The ventilator sat next to the headboard. I couldn't see it, no matter how I turned to look. But I could hear it, the alarm a soothing, quiet little blue note, designed not to frighten the patients into a frenzy. Like we wouldn't feel it when the machine that was breathing for us stopped breathing. It was a strange stretch down my throat, each breath a shove of air from a will stronger than mine. All I could do was lie there and take it.

The picture was taped to the side rails so I could look at it and remember the day, seven guys in swim trunks, laughing, arms flung out, running into the surf. Sometimes I couldn't remember exactly where we had been, but I never forgot how it felt, recklessly happy, sun beating down on burned shoulders, sand rough under my feet, then the wild careening jump into cold, salty water.

We made mistakes, but they were mistakes of commission, not omission. The consequences were written across my lungs and liver, across the strangely branching arcs of my nerves, blood vessels like rivers growing sluggish in the dark. Those modern curses, timidity, isolation, sorrow over wasted opportunities-they had no power over me, not even when my body began to fail.

My favorite nurse came over to the bed, studied the alarm. "What's this then?" She looked a mess, her hair up in an untidy clip, a little smudge of mascara under each eye. She pushed some buttons to quiet the machine, get it working again, then turned back to me and leaned against the rail. "So how are you this morning?"

I blinked my eyes to let her know I was still alive. She leaned over the bed, settled the stethoscope over my chest. I could smell old booze on her breath, yesterday's cigarettes. "Yes, your heart is still beating. Another beautiful spring day outside. Daffodils everywhere, and those little purple flowers. I can't remember what they're called. Something with a c?"

Crocuses. I wiggled my eyebrows in the way that meant I wanted to write on the white board. She brought it over, put a fat marker in my hand. Rough night?

She laughed out loud. "Yes, indeed. My birthday. I danced on the bar with a couple of handsome Navy pilots, but I didn't go home with anybody. I knew we had a date for this morning." She leaned over me, her eyes gentle. "Don't worry. I look like hell, but I'm on the job."

I put the marker to the board. Next time go home with someone. I'll wait for you.

She leaned over and studied the picture. "So that was off the coast of Africa? I wonder what that water felt like."

Cold. The cold was like a knife in our chests, like a knife to the heart, and we jumped in over and over, just to feel the knife.

That's where I'm going when I leave here.

She studied my face. "I'll miss you. But maybe I'll see you again one day."

The cold like a knife to the heart. The splash, a harsh gasp of breath, buoyant salt, then the knife. I could feel it again. I could feel it.

 

Sarah Black is a fiction writer living in the American West. She writes flash, pulp, gay romance, and mystery. You can see some of her work at www.sarahblack.net. She spends her free time dragging her son and a couple of sleeping bags around America's National Parks.