Life Flashes

by Beesler, Jeff

  No one answered.

  Then a picture of someone replaced the newscaster on the TV. I narrowed my eyes for a second, only to find someone looking a lot like me in a sports jersey and gym shorts, holding a basketball. I shook my head. Coincidence indeed.

  I shut off the TV, no longer in the mood for the boob tube. My head fell further back into my pillow. How had this not been a dream? I had to get to my exam, but something told me I’d already missed it.

  Another series of clacks carried through from the other side of the wall to my immediate right. I waited to see if someone might open my door. Nothing.

  I hope Tony realizes I’m missing and calls the cops. Gotta find a phone so I can call my mom or someone else in the Seattle area., let them know what’s happened.

  I closed my eyes and sought more sleep. Thoughts of Tony winding up throwing up all over the dorm room haunted my attempt at shut-eye. Hopefully he wasn’t so far drunk he wouldn’t be able to help me out.

  When my eyes opened again, daylight filtered in through the window. I felt a little better, and stronger, until I detected the aroma of urine coming from me. My bed saturated, I made a greater effort to peel myself off the bed and head towards the bathroom. I noticed there was no IV in my arm now. Did I make a faster recovery than what the doctors anticipated? This all seemed a little too sudden for me.

  As I came out of the bathroom, the knob to my main door rattled. I paused with baited breath, my heart racing once again. Was I about to get some answers?

  “Wow, I see you’re up,” a nurse said, wheeling a medicine cart into the room. He wore a lavender set of scrubs, and had a badge that identified him as Fred Zimph. “You might want to lie back down and take it easy. Seriously, no one ever expected you to wake up.”

  “Well, I have,” I said. “Do you have any idea how I got here?”

  Zimph shook his head. “I didn’t bother to ask the doctor. She told me to make sure were comfortable because she wasn’t sure you would ever wake up. That was kind of a nasty injury you took.”

  I glanced down at my body, finding no scrapes or abrasions of any sort. Maybe he meant I had sustained an internal injury.

  “Did I get a concussion?”

  He shook his head at me. “Again, I didn’t ask. She just said you were brought in and that we needed to tend to your needs. I can see, though, that you won’t need us anymore.”

  “Actually, I do have some questions that hopefully you might be able to answer,” I told him.

  Zimph’s cheeks grew rosy, a goofy grin forming on his mouth.

  “I’m awfully flattered, but I’m already happily engaged to a wonderful man,” he said, offering me a wink. “If only you’d come along five years ago. Oh, the things that could have been.”

  “Not what I meant at all, sir,” I said with a sigh.

  “Oh.” Zimph’s sudden silence made the room seem colder. Then he took a breath and said, “I’ll go tell the doctor you’re awake.”

  I simply nodded, and watched him wheel the cart back out. Confusion crept into my mind at his abrupt departure. He didn’t seem the least bit interested in answering my questions. I decided to head over to the window and confirm what I needed to see for myself.

  The skyline looked unrecognizable to me. There was no hint of Puget Sound, no sign of the Space Needle or any other of the Seattle landmarks I’d known my whole life. I could see flat land spreading across every which way; in the lower left corner, I noticed a sign that identified this building as the University of Colorado Hospital.

  So, the news anchor wasn’t lying. I’m in Denver. I bet Mystery Voice Person has something to do with this.

  My gaze remained locked on the view. I rubbed the back of my head, partly because of the confusion, and partly because I needed to make sure no one had recently struck a blow to my head. I didn’t recall talking to anyone other than the Mystery Voice, and that person had sounded too distant to have gotten me physically.

  Fortunately, I found no bump on the back of my head. But if blunt trauma didn’t account for what happened, what did?

  I climbed back into bed and reached for the remote control. On the TV, a soap opera played. I didn’t follow it closely. Mostly, it served as background noise. My thoughts remained intent on getting answers. My best chance of learning anything at all came from Nurse Zimph; even then, he probably wouldn’t be of much help.

  A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. Before I could answer, a woman in a white lab coat set foot into the room. She was an Asian American who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties. Her bangs carried a slight touch of gray, and a couple of wrinkles smiled under her eyes. She approached with a confident gait, stopping at the edge of my bed near my feet.

  “I’m glad to see you’re awake,” she said. “I honestly didn’t know what to think of your situation. There’s nothing physically wrong with you whatsoever.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t even know what happened to me, and I was there for it.”

  Her smile only grew. “Fred told me you were up and about. I would have gotten here sooner if I’d known you were awake.”

  “Right.”

  “You seem to have suffered from a condition that prevented you from waking up. Every test I ran on you indicated you were responsive, except for the fact that you just couldn’t open your eyes and stir. You were in perhaps the deepest sleep I’ve ever seen any of my patients in.”

  “I’m sorry to have worried you so much.”

  The doctor smiled at me. “I’m just happy to see you alert. I detected no physical trauma, so I kept hoping that perhaps the affliction may have been psychological. Tell me the last thing you remember before waking up.”

  I ran my hand through the scruff on the back of my neck. “Well, I went to study for my final examination in one of my classes. Calculus, if I’m not mistaken. I had my dorm to myself, as my roommate Tony had gone out drinking rather than study for his own tests. I kept having a headache that I assumed came from just an endless day of studying. I tend to overdo it when it comes to test preparation.” She beamed at me when I said this. “Then I started hallucinating, like I couldn’t touch things, or I’d hear someone talking to me when I was the only person in the room.”

  The doctor kept staring at me after I relayed my account to her. Under the scrutiny of her gaze, the warmth in my cheeks began to sting. I’d pushed myself too far and I knew it. Worse, the doctor seemed to have recognized this, too.

  “Anything else?” she urged when I said nothing.

  “Well, I tried to get a grip on it, literally. I’m not sure when I passed out, to be honest, but I thought for a moment I moved from my dorm room to the middle of a street. I remember the air being dry around me for a moment, and then rain pelting me on the face. I heard cars honking, but then nothing after that, at least not until I woke up in your hospital.”

  “I see,” the doctor said with a soft smile.

  I traced my fingers up and down my arms, the room’s temperature not suitable for me mere inches away from my bedsheets.

  “I do believe you should see a psychiatrist to see if there’s anything else you might need to have checked out,” she added. “I could refer you to the one on staff here at the hospital if you’d like.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “Just keep it in mind. I don’t want you to suffer a relapse from whatever it is that you’re suffering from,” she said, heading toward the door. “I’ll come back later and check in on you after you’ve rested.”

  I nodded at her, waiting until she left before I thought about my next course of action. A bleep from the chair by the window caught my attention. I went to investigate at once, hoping the noise didn’t disturb anyone else in the hospital. The doctor didn’t return, nor did Nurse Zimph. I reached into the pants pocket and pulled out a smartphone that looked like mine, except that there were more cracks on the screen and body than were on mine back in my dorm
room. The ding that rang out indicated the phone’s battery was low on power. Without a charger, I’d never be able to call Tony and tell him what happened. Suddenly, this became my top priority before I lost my one chance at reaching him.

  The phone rang as I tried to call him. Then a crackle of static carried through the line. An instant later, I heard nothing. Using the phone hadn’t been such a good idea after all, but I saw no signs posted that prohibited the use of such inside these walls. I turned off the phone until I could get my hands on a charger. With only about ten-percent battery power left in its reserves, I couldn’t afford to waste any energy.

  I slid the phone back into the pocket and tossed the jeans back onto the chair, leaving the pants in disarray. Moments later, I plopped down in my bed, eyes ready for more rest.

  “Oh, my God! Tyler, you’re all right!” another woman cried out from the doorway.

  I bit my lip at this. What now?

  CHAPTER 3

  MOTHER FROM ANOTHER CITY

  University of Colorado Hospital

  Room 1125

  1:35 PM Mountain Daylight Time

  The woman in the burgundy pantsuit strode toward me in a harried manner, throwing her arms around me in such a way that her purse nearly whacked me upside the head. A whiff of lemon-scented perfume nearly gagged me. What had she doused herself in, dish soap or something? I went to twist my head away, but my eyes scanned liquid joy in her gaze. I maintained eye contact, even though I had no idea who she was.

  “Keith told me you were in the hospital. Are you all right?” she asked, running her hand through my hair as if doting on me.

  Not knowing who Keith was, I downplayed my shock and uncertainty.

  “I’m sorry for making you worry,” I said. “But the doctor said I should be ready to leave here soon.”

  The woman with the lemon scent studied me curiously.

  “How is it that you were involved in a total collision, and yet somehow you don’t appear to even have a scratch on yourself?”

  I couldn’t answer her question, at least not when her stare bored into my soul with such intent.

  “Sorry. I don’t even know myself.”

  “Oh, Tyler,” she said, pulling a tissue out of her giant handbag and dabbing her eyes with it. “I’ll ask the doctor about it soon enough, okay? Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”

  Truth was, I could list at least ten different things right off the top of my head. One look at the glimmer of relief in her eyes and I outright forgot them all.

  “I’m okay,” I said, annoyed with myself for not telling her I wasn’t her Tyler. At first, I thought she may have been the person I heard the other night. Then she stroked my hand. Her skin felt soft to the touch. I got the distinct impression she often exfoliated. The voice sounded like it belonged to a cruel heart, which this woman didn’t appear to have.

  “Are you sure? I mean, you’re in the hospital. Does your boss at Windfall Burgers even know you’re here?” she asked me.

  I shook my head on pure instinct, but caught myself right before I spilled the beans over my unemployment.

  “I bet no one at that burger joint is even aware of what happened to you.”

  The beads of sweat clinging to my brow let me know I wasn’t holding up well under her presence, and not just because of the perfume. A sudden drop in my energy level made me lie down on my hospital bed. Swirling white and yellow lights drowned out about half of my surroundings. I came close to passing out, yet somehow didn’t.

  “I’ll step outside and have Keith call your work for you,” she said without waiting for my reply. Her hand slipped away from my grip. “They need to know you were injured in a car crash.”

  I stared down at my arms and legs. “Yeah, except there doesn’t seem to be anything really wrong with me. My boss isn’t going to like that.”

  They’re also not going to like the fact that I don’t know how to even flip a burger, considering I’ve never worked at a fast food place before in my life.

  “Have they been pushing you too hard over there? Because, if so, I can just go on over there and have a chat with them.”

  “No, thank you,” I said, a bit more panicked than intended. “I’ll sort it out with them later.”

  “Tyler, I’m your mother.” She pressed her hand against her jacketed bosom. “It’s my natural duty to look out for you. I’m not going to let anyone be mean to my baby boy.”

  Mortification burned my face and underarms once again. Logically, I knew she wasn’t my mother. But the way she made me cringe gave me reason for pause. How did she inspire such dread in my heart? She was a stranger to me.

  Then I looked a little deeper, realizing there was something about her that felt familiar. What was it?

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m an adult, Mom.” The word escaped me before I could stop it. She wasn’t my mother, not by any means. My real mother, Anne Teph-Smith, had raised me all on her own since Dad died. In fact, I had no real memory of my father, and Mom had kept very few pictures of him around.

  “An adult who’s currently recovering from a car crash.”

  I offered her a casual shrug, hoping it might placate her.

  “I guess you have a point.”

  A smug smile perched upon her cherry lips.

  “You’re okay, Tyler. You’re going to get out of here, get your job in order, rise to own your own burger restaurant someday, and buy me that mansion on the West Coast like you’ve always told me you were going to do.”

  I kept from laughing. “You know it’s going to take a long time and a lot of money for that to happen.”

  “Well, don’t give up on your dreams. They give us a purpose in life,” she said. “Now, I need to go get something to eat from the cafeteria. Want me to bring you anything? It can’t be good to eat just that gelatin with the moldy fruit.”

  “Thanks, I’m good.” I held up my hand, and she squeezed it again.

  “You’re my only child. If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do with myself,” she said.

  I frowned at that. “Let’s not think about that right now. I’m sure the doctor doesn’t want me to stress out.”

  She beamed at me again. “Ever the wise one, Tyler. I’m just sorry you haven’t gone to college yet. But you’re still young, right?”

  At this, I bit my lip. The temptation to blurt out my actual name pecked at my soul. “Right.”

  “I still can’t believe you actually asked for me not to cut you a check. You said if you couldn’t get to college on your own merit, then you wanted nothing to do with it.”

  Uh-oh. My first actual test mimicking Tyler. Would she see right through me?

  “I just think hard work is its own reward,” I said, throwing out the first thing that sprang to mind. Honestly, what could I say? Anything else would only incriminate me.

  The smile wound its way back onto her lips a second afterward.

  “Such a responsible young man. I suppose I can always write you out a check if you need a small loan. That way you can pay me back instead of a bank.”

  At this, I nodded. “We’ll talk more later, okay? I think the doctor isn’t gonna release me today.”

  She nodded. “I still want to help you out. Yes, yes, I know you’re twenty-one years old and can handle yourself, but this is something I want to do.”

  “That’s not necessary, Mom. I’m fine. Really,” I said, stroking her hand to soothe the idea right out of her head.

  She pouted slightly, her gaze drilling into me.

  “If money is an issue, you know I’ve got that covered. No one’s going to keep Valerie Jonson from taking very good care of her son.”

  Seeing as how I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, I gave her a sheepish grin.

  “If that’s what you want to do, Mom, I guess I can’t stop you.”

  A sudden beep from the pants across the room caught Faux-Mom’s attention.

  “Is that your phone?” sh
e asked me.

  “Uh, sure,” I said.

  Another bleep from my jeans pocket drew Faux-Mom over to my slacks. She reached in and pulled out the Android. At once, confusion filled her face.

  “Looks like your phone’s seen better days,” she said.

  “I meant to buy a new one a few days ago,” I said.

  She cast a mere shrug. “Oh. Well, you’ll probably want to charge it at some point. It looks like it’s low on battery power.”

  I cracked a small grin. “Thanks, Mom. I just don’t know where to find a phone charger right now.”

  “I could have Keith bring yours over, if he hasn’t already left for the hospital,” she said, whipping out her phone.

  “Uh, Mom. You’ll have to take that outside. Hospitals are cellphone-free zones.”

  She blinked at me in the same way that Nurse Zimph and the doctor, as if I were speaking gibberish.

  “Fine. I’ll go outside. I’ll probably get a better signal away from these stuffy walls.” She headed for the door, and then paused. “I’m a little surprised at you, Tyler.”

  “How so?”

  “You’ve never been this uptight before. I’m starting to think you need to see a specialist. If something happened to you, we need to know right away. I don’t want you wind up being—how do I put this nicely—harmed.”

  As much as I wanted to come out and tell her the truth about not being her son, I appreciated knowing someone was looking out for me. I needed reassurance right now, and Faux-Mom Valerie Jonson supplied that to me in droves.

  “You’ll be back soon, right?” I asked her.

  “Oh, don’t you worry. I may have to run off and take care of a few things, but I’ll take you home with me when the doctor grants you your release. You and Keith can stay in the guest bedroom while you recover.”

  I cast another glance down at my arms and legs. “You don’t have to go that far for me.”

  “Nonsense!” she said with a strained giggle. Had she gotten annoyed with me already? “I’m your mother. I’m going to take care of you. I don’t care how old you are. Just let me baby you for a few days.”