even the eyes looking down at him were more like fissures at the bottom of an abyss, narrow and fiery, hinting at the great danger lurking not far beneath.

  The man knew it was a face that could only belong to one thing—a demon.

  As a gnarled, black hand reached down for his face, the light faded into darkness once more and what was left, what he wished for more than anything, was the nothingness.

  Ten

  January 30, 11.29 a.m.

  His mind was twisting and contorting inside his skull, pulling and shaping itself into something beyond his power to control. The more he tried to concentrate, to focus his thoughts, to get his head back into the here and now, the more his mind seemed to spin away in the opposite direction as though it and his body were two identical magnetic forces pushing each other apart.

  The man almost felt like crying, but even though part of him was elsewhere, his heart was still here—in the now—telling him that he couldn’t, not yet. He had to be strong, to show that he was strong, to show that he could handle it, to show that he had faith in the belief that everything would be all right, that everything would eventually get back to normal. The only problem was that the man didn’t know if such a belief was anything other than a delusion. How can life ever be normal again?

  “Are you okay?”

  The man opened his eyes and immediately realised, as dark spots began to blot his vision, he had been holding his breath for some time. He took a deep breath, sat upright in the chair and tried his best to compose himself. A gentle hand rubbed his back, helping to soothe away his discomfort.

  The man looked round at his wife, Emma, and smiled with gratitude.

  “You were holding your breath for so long I thought you were going to pass out,” she said, smiling back, though her furrowed brow betrayed her concern.

  “Sorry. I’m a little...” He grimaced, not sure what to say.

  “You’re apprehensive,” said Emma, rubbing his back a little more firmly, as though she could ease his worries as well as his pain. “It’s understandable. But everything will be fine. I just know it will.”

  The look in her eyes was so genuine, so heartfelt, the man could almost believe his wife knew what she had said would prove to be true, like it was a cast-iron certainty. He took her other hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it as he held her gaze. “I know it will, too,” he said finally, though deep down he wasn’t s
o sure.

  So wrapped up in the moment was he, the man almost failed to notice the door opening and the stocky frame of John Nolan, a long-time friend and fellow former soldier, though now his doctor, walking into the room.

  “Sorry to have kept you both waiting,” said John, removing an old-looking stethoscope from around his neck. Sitting behind his desk, he placed the antique device carefully into an open drawer, then looked up at his friend and smiled ruefully. “I had a child with a severe case of diarrhoea to attend to. Let’s just say there was a bit of a mess that needed some supervision to clean up.”

  The man said nothing, his expression deadpan. The warm smile on his friend’s face and the easy manner of his entrance was suggestive of hope, that the prognosis wasn’t as bad as he feared, but having known John for almost twenty years, he knew that such calm, light-heartedness was always the way with him, regardless of the situation.

  “How are Rebecca and the baby?” Emma asked.

  “Oh, fine, just fine,” said John, nodding as he pulled a thick file across his desk and positioned it carefully in front of him. “Little Jessica is still a devil for waking up every hour on the hour during the night. That aside, they are—touch wood—both doing great. I’ll tell Rebecca you were asking.”

  “I’ll maybe pop round for a coffee some afternoon, perhaps. It’s been a couple of weeks since I last saw them both.”

  John beamed. “I’d think Rebecca would like that. My mother keeps insisting on going round to see her every day, but I think any excuse to keep the old bat from visiting will be more than appreciated.”

  “I’ll definitely call her later, then,” said Emma, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she laughed.

  Chuckling, John sat back and then looked down at the file. His eyes scanned to the foot of the first page, where they seemed to linger for a moment. “And how are you feeling today, David?” he asked, looking up again, though there was something about his eyes, something about the way they had suddenly dilated, that sent a shiver running down his friend’s back.