Organ - Chapter 2

ORGAN

Chapter Two

Tranquilly dull intermittent bleeps from an unseen machine chimed away as Oscar slowly came to his senses, his location a foggy splitting mystery, his head still clouded with half memories of the incident at home that evening. Feeling an unpleasant sting in his nostril he explored around his face clumsily with tired hands, a thin plastic hose trailed from his chest and up into his nose, the realisation immediately made Oscar loudly gag as his eyes filled with water. His movements had finally caught the attention of a member of staff from the hospital who hustled into the room and firmly pulled the young man’s hands away from his face, rescuing the breathing tubes that now barely hung in place. The nurse stood readily by his side until the boy’s mother came rushing in, clattering into the doors and walls as she swung her bag under arm, she grabbed for his hands with tears in her eyes.

“What happened?” Oscar breathed out in a confused dreary voice.

“You fainted, and I had to call an ambulance, sweet” his shaking mother replied with chokes forming in her throat.

She had visible signs of stress across her face, her hands still clutching his in a grip that spoke a thousand fluttering concerned words. Oscar gently pulled himself up to a seated position in the hospital bed to try and clear the dense fog that still drowned coated his mind. As he once again struggled with the tubes leading into his nose, another white coated stranger entered the room holding a clipboard in the typical ominous doctoral fashion.

“Hello Mr Rubens, I am Chief of Medicine Doctor Boothe” this weighty character with a round red shiny face and circular lensed glasses declared to the room without lifting his eyes from his papers. Oscar did not respond as Doctor Boothe sauntered in, “How are you feeling?” Boothe asked, sadly in the moment Oscar could not answer clearly.

“My head hurts, I feel nauseous, what happened to me?” he replied in his bed-ridden state, his voice sore, and the fear in his tone unmistakable to everyone present, his mother gripped his hand even tighter after hearing his aching voice.

“You took a nasty fall we had to make sure you didn’t have a concussion, your mother mentioned that you had visited your GP earlier today, How did that go?” Boothe was becoming more forceful and deliberate with his line of questioning.

Oscar looked at his mother for a moment, frustrated for some silly proud reason at her divulging all this information on his behalf and then down at the bed sheets in shame.

“I felt fine when I got home, honestly, it was just a spotty lump thing on my stomach that started to hurt after I got examined”, he declared with false dedication to his stance, before his Doctor could reply he interrupted the rooms silence, this time with more truth to his speech, “I got a stabbing pain in my stomach before I fell, It happened at a coffee shop earlier this morning as well after my appointment”.

The news of a prior instance of pain led his mother to drop his hands, her expression grew harsh with expected anger.

“Why didn’t you tell me!” she almost shouted before gathering herself, not for the first time. 

Oscar stared away from all present and focused his stare into the hospital corridor over Boothes shoulder. Angry that she was making a scene Oscar felt tears once again filling his eyes, but he knew she was right.

“I didn’t want to worry you, I thought it was nothing” he mumbled away from all present.

Mary did not reply, she sulked back forcefully in her chair with disgust at his off-handed response. Boothe, sensing the family on the verge of a fight, took the silence in hand.

“Let us run some more tests on your stomach, blood and urine to see what we are dealing with okay Oscar, take some rest and we will check up on you soon.” 

Oscar nodded in acceptance as the Doctor made a swift departure, the patient was left alone with his steaming mother and knew that a verbal undressing was imminent, even worse was the fact he knew it was deserved. Evening had fallen with its own peaceful cradle; Oscar spent the entirety of the day in his hospital bed being wheeled into various rooms for examinations and what seemed an unnecessary number of blood and urine samples being extracted. The day had taken its toll, and exhaustion was now all the young man felt. Oscars room that evening was a welcoming serene darkness, the only light that illuminated his face was a feint greenish glow from an unrelenting machine. Oscar stirred in his sleep when his stomach began to grumble, half opening his eyes as to not wake himself up completely he assessed the general darkness of the room and began to once again drift off reassured. 

Another low sounding gurgle emanated from his stomach; this time Oscar opened both eyes wide. Shifting his bodyweight to find another comfortable spot in his bed he closed his eyes tightly and fought to reclaim the sleep his body greatly needed. Oscar always found it difficult sleeping in beds that was not his, this notion singing unhappily in his head only made things more frustrating. Suddenly another all too familiar stab shot through his prone body, seared with fiery pain his stomach cramped, and palms clenched into vault tight fists. Oscar attempted with all his remaining faculties to call out, but no words escaped his dry mouth, this sensation of torment had already persisted longer than his previous encounter. It was a lifetime in his mind but a mere passage of minutes before the haunting realisation set in, Oscar could not freely move his body. Tears began fill up his saggy exhausted eyelids as he fought with his remaining life to move a single digit, still unable to unclench his fists that sat in tight curled spasm and now began to bleed from the excess force of his nails in his palms. Gasps escaped his frozen body in heavy gulps for air as Oscar battled internally with his unmoving lifeless constricted form, the pain was suddenly interrupted by a silent muffled voice that seemed to cut through his mind and disperse all torture, for a moment at least.

“Hurt………hurt!,” the sound was muffled, and the voice was almost human, it felt wrong to Oscars ears, almost lifeless as a voice in a dream might seem. 

Nonetheless unable to apply motion to his body, Oscar now lay silently weeping and clutching at laboured breaths in an effort to ride the wave of this terrifying waking seizure, that bodiless voice spoke out for a second time.

“Hurt……. hurt……hurt!,” unmistakable and now unignorable.

Oscar silenced his breath with maximum effort to confirm what he had imagined; a new presence was in the room. Was this voice in his head, some manifestation of his mental strain in the seemingly unending torturous waves or was this voice an unseen person, a spectre, stood in the shadows just out of sight. Unable to turn his head to confirm either theory, Oscar began to close his eyes as he accepted the gathering darkness swallowing him up. Passing out once more into the beautiful saving graces of his mental fortress of unconsciousness, unsure if he would wake should this phantom voices owner choose to take his life as prize. Whispers jostled for space in his ears, heavy eyes flickered, and shallow breaths became rapid with foul smelling dryness.

“Wake……wake!,” this voice called out as Oscar stirred once more from the dreamy painted void.

 “WAKE!” the voice screamed as he awoke with a startling sudden shock, sympathetically and with much surprise his body was free from the clutches of paralysis, although a deep ache was set in all through his muscles. 

Oscar pulled himself upright with difficulty as he relearned the use of his arms, the room was brighter than when he had last experienced it, and the light felt punishing on his sore unrested eyelids. Various figures moved about him as he wiped the yellow crusty sleep from his eyes with a shaky ungraceful hand, Dr Boothe’s voice was clear in the static that engulfed his hearing, he spoke in medical terms that lost stranded themselves on Oscars waking brain.

“Oscar, Oscar are you okay? How are you feeling? The nursing team came to me this morning to tell me your vitals spiked last night” Boothe called out to him seeing for himself this visible foggy curtain that held the young man and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder to calm any woes that his patient felt.

“What happened to me?” Oscar squeaked out through understandably sore nodes, the taste and rank smell of his own breath made him feel even worse.

Boothe took a long time to respond, Oscar noticed and prompted the professional once again by clearing his throat emphatically, “Well if we had to assume based on your vital signs and physical injuries, you had what we believe to be a pretty nasty panic attack accompanied by a fit of sorts” the Doctors response lacked the surety it had the previous day as he began to lay out more seemingly unproven assumptions of last night’s horrendous encounter with muscle cramping nightmares. 

“Did you feel any pain in your stomach at all last night that you can recall? Your hands still hurting?” Boothe posed the questions with more authority this time clawing back his aura of control as he lifted Oscars sore palms from the bed and examined then for a moment. Glancing down at his wounded paws that Boothe carelessly dropped to the sheets, Oscar saw with his own eyes the damage he had caused, clear bloody indentations of his fingernails buried themselves in the palm of his hands beneath lightly dressed bandages, his hands began to twinge with an awful throbbing.

“I heard a voice last night, I couldn’t move but I heard a voice”,  he paused as he waited for more information to present itself in his rattled skull. “I couldn’t reach the buzzer to call for a nurse, my body locked up,” Oscar’s voice was shaking, the Doctor looked on troubled, the patient was scared and nothing in his body felt stable.

“Have you ever experienced night terrors or had panic attacks before?” Doctor Boothe was clearly piecing together the evening in his own studious mind; Oscar shook his head as he tested his damaged hands clenching and unclenching assessing their usability, they stung with dried bloody trails cracking at every flex. 

“Hearing voices isn’t unusual during a panic attack, especially if you did indeed have a night terror or even just a vivid nightmare beforehand. You have been through a lot of trauma Oscar, try to relax and we will monitor your progress this evening, okay,” Boothe declared, he could see that this gave the young man no reason to lift his head in hope but sauntered out of the room regardless. “You won’t be left alone tonight; I will make sure of it” he added as he closed the door behind him and shot back a scrunched-up grin. 

The truth in the air, unspoken, was that nobody seemed to know what was happening to Oscar, no mask wearing nurse or coat adorned doctor knew what was causing the stabbing hurt nor the blacking out sessions and Oscar could simply lay helpless awaiting another visit from either or both of these unwelcome debilitating guest. Oscar awaited a call from his mother that night as day turned to evening, she had returned home from the hospital the night before in order to pick up the shifts at her school that she had missed while visiting Greenwood Heart Hospital. Mum had sent him the occasional text message, but Oscar seemingly forgot the notion of his phone’s existence for the early nights inside. Wanting to settle in for a hopefully uninterrupted sleep, he emptied his bladder thoroughly, washed his hands that still stung from his self-inflicted punctures and shuffled into bed before an unknown nurse gingerly stepped into the room with a gentle knock.

“Hello Oscar, my name is Katherine, you can call me Katie, I am here to keep an eye on you this evening. I will be here for the night to make sure you are safe and jump in should you need me, but I am sure you won’t” she joked with him before assuming his reaction would be welcoming, but Oscar knew it was a mandated task and smiled before climbing into bed and switching off his night lamp. Katie busied herself around the room as her patient settled, her dark hair tied up in a neat bun and rounded red cheeks distracted him briefly. Oscar would normally have felt embarrassed wearing an open backed robe in front of an attractive woman like Katie, but in that moment, he felt nothing but tired.

“Goodnight Katie” he quietly whispered.

“Sleep tight Oscar” she replied with a soothing voice as she slumped into a chair near the door.

Her guard was all that stood between Oscar and yet another descent into unknown horrors of which still hid in mystery in the young man’s mind, but for whatever reason, Oscar felt safe with Katie at his side that night. Just past midnight, Nurse Katie had fallen asleep in her armchair by the hospital room door, the hum of electrical machinery filled the air as Oscar lay safely asleep in his bed. Rain pelted angrily against the window facing the outside world with persistent clattering rhythm, the wind whipped violent bursts of water into the glass as both occupants wandered in and out of deep sleep. One particularly harsh lash of rain woke up the resident nurse with a frightening jump, it was not exactly professional for her to be sleeping on the job, but she did not fully understand why exactly she was standing guard for a sleeping man with the appearance of healthy vitals in the first place, not to mention her working multiple extra shifts this month to cover her friends at the nurses station.

Nevertheless, Katie cared about the patients she oversaw at Greenwood and didn’t outwardly question the decision to place her here for the evening. Wiping away the drool from the corner of her mouth that had dripped onto her shoulder as she slept, Katie glanced up at Oscars lifeless body and with her dreary heavy eyes confirmed that he was indeed still breathing steady breaths. Pulling out her phone to acknowledge the time and quickly turning down the brightness so as to not wake her patient, it was late, but she was not a stranger to unusual hours working at one of the busiest hospitals in the county.

“Wake……wake,” a bodiless voice called out eerily in the darkness that swallowed the room, Katie looked around in confusion and assumed the noise was a misheard cluster of sound effects that orchestrated themselves via the wind outside the window. “Wake……wake……wake,” once again the muffled voice called out carelessly into the darkness, Katie stood up quietly, still reeling from a stiff sleep, all four corners of the room could be seen and presented no intruder nor unknown vendor of unwelcome twilight noise.

Glancing out the window Katie reassured herself that it was indeed the wind whistling its haunting song, tricking her tired mind in the dark hush of night. Taking the chance as Oscar slept seemingly peacefully and with her brain now playing dreamy tricks on her, Katie decided to grab a coffee from the vending machine down the hall, it stood a mere twenty feet away begging for customers. Gently she closed Oscars door with a metallic click that echoed and tiptoed away as to not break his sleep.

“Wake…. wake……WAKE!” the final repeated word in this ghostly call woke Oscar with a snap! 

He sat up sharply, frantically looking about the room, no sign of another person and no sign of Nurse Katie. His mind began to race still trapped wandering somewhere between dream and reality as the visions of better things faded and these worse ideas rush to fill their space. Was this a dream, he was unsure and the lack of Katies presence gave him further doubt.

“Hello?,” he cautiously spoke out into the blackness; he received no response.

Ascending fog cleared and he began to reason with his initial fear, assuring himself that this was yet another bad dream or the aftereffects of a night terror as Boothe explained. He began to step out of bed and feel out for some water on his bedside table, the floor felt icy cool under barefoot. The outside audio of rain roaring made the room feel all the more colder. It was an unpleasant state of affairs. Oscar chugged back two or three large mouths of room-temperature water and sat back against his bed, Katie must have gone for a break he thought to himself as he adjusted his twisted pyjama top. Climbing back into bed Oscar struggled with the blankets attempting to pull them from under his weight with sore hands. Without warning those same hands began to once more lock up, his arms both shook in spasm, the frantic breaths returned as he lost all control of his upper body, collapsing face down into the mattress with a hard uninhibited thud of the chin. Oscar’s breathing turned short and shallow, as he struggled with what little mobility he still retained, the covers now crept in a tangle around his face, the sheets coiled through his writhing like a soft cotton suffocating snake reaching around his face and strangling at his neck.

“Pain…NOT SAFE!…. PAIN!” that disembodied voice now screeched in his ears almost popping his drums.

Tears once more rained involuntarily down the young man’s face as the struggle for air became impossible to capture against the tangled net of sheets. Bursting into the room having seen the situation on her slow ambling return, Katie dropped her coffee to the floor and leapt onto the bed with heroic motion, frantically struggled and rolled Oscar onto his side, ensuring his tongue was not slipping into the back of his throat, this last-ditch saviour slammed on the panic alarm to call for reinforcements. The room quickly filled with white coats and blue scrubs in a tornado of movement as Oscar lay motionless wet faced and half hanging off his bed, inches from suffocating death, two words spoken to him as he began to close his eyes.

“….Not safe.”

Oscar’s mother was called in that very night as the morning sun began to grow tucked behind the horizon; his condition now noted as a matter of severity if he were to be left unattended. The young man had shown no signs of a diagnosable illness or ailment, no signs of self-harm or abuse, but somehow that night he had almost succumbed to suffocation through jarring paralysis. Boothe, Katie, and his mother, Mary, stood outside his room conversing and occasionally glancing over or pointing to the patient. Katie was obviously shaken by the affair that could have cost Oscar his life, her previous rosy, red cheeks now a pale white, almost ghostly, she was holding one hand to her collar bone as she gestured with the other to both her attending chief and Mrs Rubens. Oscar was awake and stared through glazed eyes out of the room, longingly into the now clear skies outside, red friction burns lined his face and neck from the close call smothering. Every exhale pinched his damaged skin. All three entered his room and Boothe ensured the door was closed behind them. His mother came to his bedside and pulled up a chair, aware of the wounds on his still bandaged palms she took to holding his forearm instead this time. Oscar noticed her hands feeling clammy. Nurse Katie lent against the door and stared with great concern into the patients vacant eyes. Doctor Boothe had his shielding clipboard and flicked over a couple of pages before clearing his throat.

“Oscar first of all we are very sorry that you were left alone, even for a moment, the nurse has informed me she stepped out for a moment, and we have already spoken to her regarding the severity of her absence,” Dr Boothe was livid in his delivery and Katie looked from Oscars eyes to the floor, and then to the window seeking a lifeline in the sea of guilt she felt pulling her into the dark.

“It wasn’t her fault” Oscar said through his sore throat, his voice barely recognisable to his mother, the movement of his cheeks made the burns on his face sting, “I heard a voice again, it woke me up,” he continued.

Oscar knew how crazy it sounds that he keeps hearing a voice in his head every time he feints or collapses, the Doctor had already expressed no interest in following up on this notion of spectral voices and frankly he felt it pointless to continue chasing that rabbit.

“I might have heard something too,” Katies voice called out from the back of the room without lifting her head.

“What do you mean you heard something? What the hell does that mean?” Mary said with obvious anger in her voice directed plainly at the nurse she blamed for her sons recent injuries.

Oscars eyes widened, did she really hear the voice he thought with both vindicating excitement and mortal dread.

“I am sorry, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I thought I heard someone saying something in the room,” Katie continued with her eyes now fixed on the disgruntled mother.

“You fell asleep?” Doctor Boothe asked with a sigh and a shake of the head.

Oscar imagined it was the acknowledgment of guilt in front of potentially lawsuits that angered him more, Katie was not coming off well in this, Oscar saw it but felt powerless to help.

“He was sleep talking, that was what you heard,” Boothe stated with conviction. Katie nodded her head and looked towards her feet once again, Oscar did not believe the doctor, but it made sense to him logically and comforted his mother, so the new truth was accepted. “Regardless of what happened prior to your episode, you almost suffocated and we can’t ignore that Oscar,” Dr Boothe said now directly addressing the young man laid out in the bed. “We are going to have to take some measures while we monitor your brains activity over night, I won’t lie to you Oscar this is not a pleasant way to determine a prognosis, but I want to make sure you aren’t at risk of hurting yourself again.”

Oscar turned his head towards the window and ignored everything else that was said, the three adults took turns exchanging various opinions and facts, but Oscar wanted to hear no more of it. He simply lay dreading his next expected encounter with the terrors that seem to possess when the lights go out and the sun goes down. The following day he was whisked away to yet another different examination room.

Loud lights flickered in front of his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling, Boothes voice was present but his exact whereabouts remained unfounded in the unknown. Cold leather straps secured the patients arms, legs and head to the hospital gurney as various machines hummed with mechanical vigour; no comfort was given or found as he lay unable to move awaiting tests to be administered by faceless mask wearing drones in various states of hospital protective equipment. Boothe appeared standing over Oscar’s bed.

“You all right Oscar? Can I do anything to make you more comfortable before we start?” the doctor offered as he gently and no-so-subtly tested the restraints on the bed with a loose dangling hand.

“No, I think I am okay, thank you,” Oscar replied with trepidation in his voice and obvious nerves shivering over his skin, his arms becoming prickly with goose pimples in the vacant cold room.

“Now don’t worry, this won’t hurt at all,” Boothe assured as he peeled back the thin scratchy blankets that covered him, “This machine will detect any anomalies that may be present in your brains activity and after that we will apply the same practice to test the tissue in your stomach muscles,” the doctor explained as he rudely gestured to the lump that started all this drama.

Gently nodding and feigning a smile as the doctor patted his shoulder and left the room, yet another unrecognisable hospital worker entered and wheeled Oscars bed into position at the feet of the large humming piece of medical equipment.

“Try to keep still while the machines running, I find it helps to focus if you keep your eyes closed,” a calm muffled voice spoke out from behind the sanitary mask on the attendant’s face. Oscar simply nodded, breathing deeply to calm himself, the attending professional followed Boothes lead and left the room with a little hustle in their step, the metallic clunking chime of a lock echoed unchallenged throughout the room. No signs of comfort.

“Okay Oscar, we are going to start the tests now, if you feel like you can’t carry on at any point, please raise your wrist and we will stop” Doctor Boothes voice bellowed with static jarring tones through the intercom, Oscar flexed his wrist for the watchers to see in agreement, the staff seemed to be monitoring the situation from apparent safety in the room adjacent. “Thank you Oscar,”

Nerves seemed to be delaying all abilities in relation to speech, no sentences felt correct in the situation. Jolting the bed violently the machinery powered into existence, slowly dragging the hospital gurney into the mouth of the large circular apparatus, the force of the process starting and his bed shaking drove a nervous fever through his helpless spine. Clicking into place, the machine hummed louder and louder, growing in motion as lights began to scan from left to right in the small claustrophobic chrome and white tunnel. Oscar breathed deeply and buried all thoughts of dread in notions of his mothers’ concern, the lines of worry on her face had grown thick over the course of his visit to the hospital and he had noticed a sadness he had not seen in her since his father died all those years ago. Oscar closed his eyes as the machine still scaled up in volume and illumination, the lights moved rapidly inside the coffin-like tunnel across the young man’s head causing his eyes to close and open again like the shutter on a camera. After a short while the machine began to gradually power down.

“That was great Oscar, we have completed the first set of checks.” the intercom clicked off again as Doctor Boothe attempted to keep his patient informed, “We just need to run them again on your abdomen and we will be ready to pull you out,” his voice now had much sweeter reverberance and did slightly relax Oscars concerns.

The gurney jerked into life for the last time and shifted Oscar further into the belly of the metal beast, his body almost completely covered, only his feet sticking out for the attending staff to  watch from their viewing station next door. Steel clicks rattled through the hollow machine, echoing just short of painfully in his ears, the volume was uncomfortable, the hum once again began to climb into life and the lights once more flickered on and off as they began the dance across his abdomen that still remained strapped in place with uncomfortable purpose. Mere moments into the scan, this time on his stomach, Oscar could feel his chest tightening at the ribs, he began instinctively breathing deeply in a loose attempt to alleviate the pressure. Increasing ever more in uncontrolled speed the dizzying lights bounced with a fierce pace, immense ache shot up through his spinal column causing his neck to jut out and his chin to lift violently from the bed as the strap containing his forehead tensed back in disagreement. With his body still secured, his burst of movement drew stinging all across his tangled helpless person. Oscar screamed out as he thrashed in the bed bound torture device, his bones now burning with stabbing pains and the overwhelming sensation of collapse seeping into his brain.

“Pleeeeease……stop!,” Oscar squeezed out through choking breaths, no relief found him as his words seemingly went unheard. “Ple……” his second call for aid broke apart bouncing off his tongue as the young man’s throat almost closed completely. Desperate breaths left his lungs, but no words formed, his struggle gained no attraction from the helpers nearby.

“PAIN!” screamed out through the room as the haunting bodiless voice returned to the fold.

“NOT SAFE……PAIN!,” it called out almost mimicking Oscars pleading cries.

Snaps of popping fire shot about Oscar’s brain as the machine slowly dwindled in power, the hum grew to a silent rattling and the lights dimmed to welcoming darkness. Finally, the gurney slowly rolled out of the machines clutches as Oscars agonised body lay lifelessly back into a melted collapse, like a candle of flesh already done with the wax.

“Please help me,” Oscar begged through broken breaths to the attending doctors and nurses, almost mockingly the voice once more called out after him,

“Pain.” Oscar lay restrained, trapped, alone in the darkness with only this rogue voice to comfort his deteriorating mind.

Another day had passed since the latest encounter, this time the stage was the examination room for his latest instance of anguish. Oscar waited, in his now all too familiar hospital room, his mother by his side cradling his hands that no longer stung in her comforting sweaty grasp. Mary had spent a few hours filling her son in on her daily routines she had been living through while he was in the hospital and spoke softly of home comforts like the football results or the latest gossip from the neighbours.

“Everyone from work was wishing you well, they wrote you a nice card, I’ve got it here somewhere,” his mother explained as she dropped his hand and reached into her bag for a rummage, pulling out a small purple envelope with a smiling sun sticker sealing it closed.

Sensing his reluctance with his still mending palms she opened it for him, the card was colourful and had a large cheesy image of a bandaged cat on the front cover. Oscar glazed over generic well wishes from people he had never met; he knew that none of these people really cared beyond the required social niceties, but it meant something to his Mum, so he smiled and acted grateful.

“Thanks Mum, that’s really nice of them. Could you thank them for me please” Oscar graciously said as he gestured for her to take the card away, she smiled and placed it on his bedside table pushing aside several empty cups and a handful of wasted plastic straws.

“They aren’t keeping it very tidy in here are they,” Mary stated with annoyance heavy in her tone.

“Nobody seems to want to come near me right now. I’m the Greenwood freak, their little monster,” Oscar mumbled with a painted grin and a little forced chuckle to comfort his mother, her nerves still rested on soft eggshells, and he knew better than to set her off before she spoke with Boothe.

“That’s ridiculous, they are paid to take care of you, and they aren’t doing a great job thus far are they” she threw out with blustery energy while stacking the empty containers that several meals left behind.

Oscar nodded and glimpsed about the window facing the outside corridor, various soft coloured scrubs wandered past throughout the day but no sign of his doctor, or nurse Katie for that matter which made the young man even more melancholy. Katie was in some serious hot water for her part that night Oscar almost suffocated in his bed. He did not blame her though, how could she have known what was waiting for her and while his ailment is indeed still a mystery, he felt as though her scolding from Boothe was unfairly given. Oscar’s day dreaming was interrupted by his mother’s phone vibrating aggressively in her bag, Mary fished around for it frantically, scanned the contents of the message before huffing out a huge sigh and putting it back down into the impossibly deep bag she always carried.

“Work again?” Oscar posed already knowing the answer, that sigh was trademark at this point, he had seen it many times before.

“Yes, they aren’t happy that I am off again,” she explained with drained patience seeping through her typically deliberate voice.

“You know I am going to be okay if you can’t visit for a few days?” Oscar attempted to comfort his mother’s concerns, “It isn’t like I am hundreds of miles away; I can call you before I go to bed if that makes it easier for you and give you all the details on my latest antics,” he continued, in truth Oscar felt it would make it easier for him to have her out of the way for a while.

Mary raised her head and smiled with that beautiful motherly love that Oscar drank in through deprived eyes, she brought both hands up and cradled his face with gentle caress.

“Okay, that sounds good, just don’t go causing any more trouble” she softly replied as she once again moved her hands to his and shared a giggle with her bed ridden boy. They agreed upon a time to call every night to check in with each other, it gave his mother a much-needed lift. 

Mary sat back in her chair, still holding her boys’ hand tightly in hers as sweat pooled between their palms, her demeanour was now at peace and Oscar, feeding off this, almost forgot the reason he was even laying in that hospital bed for a blissful ignorant moment. The peace however was fleeting and could never last, Oscar knew that the doctor and nurses still had to determine if he was “crazy” or if he was dying, he didn’t have the answers to put any minds at ease, his mother was none the wiser to this and Oscar wanted to enjoy the pockets of stillness with her before the professionals would arrive and deliver another unwanted theory to her already troubled mind.

Doctor Boothe entered the room after gently tapping on the door first with the metal part on his clipboard, unlike his previous encounters with the Rubens family he now seemed subdued. “Good afternoon,” he began, “How are you both feeling today?,” he asked with clear disinterest in his tone, the ice breaking tactic felt even worse than the previous heavy handed approach Oscar witnessed from Boothe towards nurse Katie.

“We are both fine Doctor, do you have Oscars results? Do you know what’s causing all this?” Mrs Rubens blurted out a flurry of questions that carpet bombed the room with anxious noise.

“Well, we have indeed completed our preliminary tests and have found some areas of concern,” the doctor now left short pauses to his deliberation sensing further jumping interruptions from the disturbed parent sitting opposite him, “Your brain scan came back absolutely fine, we saw no clouding or any shadows that would indicate trauma or areas for you to worry about. We can see no signs of brain damage,” the news fell like soft song on Oscars ears, his mother gave him a smile which he caught from the corner of his eyes. The notion of some brain injury being uncertain had become a deep paranoia for the young man and most definitely for his Mother. The news was, in his mind, as much of a win for her as it was for him, Oscar saw her bring one hand up to her throat almost cradling herself to stop an emotional collapse. Her son squeezed her hand sensing her fragility and he felt her breath stumble.

“You okay Mum?” he quietly asked as the doctor gave them a moment, Mary nodded and breathed a large sigh of relief holding back a flood of red watery eyes.

“Please continue” she asked of Doctor Boothe.

“Now onto your stomach,” his pause put a choke in Oscars throat, “We have found that the protuberance you’ve discovered on your abdomen has developed early signs of a tumorous growth.” Akin to launched bricks the news hit them both hard, these words pummelled the room with malice that rained down and battered the previously idled joyous relief.

“Okay, what do we do now?” Mary asked attempting to gather herself at her son’s bedside, “Surely we have caught it early enough to remove it safely,” she continued as the words ricocheted around the walls inside Oscar’s skull.

“We have indeed caught it early, however it is complicated”, the doctor explained with seemingly well-versed bad news delivery, “the anomaly in your son’s abdomen is in the early stages as per the notes from Oscars family doctor, but it is still a large concern due to the nature of its consistency”, his words made little sense to the audience as the doctor began flicking through his clipboard looking for information to prop up his argument. “If we operate now, we have a good chance of removing the anomaly without damaging the surrounding tissue, but we really have very little idea of what is causing this growths appearance in the first place and that is something we are concerned about, if it is a cyst or an abscess we have the potential to cause infection and further spreading”, Boothe left little room for interruption as he sensed Mrs Rubens anger festering across the room, “we want to continue to monitor the situation before we make a final decision on any invasive surgery that could exacerbate the growth at the risk it spreads into other areas”.

Once again Mary sat back in her chair, this time with force enough to shift the wooden feet.

“So, you aren’t going to do anything about it,” she hurled across the room words of corrosive venom that Boothe clearly expected.

“We aren’t going to ignore this Mrs Rubens, but if Oscar is experiencing pains alongside a growth, it may indicate a larger issue that we have yet to fully identify and understand. I am doing what I believe is best for your sons recovery and lasting health,” Doctor Boothes response was as professional he could have been while deflecting shades of ferocity from the patience mother.

“Is the choice mine?,” Oscars quiet and hoarse voice split the tension building in the room, Doctor Boothe looked at the window to find a peaceful place in his mind and Mrs Rubens released her sons’ hand to properly absorb his expression, “I will wait as long as you are sure I am going to be okay,” Oscar offered to the doctor.

“Your well-being is my only concern in this matter Oscar, of that I can assure you tenfold,” Boothe replied with steady determination.

Oscar believed him and as the doctor left the room he turned away from his mother hoping she would stay silent. Years prior Oscar and Mrs Rubens lost their father and husband respectively, Thomas was a good dad, and his son remembered him fondly for the little parts he could. Oscar was a toddler, infant in mind and body at the time of his father’s death, the loss naturally devastated his small close-knit family, and it took a severe toll on his mother’s mental and physical well-being, that he did remember clearly. Often times throughout the years Oscar would be awoken by the haunting sounds of his mother’s sobbing in her sleep, this was the catalyst that would create the bond they shared today, Mrs Rubens was vulnerable, and her son stepped in to help her cope as much as a young boy could for a grieving widow in her aching loneliness. Mary was insidiously haunted by the memories of that day, every last word she spoke to her husband sang about her mind like haunting lyrics.

Often times the memories broke her state of composure, mere shards of glass on a devastating mirror, she felt alone and abandoned without caution in a world that now saw her with pity and despair, “the widowed mother” was her self-addressed title and it drove her into a deep social recline. In the reality of the recovering daily life, Mary would not fully recover, not in the way that really counts. Oscar would only come to know finite details on the events that transpired as he sat on the porch as a boy awaiting his routine lunch time game with his father, in her own way Mary felt she was protecting him from a curse she carried alone, this dark grief a widow knows too well. The transition to acceptance was not always easy though, she had taken up group therapy at the local school for “survivors of grief” to feel closer to those affected as she was and to gain some perspective, but the efforts and kind words of strangers only took her so far.

She listened as various tearful speeches exchanged themselves like currencies of sadness, sometimes Mary would share a happy memory of a pleasant day with her husband, but it never left her without the feeling of longing for an unfixable piece of her life. No, after all the years of attempting to mend her mind, it was her own determination to not leave her boy in the same darkness, her drive to protect him dragged her out of her pit of despair and back into the warm tenderness of her son’s life. Oscar saved Mary and now Mary was determined in the present to save her son. Sirens cried outside his window accompanying the never-ending torrent of incoming emergency patients. Oscar sat alone giving his situation deep thought, the assumption that the doctors made that this growth in his stomach was expanding at a concerning rate sent needles down his bed sore spine. Mary had retreated for the moment back to normal life as her job seemingly hanged in the balance due to her absence, Oscar did not mind the isolation though, noise had always stressed him out.

Since his nightmarish experience had begun, he had seldom seen a single moment of privacy or pause for reflection, slurping back the cheap green tea that was left for him as he slept, the young man turned his attention back to the hall and the foot traffic that animated itself past. Various attendees and visitors ambled past, he smirked as they reminded him of those old children’s wind-up toys as the muffled buzz of voices chased each other through the corridors, the calamity had actually developed into a somewhat familiar comfort as he looked for distractions more frequently with each day lingering and lagging into one another. Peering over at his side table Oscar pulled back his phone, the screen was smudged with his mothers’ fingerprints and the battery read as low, typically given his current circumstances he could not see a charger that was supposedly left for him somewhere in the room. Oscar read the last received message from his mum as he swiped through his notifications.

“Miss you sweetie, I hope they are treating you well xxx,” the message was loaded with his mother’s predictable loving concern.

Without sensing the need for a response Oscar began browsing the various routines that had previously been invasive daily habits, nothing new interested him on his numerous social apps and neither did news of the outside world. Wondering what was left that he had not covered while toying with the phones touch screen, Oscar clicked open his internet browser and scanned the last page he was looking at before his unfortunate collapse into a medical facility. ‘Your Adventure Begins Outside Your Door!’ the cheesy tagline from the site was almost worth an audible scoff but Oscar resisted, it had been a long time coming that he had determined he would take a trip alone to “Discover himself” as all the bold venture. Thomas, his father, would spend those peaceful afternoon breaks on the porch staring up at planes and telling him of the various adventures he had taken as a rebellious young man and Oscar recalled pieces that still felt fresh in his mind when ruminating on his next step in life. With the realisation that this was some way off, Oscar felt jerked suddenly back into the present as the now familiar Boothe swept into the room with his usual heavy-set gusto, Oscar clicked away his phone and left the dreams of explorations unknown for another more appropriate time.

Doctor Boothe was a tall but pudgy man, his dwindling wisps of hair clinging to its existence upon his sweaty shiny scalp that peaked through, his glasses that seemed at times too small sat under the Doctors eyes upon his nose. His presence while intimidating for Oscar’s mother, due to the present circumstances, gave Oscar a sense of security, perhaps a false sense, but a sense, nonetheless. Boothe came across as a caring practitioner and his patients often felt safe in his red chubby hands.

“How are you feeling today, Oscar? I noticed you’ve regained some of your appetite,” the doctor left the last remark hanging as a playful barb and wore a dimpled grin on his usually stoic face.

“I am feeling okay Doctor, and I have managed to get a sandwich down with some of that green tea the nurses suggested,” Oscar called back with an equally boyish smirk.

Perhaps it had been the experience as a whole, or perhaps it was the remnants from Oscars close call with breathless suffocation, but the young man’s voice had deepened since his time of admittance. Unbeknownst to him of course, but his mother and Doctor had made a note of that subtle fact to one another.

“Did you have any pain after you ate?” Boothe enquired as he moved across the room and sat at the foot of Oscars bed, “It wouldn’t be unusual for some residual pains to occur after significant trauma to the abdomen or stomach lining,” he continued.

“Nothing like before, just a bit sore I think,” Oscar stated with purpose, he was determined to gain some normality and clung to every shred of hope that he may return home soon. “I had a stomach cramp when I woke up this morning, but it seemed like a normal cramp, It didn’t feel the same as before when I couldn’t help myself” Oscar said as he shuffled further into an upright position and placed his phone back on the side table.

“That is really great to hear” Boothe declared almost seeming to congratulate himself at the same time, “Tonight I wanted to arrange for an overnight examination, if that is okay with yourself of course, would you like to check with your mother first?” the doctor added testing the waters.

“We don’t need to bother Mum, Sure, let’s do it” Oscar quickly replied as he glanced down at the clipboard that appears as vital to the good Doctors ensemble.

“Excellent, tough lad, we like to see that” he replied with a smile that seemed difficult for Boothe to maintain, “Well, we are going to be hooking you up to a monitor and a breathing apparatus that will track your heartrate, brain activity and your breathing pattern as the night goes on,” Doctor Boothe spoke as though he was adamant of the procedure being the end all exams.

Oscar knew this was a learning experience for everyone involved and with an eagerness to escape this dreaded period in care, he agreed to the Doctors plans. Could It be possible that at long last he would know what had caused this commotion of violence in his regular previously mundane life, that evening would be decisive in the trail of discovery towards his prognosis and without caution or care he was eager to rid himself from the strangling shackles of uncertainty and walk forward with his life intact.