Chapter 11: What My Soul Does When I Am Asleep by Stephen Simpson

At the hospital, I lift my hand in a wave as I walk past my grandma's bed. Her almost see-through blue eyes follow me across the room, and I smile at her.

I stop at his bed and look for the folder. Even though I try to convince myself I do not need to know who he is, I cannot fool myself anymore. I need to know. It feels important to know who he is. The folder is not where it was, day after day for the last month. My eyes scan across his metal bedside cabinet, where I see the book I am reading to him beside a cravat and a glass of water.

I take a step forward and the light from the fluorescent bulb above my head glints off something below me. I look down and see the folder clipped to a large metal binder clip hanging on a piece of string from the bed.

Without glancing around, I unclasp the folder and take it with me. As I sit down on the chair next to his bed, my eyes lift to watch his face, and then his eyes pop open to stare up at the ceiling. I do not care if the nurses tell me it is possibly only an involuntary muscle spasm. I have the feeling he knows me. He knows it is me sitting here beside him. Even though I don’t know him, at all, somehow, he knows me.

I look down at my lap and open the folder.

His name is Barclay Thomson and he was admitted to the hospital on the twenty first of June, about seven weeks ago and only a week before we arrived here. He spent the first few days in the Intensive Care Unit, and then he was transferred to this ward the same day my grandma was admitted. He suffers from a severe trauma to his skull, which he got when he and his family was in a car accident. According to the file, his dad, mum, and sister died in the accident.

I turn the page and try to decipher the doctor’s scribbles.

Barclay was fully awake for three days after they brought him in and then on the third night he fell asleep and did not wake up the next morning. He is stuck in a deep sleep.

I page through the following pages and pages of medical graphs and charts. They had him on every possible medical machine available to mankind and still they could not figure out why he is here and why he went into a coma.

Obviously, he must know his parents and sister are dead because the doctors would have told him the sad news during those first three days. Maybe he thought living would not be worthwhile without them, and he decided to retreat into his dreams and now he does not want to wake up at all.

I close the file and stand up from the chair I am sitting on. After clipping the file back onto the clip where I found it, I glance at my parents before I stroll out of the room. I did not want to hurry and make my mum and dad notice me leaving the room, wondering where I am going or asking me what I am up to.

In the busy corridor, I turn to the nurses’ station and see the nurse who encouraged me to read to Barclay in the first place. She is bent over the desk and writing something in a big journal.

I stop in front of the desk and place my elbows onto the high wooden front. “Sorry,” I say loud enough to get her attention.

She glances up at me. “How’s the reading going?”

“Okay. I want to ask you something though.”

She stands up straight. The corners of her mouth lifts in a smile and she looks at me with an inquisitive expression.

“It's about Barclay.”

She looks at me, amused. “You read his file. Naughty. It’s private, you know?”

I dismiss her statement. I know it is private and I know I should not be reading it, but if I am going to keep him entertained then surely I have a right to know who he is. “Do you know anything about him?”

“Besides what’s written in the file?” She walks out from behind the desk.

“Yes.”

“Do you drink coffee?” she asks me.

“Yes, but I need to ask you.”

She interrupts me, “It’s time for my break. Come, let’s go to the cafeteria and have a coffee, then I can tell you all I know, which really is not a lot. I can do with the company, though.” She turns away from me a little. “I’m off now, Sammy. Back in fifteen.”

The person she is talking to, whom I presume is Sammy, nods her head in agreement.

I walk next to her down the corridor toward the blue double swing doors. She pushes against the one door and lets me walk through first before she follows me. The windows to my left are large and let all the light and view in. Being in such a large sprawled out country, I can see the hospital and parking area outside the window and then the view continues up to the horizon with green patches, dusty fields and houses built in neat symmetrical lines in between.

We stop at the elevator and she presses the button with the down arrow.

“Are you enjoying reading to Barclay?” she asks while we wait for the elevator.

“The book I chose is something I am also interested in, so even if he cannot hear me and it is really pointless reading to him, I am enjoying the story.”

She glances at me. “Why would you say it's pointless?”

“He's in a coma, and so there's no way he can actually hear me. He is stuck in his head somewhere.”

She chuckles. “I've never heard it put in exactly that way before.”

“It's true though, isn't it?”

“I believe he can hear everything. We just need to talk to him as if he can hear us, and then maybe he'll decide to wake up again.”

I feel guilty to talk about what I read in his file. It is like an invasion of privacy if I must be brutally honest with myself. “Did he talk to anyone in those first days after he came in and before he went into the coma?”

The doors of the elevator in front of us slide open, and she lets me step in before her. There are two other people in the lift as well. Automatically I move to the back corner of the box while she stays standing in the front. As the doors slide closed, I look up at the numbers. Four. Three. Two. The elevator stops and the two other people step out of the lift. After the doors slide closed again, the nurse turns to me. “By the way, my name is Laurie, just in case you didn't already know.”

I did not know, but at least now I can stop referring to her as the nurse.

The doors slide open again and Laurie steps out ahead of me. I follow her along a large area. On one side, there is what could be called a mini mall with a pharmacy, a little gift shop, a small shop selling pyjamas, dressing gowns, slippers, and socks, and lastly a florist. All your hospital needs in one convenient location. Across the small strip-mall there is a large open area with a serving counter in the middle of a lot of square tables with four chairs each, placed in not exactly straight lines.

Laurie walks to the serving counter, and when she reaches it, she looks back at me across her shoulder. “Juice or coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

“Carol, my dear, one tea and a coffee.” Her eyes glance across the tables and chairs. “Usual seat.”

“Be there in a second, Laurie,” a girl with two pigtails on either side of her face says without looking up from whatever she is doing behind the counter.

Laurie leads me to a table and chairs beside the large window. The view outside the window is not of the large entrance or of the parking lot, but of a small garden with flowers and trees. The sun shines in through the glass and it looks as if all the warmth and light is pooled on and around that one table. Laurie slides into a chair with her back to the crowd of other customers and she is facing the garden. “My favourite spot,” she declares.

I sit down on the chair to her right. “It looks very relaxing,” I say as I turn my head to look out the window.

She remains silent as she gazes out the window until Carol arrives with a tray and eases it onto our table carefully.

“How are you on this fine day, dear Carol?”

“Just perfect.” Carol smiles down at her. “Would you like a slice of chocolate cake? Came in fresh this morning.”

Laurie peeks at me. “Would you?”

“I think I would,” I say to Carol.

Carol raises her eyebrows as she looks back at Laurie. “And you?”

“I think I would too. I have a feeling this conversation we are about to have could become heavy, and I'll need a sugary retreat.”

Carol turns as she says, “Two large slices of chocolate cake coming up.”

I lean my elbows on the table and cut off half of Laurie’s view of the garden. She has no choice but to look at me. “So, did he speak to anyone in those first days?”

“Of course, he did. He is not a mute and there is absolutely nothing wrong with him. Not a scratch.”

“How come his family died, yet he did not have a scratch on him? It doesn’t sound possible.”

“According to Johnny, the EMT who brought him in and was at the scene of the accident, Barclay was thrown clear of the car. Even though he was wearing a seat belt, the bolts holding it in place must have malfunctioned or something, because when they found him in a pile of soft sand dug up the day before, the safety belt was still draped over his chest. The car with his family in it caught alight and unfortunately they died in the fire.” She sighs. “We can only hope they were dead before it happened.”

I murmur, “That's so sad.”

Carol arrives with two small plates with a thick slice of chocolate cake on each of them. She places the plates on the table, just as Laurie says, “Very sad.”

Carol asks, “Anything else for the two of you?”

I shake my head, while Laurie says, “No thanks, Carol. That’s all for now.”

“You have nine minutes left. Must I do the usual and tap you on the shoulder when it's time for you to go back?”

Laurie shrugs her shoulders. “Might as well. Thanks, Carol.”

Carol turns and walks away to collect plates, cups, and cutlery from a table just behind us.

“Did he say anything?” I ask Laurie.

For a moment, she looks at me confused. Then she asks, “Barclay?”

“Yes.”

“Obviously, he was heartbroken his family and little sister were dead. He was twelve years older than her, so it must have been especially hard on him.”

“Doesn’t he have any other family? Why does nobody every visit him?”

“His grandparents are still alive, but they live quite a distance from the city so they cannot make the journey to come and visit him often. They are quite elderly, and they cannot leave home to live closer while Barclay is here because his granddad has a medical condition which requires him to stay close to home.”

“They should try to come more often, Barclay cannot be alone all the time, no matter how far it is.”

“Where are you from, Gaby? England, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Very far, as well.”

“Well, it’s nice how things turned out. Not nice for your grandma obviously, but she’ll be okay now. What’s nice is how you ended up here and you are now able to read to him a little each day.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird how his eyes open every time I walk into the room or he hears my voice? I don’t want to be rude, but it gives me the creeps, a little.”

“Not weird at all. In a minimally conscious state, like Barclay, there is some evidence of awareness of himself and his environment.”

“So, are you saying he knows I am there?”

She looks at me for a moment, then she claims, “Yes, he does.” She pinches a piece of cake between her two fingers and pops it into her mouth. “Obviously, he does not know who you are, but he must know you are there.”

Continue reading Chapter 12/19

Copyright © Stephen Simpson. All Rights Reserved.
All work created and posted on this blog is the intellectual property of Stephen Simpson.