It was time to speak up more confidently than I had done at the grocery store. It was time to be one of them. My voice cracked a little and my words seemed to die as they came out of my mouth. I wondered if it had something to do with the gravity, or perhaps it was just my Ranjisi voice. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Your bill is wrinkled. You’re obviously not from around here.” The young woman stepped up beside me and took my five dollar bill. I watched as she flattened out the bill and unfolded the corner. It slid right into the machine and the tokens came out. “Don’t they have soda machines where you’re from?” the woman said with a little laugh.
I laughed along with her thinking to myself, “No we surely do not have soda machines on Ranjisan,” but what came out of my mouth was, “Oh, I forgot about that.” Of course I knew it didn’t make sense but there was nothing else I could think of. Apparently anyone and everyone on planet Earth knew how to use a simple machine you put money into; everyone except me that was. I thanked the woman and wondered if I should try and have a conversation with her but I just stood there looking and feeling awkward. I had missed two opportunities to try and have a conversation with a human.
When the subway pulled in and opened its doors, the young woman hurried to a seat at the far end of the car. I wondered again if I should go sit with her. She seemed friendly enough. But then I remembered reading that people in large cities on Earth are sometimes unfriendly. On Ranjisan it would be considered perfectly normal to sit with a stranger and begin a conversation. I walked to the far end of the car and sat opposite from her. She looked up at me and smiled. “Thanks again,” I said. “I’m Luke.” I expected her to say hello and tell me her name but she just smiled again and looked back down at her phone. I was thinking that she probably thought I was strange or that I was mentally delayed in some way.
The subway ride to the city put things into perspective. I assumed that people generally live out in Queens where I was living and they worked in the city where all the big buildings were. When I reached the terminal in the city, I had to look for the 1, 2, or 3 train headed downtown. It was simple. I took the number 2 train eight stops to Franklin Street. When I stepped out onto the street level, I could see the St. Elizabeth Medical Center on the opposite side of the street. I was ready to begin my new life as a human.
4 - The Hospital
Monday morning I arrived at the hospital about an hour early. I waited in the lobby until just before 9:00 and walked into the Human Resources Department. I already knew from Frank that my HR contact was human. I spent a half hour with Millie Walker, completing all the tedious paperwork. I realized that Frank couldn’t tell me all the details of how the position was arranged but I assumed that somewhere higher up in the hospital administration there was someone from Ranjisan.
I spent the first two days shadowing an experienced transportation person. Harry looked to be older than most of the patients he pushed around the hospital. He was a short cheerful man who didn’t seem to mind that he was missing almost all his teeth. The patients all seemed to know and like him. He was friendly and outgoing and always seemed to be just familiar enough with the patient’s health problems to have a light conversation. I thought he was a good role model for the position.
Wednesday morning I began my real working life as a human. Technically I already was living as a human but when I reported to the hospital I would be having an impact on the lives of people I came in contact with. I would be a part of the human world that was spinning by each day.
The first few days I didn’t do much and I had the feeling I was being observed. It was ironic. The observer was being observed. When I clocked in on the Monday morning of my second week, things were different. I was told by my supervisor Connie that I would be given “ongoing” assignments each week and random assignments as they came in.
My first ongoing assignment was for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I would be transporting a patient to and from the cancer transfusion wing. Marie was quiet and pleasant considering she had difficulty breathing and felt sick almost all the time. Marie had been battling cancer in the lymph nodes for about two years. She had just turned 84 years old. I attempted to slowly make small talk with Marie but on the second week she just made hand gestures to let me know she didn’t want to talk. I understood and just smiled quietly as I pushed Marie to and from her appointments. Marie didn’t seem to care about life enough to talk about it. It was a sad situation but I was determined not to let it affect me too much. I transported Marie back and forth to the transfusion wing for two months before she finally passed away. I felt relieved that she was no longer in pain or discomfort.
Although I knew that all the pain and suffering that humans endured near the end of life was unnecessary, I thought I was adjusting to it and accepting it well. Coming from a culture where end of life comfort and assistance was as common and normal as sleeping, I knew I had to strive not to get too emotionally invested in each person I watched suffer and die. I handled it well for the first few months. Again I wondered if I was being observed. It wasn’t until my fourth month that I began getting assignments in the pediatric and young adult sections of the hospital.
The first assignment that really began to eat away at me was Eli Bartlett. Eli was a 21 year old diagnosed with a soft tissue cancer first appearing in his legs and then spreading throughout his body. Eli seemed fearless as he joked about his illness but I knew that he was drifting in and out of pain each time I heard him unconsciously moaning. It was if a sudden sharp pain was stabbing him somewhere. I suspected it was his legs. It was the third time I brought Eli back to his room from the infusion wing that he showed me pictures from before he got sick. He was playing the drums in a rock band. He looked so completely different wearing a sleeveless shirt, with his tattooed muscular arms holding his drum sticks straight up in the air. He looked happy and invincible with his jet black shoulder length hair and bluish streaks running through it.
Eli wasn’t that much younger than me. On my hospital paperwork it said I was 28. The CIPE program had some kind of complicated calculation to estimate our Earth age based on our Ranjisi age. On Ranjisi I was 54. I guess we were lucky living on Ranjisan. Not only did we live longer but due to the much lower gravitational pull, we appeared to age much more slowly. On Earth, I looked to be around 28 years old.
Eli seemed to take a liking to me the first day I met him. Although I didn’t have any tattoos or piercings, he must have sensed that I liked punk and new alternative rock music. I had been listening to as much music as I could since arriving on Earth so I was familiar with some of the bands that Eli talked about. I spent a little extra time hanging out with Eli after each treatment. Considering I was from a planet in a faraway solar system, I thought it was cool that we always seemed to find things to talk about. Talking to Eli made me feel like I belonged there.
In the evenings as I had time to think about it, I knew in my heart that I was making a mistake becoming friendly with Eli. I knew I shouldn’t become close to any of the patients that had terminal illnesses.
Eli had plenty of visitors. There were plenty of people who loved and cared about him. He was never lonely so I knew the time I spent with him was not about keeping him company. It was more about me. I was lonely and I liked Eli. Sometimes when I wheeled him back to his room, his room was full of his old friends and band mates. I often watched for a few minutes as they joked around. Old friends are special, I thought. But new friends can sometimes be special too. It seemed to be like that with me and Eli. There was some kind of connection. I often had the feeling that he sensed that something was different about me.
I had been transporting Eli for about three months when I noticed he was going downhill. His illness was taking control and he was deteriorating fast. If we were on Ranjisan, the doctors would have been bringing Tseen Ke into the conversations with him. But we were on planet Earth, living in a culture that had some kind of moral or religious objection to ending life in comfort an
d dignity. Humans still believed that their creator would be more willing to welcome them into the afterlife if they had suffered in hideous pain before dying.
As the days and weeks went by, Eli seemed to be sleeping more and more and moaning loudly in his sleep. When he was awake he rarely joked around anymore and he frequently just slipped down low in his wheelchair and moaned loudly. I wondered how much longer it would be. I wondered how much longer he would have to suffer. I tried not to think about Tseen Ke but when I went home at night it was almost all I could think about.
One morning I arrived a little early to take him for his treatment. That feeling I had about how I thought that he suspected something was different about me was confirmed. “He Luke, what’s up with you?”
“Not much Eli. Same old thing.”
“No, I mean, what’s really up with you? You never talk about your family. Do you have a girlfriend, or is it a boyfriend? Does your family live here in New York? There is some deep, dark secret you are keeping.” Eli paused a moment and continued, “You know, I’m the perfect person to talk to, if you know what I mean.” It was the first time I saw Eli smile like that in weeks.
I was stunned and frozen. I felt like a rabbit in the headlights. Eli just sat there staring at me while I stood there on the verge of panic. I decided I could make a joke out of it. “I wish I could tell you Eli. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.” I said it with a straight face. We just stared at each other for a long moment. Eli laughed first. It started as a slight giggle and grew into an uncontrolled roaring laughter. I followed along with him and began laughing until Eli began coughing and having trouble catching his breath. Eventually he relaxed and began breathing normally. Again we stopped and stared at each other. It was then that Eli knew. He knew he was right. We were joking but we were serious. There was something different about me.
“In the end,” Eli said slowly and softly before pausing for a long moment. “You should tell me. It will do you good. I am sure of that.”
“You are a wise man Eli. But more than that, you are a friend.”
Eli seemed to be having a revelation. He seemed to understand that whatever was different about me was something extraordinary. “Yes, we are friends Luke,” Eli said as tears filled his eyes. “In fact, although I haven’t known you very long and we don’t actually spend much time together, you are in many ways, closer to me than people I’ve known for most of my life. Why is that?”
I sat quietly thinking for a few long moments. “I know what you feel,” I said. “I feel it too.” Eli didn’t know it but I was thinking about the differences between humans and Ranjisi. Ranjisi don’t often cry, but we do feel things. Ranjisi have a highly developed sense of awareness. We often tune into the feelings and emotions of others. I didn’t think it would be possible to feel what a human was feeling but the feelings were actually more intense than with other Ranjisi. I wondered if it was because humans were more emotional than Ranjisi.
“If you truly know what I feel, than you know my big secret,” Eli said.
“Of course I do. I don’t think it’s a secret to anyone who cares about you.” I paused for another awkward moment. “I wish that it was a choice. I wish that I could make is so.” It was all too overwhelming for me. I just flopped down in the chair and put my head between my knees. The feeling of despair was so intense I felt as if I couldn’t move. Here was a friend suffering. I could help him. I knew exactly what to do. I could give him his wish and help him to pass on in comfort and with dignity, and yet I could not. I was bound by commitment to the CIPE oath. Eli reached for my hand and I took it in mine. I wished the tears could flow like a human. I wondered if it would give me a feeling of relief. But there were no tears, just a devastating feeling of helplessness.
When Eli’s parents and younger sister walked into the room, I was holding his hand with my face still between my knees and Eli was sobbing. Eli’s parents looked a little startled. Eli wiped his face and looked up at his parents. “Luke and I have become friends. If things were different, maybe we could start a band,” Eli said.
I forced myself to stand up and say goodbye. “I’ll see you Wednesday Eli,” I said as I smiled at Eli’s parents and left the room.
That night I didn’t sleep at all. Ranjisi are not too different than humans. We need as much sleep as any race I was familiar with. I assumed that all higher life forms needed sleep to survive, but I went to work the next day with no sleep at all. My supervisor Connie said I looked terrible and she asked me if I was out partying all night. Connie was born and raised in New York City. She lived right downtown and never learned to drive a car. She was pleasant enough although she never talked about anything too personal. I guessed that she wanted to maintain some distance between herself and other hospital staff.
“Some nights I just have trouble sleeping,” I said. “I really don’t party or drink. I mostly just read or listen to music.” Connie gave me a half-hearted smile and handed me three assignments. By the time I finished them, she had six more so I stayed busy all day. That night I figured since I was so exhausted, I would be able to sleep but sleep just wouldn’t come.
In the morning I went to the shower, bleary eyed with one burning thought: I wanted to end Eli’s suffering. I thought about contacting Frank and asking for some kind of special permission to break protocol. I decided against it but I wasn’t sure why. I wondered if somewhere deep in my subconscious I was actually thinking of performing Tseen Ke on Eli. If it did come to that, it would be wiser not to let anyone know I had been agonizing over the CIPE golden rule: Do NOT interfere with human life.
Two weeks later Eli stopped going for treatments. He was getting ready to be released from the hospital. I stopped by his room early to say goodbye. Eli hugged me from his wheelchair and handed me his address. “If you feel up to it,” Eli said, “Stop by. We can rock out until it’s time.” I felt sad hearing Eli’s words but it was much less awkward for me since I had said final goodbyes to several people on Ranjisan. When my grandfather was in the last two days of Tseen Ke I slept in the room with him. Although I can’t say it was a fun experience it was nothing like the devastating death experience on Earth. At least in Eli’s case he could spend his last days at home with his family. Medical treatment was reduced to just making the patient as comfortable as possible.
Sunday morning I decided to visit Eli one last time. His mother came to the door with tears in her eyes. “Eli just went back to the hospital. We’re leaving in a few minutes.” She didn’t need to say anymore. I was thinking that either he is in unbearable pain or they are intending to keep him on life support until he passes. When I walked into his room at the hospital, I quickly realized it was both. He was obviously in a great deal of pain or discomfort and he was connected to several life support machines.
“I’ve had enough,” I screamed silently in my mind while Eli’s family huddled around his bedside. I decided I would do it. If I could find the right kind of Tseen Ke needles and I had enough time alone with him, I would do the right and honorable thing. I would end Eli’s life.
5 - A question of conscience
I remembered skimming through a medical journal article about the Earthly science of acupuncture. It seemed that somewhere along the way, the human race had scratched the surface of Ranjisan’s newer forms of Tseen Ke. I thought it was odd that Earth had apparently been using this ancient Asian science while on Ranjisan it was relatively new. The closest thing to Tseen Ke puncture needles I would find on Earth would be acupuncture needles. But as I thought about it more I realized it wouldn’t be practical. The first problem was that on Earth you can’t just walk into a drug store and buy acupuncture needles. You need to be a licensed practitioner. The other problem would be the procedure itself. If it worked on humans the same as on Ranjisi, the procedure would take about an hour. It would be almost impossible to be alone with Eli for an hour at the hospital. Also, people would see me coming and going from his room and most likely someone
would recognize me.
It was a dilemma. I knew it was time. Eli knew it was time. He had been ready for a long time. I would need to find another solution. The best solution would be getting a Tseen Ke kit from Ranjisan. The kit consisted of three drugs administered in three simultaneous injections. I couldn’t do it with Earthly medicines. I didn’t know enough about them and if I did learn of something that could produce a quick and painless death, the drug would undoubtedly be securely locked up in a drug pantry.
The best solution would be the smuggling of Tseen Ke kits from Ranjisan but that was also impossible. My only Earthly contact was Frank and I couldn’t talk to him about it. He didn’t have the same kind of intimate contact that I had with humans. I knew he would not be able to feel or understand my feelings about how the human death experience was a devastating period of needless suffering.
It appeared I would not be able to help the only friend I had on planet Earth. Instead of spending his final days in comfort and with dignity, the final two months of Eli’s life consisted of pain, fever and life support systems. It was all wrong. I knew it in my mind and heart. But there was nothing I could do.
I had attended funerals on Ranjisan before but there were several things that made Eli’s funeral one of the saddest experiences in my life. First of all, the funerals I attended on Ranjisan were all funerals for people who lived to their natural old age. Eli didn’t need or deserve to die so young and with such little dignity. He could have been cured with Ranjisi medical advancements. But most of all, I was being selfish. Eli was my only human friend. I felt alone again. My eyes felt watery and I wished I could cry. The melancholy seemed to weigh me down physically. My legs felt like tree stumps when I tried to walk. I didn’t bother saying goodbye to Eli’s parents. I just quietly left the funeral.
The Good Reaper Page 5