(Governor Tom's Note: This is a short story I wrote for a creative writing workshop in the Journalism department at Temple University. This was the fall 1997 semester, the first semester of my senior year. I read this in front of the class.
During my first three years at Temple, I worked part time at nights at a department store. One night I had a customer whose last name was Sveinbjornsson, pronounced sfin-YORN-sin. Fascinated, I asked him where that came from. He said it was Icelandic and that his parents were immigrants from Iceland. He encouraged me to visit Iceland sometime and that Iceland Air was a great airline. I still haven't made it there, but it's been on my bucket list since I met that guy.
My then fascination for that name is the only reason for this story's Icelandic connection. I wish I had a deeper or more meaningful reason.
After reading the story in front of everyone, they pretty much all said it was too long. So brace yourself for that, and for the fact that I wrote it thirteen years ago, when my writing wasn't as good as it is now.
As a sad coda, I just found out recently from a fellow Temple alum that the guy who taught this workshop, Journalism Professor Robert Greenberg, died of a heart attack in 1999.)
__________
Ray inhaled deeply the familiar medicinal odors which swam healthily through Oncology this morning as he prepared his cart with all of the pills and potions required for his round. Once the cart was ready he pushed it down the corridor, the wheels and his own sneakers–once white but now browning with wear–creating a chorus of squeaks along the glossy white tiles which reflected his own pudgy twenty-three-year-old body and the fluorescent bars above.
With the cart in front of him he pushed open the door to get into the first patient’s room, greeted as he always was by the monotonous beeping of the heart monitor. Seventy-one-year-old Veronica Burgess was already awake and watching the television which was showing her the morning news in cheap, stale colors and bad sound. Her eyes were half-closed, indifferent to the tubes invading her body through her nose and arms. She didn’t even acknowledge Ray until he was right next to her bed. “Good morning, Ronnie,” Ray said in as cheerful a voice as he could muster. His smile felt too forced, and he knew she could tell when she looked at him and smiled a little.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
“And how are we feeling this morning?” She sighed lightly and continued watching television as Ray injected some medication through the flabby wrinkles of her upper arm. He gave her the assortment of pills she was supposed to take every morning. She swallowed them all one by one without taking a sip of water.
He left her room with his spirits still intact. After a year he was becoming better at not letting the atmosphere of this unit, probably the most depressing unit in the entire hospital, get him down. Ronnie Burgess’ cancer was going to devour her pancreas in a month if not sooner, and all of these pills and needles were doing nothing but delaying the inevitable. It didn’t always work that way, though. Once in a long while they’d get a patient who would defeat their malignancy and walk out of the hospital reborn. But that was only in a long while.
“‘Morning, Judas,” Ray said to the obese eighty-two-year-old bald black man playing chess against a little hand-held machine, his sky-blue robe the only thing covering his body, and not quite all of it. Judas grunted his greeting without turning away from his chess, not even flinching as Ray made the six injections into his arm.
Next was the Icelandic woman. It was the one with that very long last name, Ray thought as he wheeled the cart down to the next room. Sfin-YORN-sin, it was pronounced but spelled a lot more complicatedly. He looked at her chart on the outside of her door: “Jeanne Sveinbjornsson,” it read in the typed print. Her English wasn’t very good, but she could at least carry on a simple conversation. “Good morning, Jeanne,” Ray was in the middle of saying as he opened her door and saw Jeanne laying in bed, her bald head with the few strands of black hair snaking out of the sides being the only visible part of her. He stopped himself when he saw that someone, a boy no older than fifteen or sixteen, was standing next to her bed. The first thing that struck Ray about this kid was the height. He stood almost a full foot over Ray’s five feet and eight inches. His black hair was combed neatly back, accentuating the narrow pale boniness of his face. And there was a thin, uneven line which went around the narrow neck. It looked almost like a rash, faded so it was more pink than red. “Hey!” Ray said, his anger coming from being startled. “Who the hell are you?” Ray figured he was a member of the hospital staff judging by the white garb similar to what Ray had on. But he had never seen this kid before.
“I’m a new orderly here,” the kid said.
“In Oncology?”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“I just started today.”
“Well I’m the head orderly in this unit, and no one said anything to me about a new person.” The kid said nothing but simply stared at Ray. “Why don’t we go see Dr. Papada, and he can explain that you’re a new orderly and that you belong here, okay?”
“Sure,” the kid said.
Ray turned to Jeanne who looked like she would pass into sleep at any moment. “Are you okay, Jeanne?” he asked slowly.
“I’m okay, Ray,” she said in her thick, Nordic accent.
“Okay, here is your medicine and I’ll see you at lunch time,” Ray said, handing her the little cups of pills.
“Thank you, Ray,” she said, her deathly pale face offering a weak grin.
“Come on,” Ray said to the kid. He wheeled the cart out in the hall before escorting the kid to Dr. Papada’s office. Paul Papada was the head oncologist. He was sitting in his office, his smudged reading glasses perched on his nose as he read through one of many documents stacked on his desk, his white hair looking as if it hadn’t been combed in months. “Dr. Papada?”
“Hi, Raymond,” Dr. Papada said in a tired, scratchy voice without looking up.
“This guy claims he works in Oncology, but I’ve never seen him before. Do you know him?”
Dr. Papada glanced up, and his tired countenance came alive. “Oh!” he said. “Yeah this is Eric Smith. He’s our new temp.”
“How come no one told me about him?” Ray asked.
“I’m sorry, Raymond, I’ve been so busy I forgot all about it. I meant to tell you yesterday. He starts today. Eric, Raymond Ilnicky is the head orderly in this unit.”
“Hi,” Eric said, offering his hand. Ray tried not to show his surprise at the numbing chill of Eric’s palm.
“I was going to have Eric work with Joel today, Raymond. I know you’re busy as it is.”
“Yeah that’s fine,” Ray said. “I just wanted to make sure he’s okay.”
“He’s fine. You see how careful we are, Eric?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Ray, I’ll let you get back to work. Eric, why don’t you go to the lounge where I told Joel to meet you this morning, okay? You remember where the lounge is?”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Thanks.” He walked out. Ray watched him close the door before turning back to Dr. Papada.
“Are you sure he’s okay?” Ray asked.
“Why do you ask?” Dr. Papada said.
“When I was doing the rounds I walked into Jeanne’s room and Eric was standing right next to her bed. I mean it was really weird. He was just......standing there. Not doing anything.”
“Could be he was just talking to her?” Dr. Papada said, sitting up in his burgundy high-back leather chair and putting the paper back on the stack. “In fact that’s most likely what he was doing. I told him to introduce himself to all of the patients if he could, sometime before he started working. The last thing they need is a surprise.”
“All right that’s probably what he was doing then,” Ray said, not very convinced.
“I wouldn’t worry too much, Raymond,” Dr. Papada said. “For someone his age he’s got quite a nack for medicine. I mean not only does he know all of the medications each patient’s supposed to get, but he knows exactly what each medication consists of and what affect it has. Pretty smart if you ask me.”
“All right,” Ray said, looking down. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh no bother,” Dr. Papada said as he went back to reading his papers.
Ray didn’t see Eric for the rest of the morning. He was trying to wonder why because if he was to train with Joel, one of Ray’s assistants, then Ray should have bumped into them a few times. It wasn’t until just after twelve, when Ray was making the lunch and medication rounds, that he ran into Eric again. He pushed the cart into Jeanne’s room, and once again Eric was standing right next to her bed. This time, though, the kid was feeling the sides of her head, and Jeanne’s tired eyes stared helplessly up at him. “What the hell are you doing?”.
Eric looked up, eyes wide. “I was trying to make her more comfortable.”
“That’s okay I’ll take care of that. Where’s Joel? Aren’t you supposed to be with him?”
“He went to lunch.”
“Well I think you’re supposed to be with him so why don’t you go to lunch too. Okay? Thanks.” Ray began preparing Jeanne’s tray and setting up her lunch and medication. After Eric walked out, Ray said, “Are you okay, Jeanne?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “He was just helping. A nice boy.”
“That’s great,” Ray said, giving her the pills and water.
Ray walked out of the room slowly, feeling a little guilty for having given Eric a hard time twice now in one day. He made it a point to look for him and apologize once he found him. Like before, though, Ray didn’t see him for hours. He finally ran into Joel at around four in the afternoon in one of the hallways, but Eric wasn’t with him. Joel had stopped his cart at one of the intersections and was fixing his red pony tail. “Joel, do you know where Eric is?” Ray asked.
“Who?”
“Eric. The new guy?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know we had a new person in Oncology.”
“Yeah, he’s like fifteen or sixteen? Tall, black hair, skinny? Dr. Papada said he was training with you all day.”
“I don’t know anyone named Eric. And besides, I’ve only been here since two. I swapped shifts with one of the nurses.”
“You don’t know anyone named Eric Smith?”
“It’s all news to me, Ray. I just wish they’d let us know when we get new orderlies.”
“And you haven’t seen anyone new since you got here? Anyone you didn’t recognize?”
“No, can’t say that I have. Sorry.”
“Why the hell would Dr. Papada......? All right thanks, Joel. I’ll see you around.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help ya, bub. I’ll keep my eyes out for anyone new, all right?”
“All right thanks,” Ray said as he headed off for Dr. Papada’s office. He wasn’t there. Ray frowned to himself, confused. What was Dr. Papada doing that he had to lie to him? And how could Ray go through the whole day and only see Eric once? The Oncology unit wasn’t that small, almost a hundred patients split up into six corridors, but by the end of a full day Ray would have encountered just about every orderly, nurse, and doctor in the unit. As he thought about it, he realized the only place he had seen Eric today was in Jeanne’s room.
He was walking down the corridor toward Jeanne’s room when he heard muffled sobs coming from behind her door. He slowed his pace so he could listen more carefully, but all he could make out were what must have been Jeanne’s sobs. When he opened the door, he saw Eric bent over Jeanne with her shirt up, his fingers pressing against her pale abdomen. Jeanne’s eyes were pointed heavenward, red and wet as feeble sobs emanated from her throat. “Eric, what are you–!” Ray cut himself off when he saw the fingers. Now that he was closer he could see that they were actually going inside her stomach. Yet there was no blood. It was as if Jeanne’s stomach had become ether at the arrival of the kid’s hands. “What are you doing?” Ray could barely breathe, unable to take his eyes off the hands.
Eric looked up at Ray and smiled, withdrawing his hands. They were long and skeletal and just as dry as if they hadn’t been inside Jeanne’s body. “It’s over,” Eric said. Jeanne seemed to be in more pain after Eric took away his hands, her sobs growing louder and her tears flowing stronger.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“It’s over,” Eric said as he ran out of the room. He’d been so fast Ray wasn’t sure he’d seen him all the way.
“Wait!” Ray said, chasing him out of the room. “Come back!” Ray huffed down the hall after Eric. As he ran through the lobby toward the front hospital entrance, he yelled out for someone to call the police.
Outside the sun was threatening to disappear for the night, making the late autumn air considerably cooler. Ray was in no shape to chase this boy who was practically gliding along the sidewalk. Ray was already sweating, his shirt getting pasted to his back.
Despite the great mismatch, Ray was able to push himself hard enough to keep Eric within his sight most of the time. He had no idea what he was going to do if he caught him. An answer or two from the kid would have been nice, but right now it didn’t seem very likely. Soon Ray found himself following Eric into a patch of woods off one of the streets. He was flinched and winced as he felt the branches scratch and scrape his pulpy skin. It was much darker under the shade, but he could still make out Eric’s silhouette as they neared the other side of the wooded patch. Ray’s heart was thundering in his ears, drowning out the sounds of his sneakers scrambling the foliage as he ran. His stomach felt sore and cramped to the point where vomiting didn’t seem so farfetched. Finally he came out on the other side where there was a fence separating him from a graveyard that stretched at least a thousand feet long and twice as wide before him. Eric had already scaled the fence and was well into the graveyard. He was about to disappear behind some massive trees decorating the parts of the field which were void of tombstones. “Eric!” Ray shouted. Unsurprisingly, Eric kept on going. Ray climbed the fence slowly, careful not to let his pudgy feet miss a hole in the wires. By the time he got down on the other side, Eric was nowhere in sight. Whatever weak rays were left from the sun didn’t reach here, blocked by the patch of woods through which he just came. He held one hand to his heaving stomach while he slowly regained his breath. As he did so he listened to see if he could make out Eric’s footsteps. But there was nothing, just the sounds of crickets flirting with each other among the sea of grey and white stones to keep him company. The air was considerably cooler here, but it felt heavenly against his back and neck. With his breath mostly recaptured, he renewed his pace toward the block of thick-necked trees through which Eric had gone. “Eric!” he called a few times as he went but was only answered by the crickets.
His heart quickened a little and his pace slowed as he neared the trees. The boy could easily be hiding among them, he thought, thin as he was. Something told him the boy was indeed nearby. “Eric,” he whispered. He walked out among the tombstones so he could get a look into the small maze of trees and at the same time avoid as much as he could a surprise attack. “Eric. Are you there?”
“He’s not here,” came a familiar voice. Ray stood and stared open-mouthed at the dark figure staring at him from the trees. His heart felt like a lump in his throat. The voice was low, subdued, but that didn’t hide the vague familiarity of it.
“Who is that?” Ray could barely get out through his fear.
The figure stepped out from the trees, his white hair a stain in the dusk. “He’s gone, Raymond.”
“Dr. Papada?”
“Don’t waste anymore of your energy, Raymond. Eric’s gone.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I knew this is where Eric had to go in order to reach his home. I just came here to see that he’d get home safely. I never really expected you to show up. But it’s no matter now. You’re not going to find him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eric’s always been here, Raymond. He’s right behind you.”
Ray spun around expecting to see the kid towering above him. No one was there. “Where?” Ray asked.
“Right in front of you. Look down.”
Ray looked down and saw the tombstone in front of him, no more than ten feet away. “What?” he said half to himself. At first he thought he was seeing things, thought that somehow the night was playing tricks on his eyes. He went closer and got down on one knee to see what it really said. But the night hadn’t been playing tricks. There the words were, chiseled deep and plain as day.
During my first three years at Temple, I worked part time at nights at a department store. One night I had a customer whose last name was Sveinbjornsson, pronounced sfin-YORN-sin. Fascinated, I asked him where that came from. He said it was Icelandic and that his parents were immigrants from Iceland. He encouraged me to visit Iceland sometime and that Iceland Air was a great airline. I still haven't made it there, but it's been on my bucket list since I met that guy.
My then fascination for that name is the only reason for this story's Icelandic connection. I wish I had a deeper or more meaningful reason.
After reading the story in front of everyone, they pretty much all said it was too long. So brace yourself for that, and for the fact that I wrote it thirteen years ago, when my writing wasn't as good as it is now.
As a sad coda, I just found out recently from a fellow Temple alum that the guy who taught this workshop, Journalism Professor Robert Greenberg, died of a heart attack in 1999.)
__________
Ray inhaled deeply the familiar medicinal odors which swam healthily through Oncology this morning as he prepared his cart with all of the pills and potions required for his round. Once the cart was ready he pushed it down the corridor, the wheels and his own sneakers–once white but now browning with wear–creating a chorus of squeaks along the glossy white tiles which reflected his own pudgy twenty-three-year-old body and the fluorescent bars above.
With the cart in front of him he pushed open the door to get into the first patient’s room, greeted as he always was by the monotonous beeping of the heart monitor. Seventy-one-year-old Veronica Burgess was already awake and watching the television which was showing her the morning news in cheap, stale colors and bad sound. Her eyes were half-closed, indifferent to the tubes invading her body through her nose and arms. She didn’t even acknowledge Ray until he was right next to her bed. “Good morning, Ronnie,” Ray said in as cheerful a voice as he could muster. His smile felt too forced, and he knew she could tell when she looked at him and smiled a little.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
“And how are we feeling this morning?” She sighed lightly and continued watching television as Ray injected some medication through the flabby wrinkles of her upper arm. He gave her the assortment of pills she was supposed to take every morning. She swallowed them all one by one without taking a sip of water.
He left her room with his spirits still intact. After a year he was becoming better at not letting the atmosphere of this unit, probably the most depressing unit in the entire hospital, get him down. Ronnie Burgess’ cancer was going to devour her pancreas in a month if not sooner, and all of these pills and needles were doing nothing but delaying the inevitable. It didn’t always work that way, though. Once in a long while they’d get a patient who would defeat their malignancy and walk out of the hospital reborn. But that was only in a long while.
“‘Morning, Judas,” Ray said to the obese eighty-two-year-old bald black man playing chess against a little hand-held machine, his sky-blue robe the only thing covering his body, and not quite all of it. Judas grunted his greeting without turning away from his chess, not even flinching as Ray made the six injections into his arm.
Next was the Icelandic woman. It was the one with that very long last name, Ray thought as he wheeled the cart down to the next room. Sfin-YORN-sin, it was pronounced but spelled a lot more complicatedly. He looked at her chart on the outside of her door: “Jeanne Sveinbjornsson,” it read in the typed print. Her English wasn’t very good, but she could at least carry on a simple conversation. “Good morning, Jeanne,” Ray was in the middle of saying as he opened her door and saw Jeanne laying in bed, her bald head with the few strands of black hair snaking out of the sides being the only visible part of her. He stopped himself when he saw that someone, a boy no older than fifteen or sixteen, was standing next to her bed. The first thing that struck Ray about this kid was the height. He stood almost a full foot over Ray’s five feet and eight inches. His black hair was combed neatly back, accentuating the narrow pale boniness of his face. And there was a thin, uneven line which went around the narrow neck. It looked almost like a rash, faded so it was more pink than red. “Hey!” Ray said, his anger coming from being startled. “Who the hell are you?” Ray figured he was a member of the hospital staff judging by the white garb similar to what Ray had on. But he had never seen this kid before.
“I’m a new orderly here,” the kid said.
“In Oncology?”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“I just started today.”
“Well I’m the head orderly in this unit, and no one said anything to me about a new person.” The kid said nothing but simply stared at Ray. “Why don’t we go see Dr. Papada, and he can explain that you’re a new orderly and that you belong here, okay?”
“Sure,” the kid said.
Ray turned to Jeanne who looked like she would pass into sleep at any moment. “Are you okay, Jeanne?” he asked slowly.
“I’m okay, Ray,” she said in her thick, Nordic accent.
“Okay, here is your medicine and I’ll see you at lunch time,” Ray said, handing her the little cups of pills.
“Thank you, Ray,” she said, her deathly pale face offering a weak grin.
“Come on,” Ray said to the kid. He wheeled the cart out in the hall before escorting the kid to Dr. Papada’s office. Paul Papada was the head oncologist. He was sitting in his office, his smudged reading glasses perched on his nose as he read through one of many documents stacked on his desk, his white hair looking as if it hadn’t been combed in months. “Dr. Papada?”
“Hi, Raymond,” Dr. Papada said in a tired, scratchy voice without looking up.
“This guy claims he works in Oncology, but I’ve never seen him before. Do you know him?”
Dr. Papada glanced up, and his tired countenance came alive. “Oh!” he said. “Yeah this is Eric Smith. He’s our new temp.”
“How come no one told me about him?” Ray asked.
“I’m sorry, Raymond, I’ve been so busy I forgot all about it. I meant to tell you yesterday. He starts today. Eric, Raymond Ilnicky is the head orderly in this unit.”
“Hi,” Eric said, offering his hand. Ray tried not to show his surprise at the numbing chill of Eric’s palm.
“I was going to have Eric work with Joel today, Raymond. I know you’re busy as it is.”
“Yeah that’s fine,” Ray said. “I just wanted to make sure he’s okay.”
“He’s fine. You see how careful we are, Eric?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Ray, I’ll let you get back to work. Eric, why don’t you go to the lounge where I told Joel to meet you this morning, okay? You remember where the lounge is?”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Thanks.” He walked out. Ray watched him close the door before turning back to Dr. Papada.
“Are you sure he’s okay?” Ray asked.
“Why do you ask?” Dr. Papada said.
“When I was doing the rounds I walked into Jeanne’s room and Eric was standing right next to her bed. I mean it was really weird. He was just......standing there. Not doing anything.”
“Could be he was just talking to her?” Dr. Papada said, sitting up in his burgundy high-back leather chair and putting the paper back on the stack. “In fact that’s most likely what he was doing. I told him to introduce himself to all of the patients if he could, sometime before he started working. The last thing they need is a surprise.”
“All right that’s probably what he was doing then,” Ray said, not very convinced.
“I wouldn’t worry too much, Raymond,” Dr. Papada said. “For someone his age he’s got quite a nack for medicine. I mean not only does he know all of the medications each patient’s supposed to get, but he knows exactly what each medication consists of and what affect it has. Pretty smart if you ask me.”
“All right,” Ray said, looking down. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh no bother,” Dr. Papada said as he went back to reading his papers.
Ray didn’t see Eric for the rest of the morning. He was trying to wonder why because if he was to train with Joel, one of Ray’s assistants, then Ray should have bumped into them a few times. It wasn’t until just after twelve, when Ray was making the lunch and medication rounds, that he ran into Eric again. He pushed the cart into Jeanne’s room, and once again Eric was standing right next to her bed. This time, though, the kid was feeling the sides of her head, and Jeanne’s tired eyes stared helplessly up at him. “What the hell are you doing?”.
Eric looked up, eyes wide. “I was trying to make her more comfortable.”
“That’s okay I’ll take care of that. Where’s Joel? Aren’t you supposed to be with him?”
“He went to lunch.”
“Well I think you’re supposed to be with him so why don’t you go to lunch too. Okay? Thanks.” Ray began preparing Jeanne’s tray and setting up her lunch and medication. After Eric walked out, Ray said, “Are you okay, Jeanne?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “He was just helping. A nice boy.”
“That’s great,” Ray said, giving her the pills and water.
Ray walked out of the room slowly, feeling a little guilty for having given Eric a hard time twice now in one day. He made it a point to look for him and apologize once he found him. Like before, though, Ray didn’t see him for hours. He finally ran into Joel at around four in the afternoon in one of the hallways, but Eric wasn’t with him. Joel had stopped his cart at one of the intersections and was fixing his red pony tail. “Joel, do you know where Eric is?” Ray asked.
“Who?”
“Eric. The new guy?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know we had a new person in Oncology.”
“Yeah, he’s like fifteen or sixteen? Tall, black hair, skinny? Dr. Papada said he was training with you all day.”
“I don’t know anyone named Eric. And besides, I’ve only been here since two. I swapped shifts with one of the nurses.”
“You don’t know anyone named Eric Smith?”
“It’s all news to me, Ray. I just wish they’d let us know when we get new orderlies.”
“And you haven’t seen anyone new since you got here? Anyone you didn’t recognize?”
“No, can’t say that I have. Sorry.”
“Why the hell would Dr. Papada......? All right thanks, Joel. I’ll see you around.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help ya, bub. I’ll keep my eyes out for anyone new, all right?”
“All right thanks,” Ray said as he headed off for Dr. Papada’s office. He wasn’t there. Ray frowned to himself, confused. What was Dr. Papada doing that he had to lie to him? And how could Ray go through the whole day and only see Eric once? The Oncology unit wasn’t that small, almost a hundred patients split up into six corridors, but by the end of a full day Ray would have encountered just about every orderly, nurse, and doctor in the unit. As he thought about it, he realized the only place he had seen Eric today was in Jeanne’s room.
He was walking down the corridor toward Jeanne’s room when he heard muffled sobs coming from behind her door. He slowed his pace so he could listen more carefully, but all he could make out were what must have been Jeanne’s sobs. When he opened the door, he saw Eric bent over Jeanne with her shirt up, his fingers pressing against her pale abdomen. Jeanne’s eyes were pointed heavenward, red and wet as feeble sobs emanated from her throat. “Eric, what are you–!” Ray cut himself off when he saw the fingers. Now that he was closer he could see that they were actually going inside her stomach. Yet there was no blood. It was as if Jeanne’s stomach had become ether at the arrival of the kid’s hands. “What are you doing?” Ray could barely breathe, unable to take his eyes off the hands.
Eric looked up at Ray and smiled, withdrawing his hands. They were long and skeletal and just as dry as if they hadn’t been inside Jeanne’s body. “It’s over,” Eric said. Jeanne seemed to be in more pain after Eric took away his hands, her sobs growing louder and her tears flowing stronger.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“It’s over,” Eric said as he ran out of the room. He’d been so fast Ray wasn’t sure he’d seen him all the way.
“Wait!” Ray said, chasing him out of the room. “Come back!” Ray huffed down the hall after Eric. As he ran through the lobby toward the front hospital entrance, he yelled out for someone to call the police.
Outside the sun was threatening to disappear for the night, making the late autumn air considerably cooler. Ray was in no shape to chase this boy who was practically gliding along the sidewalk. Ray was already sweating, his shirt getting pasted to his back.
Despite the great mismatch, Ray was able to push himself hard enough to keep Eric within his sight most of the time. He had no idea what he was going to do if he caught him. An answer or two from the kid would have been nice, but right now it didn’t seem very likely. Soon Ray found himself following Eric into a patch of woods off one of the streets. He was flinched and winced as he felt the branches scratch and scrape his pulpy skin. It was much darker under the shade, but he could still make out Eric’s silhouette as they neared the other side of the wooded patch. Ray’s heart was thundering in his ears, drowning out the sounds of his sneakers scrambling the foliage as he ran. His stomach felt sore and cramped to the point where vomiting didn’t seem so farfetched. Finally he came out on the other side where there was a fence separating him from a graveyard that stretched at least a thousand feet long and twice as wide before him. Eric had already scaled the fence and was well into the graveyard. He was about to disappear behind some massive trees decorating the parts of the field which were void of tombstones. “Eric!” Ray shouted. Unsurprisingly, Eric kept on going. Ray climbed the fence slowly, careful not to let his pudgy feet miss a hole in the wires. By the time he got down on the other side, Eric was nowhere in sight. Whatever weak rays were left from the sun didn’t reach here, blocked by the patch of woods through which he just came. He held one hand to his heaving stomach while he slowly regained his breath. As he did so he listened to see if he could make out Eric’s footsteps. But there was nothing, just the sounds of crickets flirting with each other among the sea of grey and white stones to keep him company. The air was considerably cooler here, but it felt heavenly against his back and neck. With his breath mostly recaptured, he renewed his pace toward the block of thick-necked trees through which Eric had gone. “Eric!” he called a few times as he went but was only answered by the crickets.
His heart quickened a little and his pace slowed as he neared the trees. The boy could easily be hiding among them, he thought, thin as he was. Something told him the boy was indeed nearby. “Eric,” he whispered. He walked out among the tombstones so he could get a look into the small maze of trees and at the same time avoid as much as he could a surprise attack. “Eric. Are you there?”
“He’s not here,” came a familiar voice. Ray stood and stared open-mouthed at the dark figure staring at him from the trees. His heart felt like a lump in his throat. The voice was low, subdued, but that didn’t hide the vague familiarity of it.
“Who is that?” Ray could barely get out through his fear.
The figure stepped out from the trees, his white hair a stain in the dusk. “He’s gone, Raymond.”
“Dr. Papada?”
“Don’t waste anymore of your energy, Raymond. Eric’s gone.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I knew this is where Eric had to go in order to reach his home. I just came here to see that he’d get home safely. I never really expected you to show up. But it’s no matter now. You’re not going to find him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eric’s always been here, Raymond. He’s right behind you.”
Ray spun around expecting to see the kid towering above him. No one was there. “Where?” Ray asked.
“Right in front of you. Look down.”
Ray looked down and saw the tombstone in front of him, no more than ten feet away. “What?” he said half to himself. At first he thought he was seeing things, thought that somehow the night was playing tricks on his eyes. He went closer and got down on one knee to see what it really said. But the night hadn’t been playing tricks. There the words were, chiseled deep and plain as day.
Erik Sveinbjornsson
BORN: July 29, 1980
DIED: February 2, 1996
We love you and will
miss you always.
Love, Mom and Johannes
BORN: July 29, 1980
DIED: February 2, 1996
We love you and will
miss you always.
Love, Mom and Johannes
“I don’t understand,” Ray said. Through the corner of his eye he could see Dr. Papada standing next to him now.
“He’s dead, Raymond,” the old man said. “Been dead over a year now.”
“What?” Ray said. “What are you talking about? You mean someone else, right?”
“No I’m talking about Erik. The very same boy you met today.”
“I.......I still don’t understand, Dr. Papada. What the hell is this?”
Dr. Papada sighed tiredly. “Well,” he said. “There was a couple who came over to the U.S. from Iceland in the early eighties, bringing their baby Erik with them. Why they came, I don’t know. Why does anyone come here? Anyway, soon after Johannes was born in nineteen ninety, the man left his wife for an American, and the woman was left to fend for herself and her two kids. Her English was shaky, still is really. She can barely speak a word, but she was able to raise her kids by working two janitor jobs at once. Then on February second, last year, her son Erik was out for a drive with two of his older high school buddies, and their little car collided dead on with the side of an eighteen-wheeler. I’m not sure if the driver was drunk or what, but poor Erik had his head cut clean off. Nasty stuff. And wouldn’t you think their family is cursed, a year later his mom comes down with stomach cancer. She wasn’t looking too hot, and I’m sure if it wasn’t for Erik she’d have been dead in two weeks.”
“If it hadn’t been for Erik?” Ray repeated.
“He saved her, Raymond. That’s what he’s been doing all day. Call it divine magic, call it whatever you want. But he saved his mother’s life.”
“My God,” Ray breathed. “How is that possible? I mean how.....how could that be?”
“It’s amazing, I admit. It’s sure the first time I’ve ever heard of such a thing.”
“But you knew about this all along?”
“Well I knew Erik when he was alive. He was an orderly here before you came. Helluva bright kid. I was kind of surprised at myself at how much his death affected me. And you see if his mother had died, little Johannes would have been alone. It scared the shit out of me when Erik appeared in my house a few days ago, and even after we got talking, it was still hard to admit to myself that I was talking to a ghost. But his wish was quite simple. He wanted to save his mother. That’s it. And I certainly couldn’t have turned him down.”
“So that’s it? Erik’s gone and Jeanne is......”
“......cured,” Dr. Papada finished for him. “She’ll pick her son up from her neighbor’s and go home. And look at it this way, Raymond, it makes our hospital look good. One more patient defeats cancer. Listen I better get going. Who knows what my wife is thinking right now.” He turned and walked away. “See ya at work tomorrow.” Ray watched the old man disappear into the darkness.
“He’s dead, Raymond,” the old man said. “Been dead over a year now.”
“What?” Ray said. “What are you talking about? You mean someone else, right?”
“No I’m talking about Erik. The very same boy you met today.”
“I.......I still don’t understand, Dr. Papada. What the hell is this?”
Dr. Papada sighed tiredly. “Well,” he said. “There was a couple who came over to the U.S. from Iceland in the early eighties, bringing their baby Erik with them. Why they came, I don’t know. Why does anyone come here? Anyway, soon after Johannes was born in nineteen ninety, the man left his wife for an American, and the woman was left to fend for herself and her two kids. Her English was shaky, still is really. She can barely speak a word, but she was able to raise her kids by working two janitor jobs at once. Then on February second, last year, her son Erik was out for a drive with two of his older high school buddies, and their little car collided dead on with the side of an eighteen-wheeler. I’m not sure if the driver was drunk or what, but poor Erik had his head cut clean off. Nasty stuff. And wouldn’t you think their family is cursed, a year later his mom comes down with stomach cancer. She wasn’t looking too hot, and I’m sure if it wasn’t for Erik she’d have been dead in two weeks.”
“If it hadn’t been for Erik?” Ray repeated.
“He saved her, Raymond. That’s what he’s been doing all day. Call it divine magic, call it whatever you want. But he saved his mother’s life.”
“My God,” Ray breathed. “How is that possible? I mean how.....how could that be?”
“It’s amazing, I admit. It’s sure the first time I’ve ever heard of such a thing.”
“But you knew about this all along?”
“Well I knew Erik when he was alive. He was an orderly here before you came. Helluva bright kid. I was kind of surprised at myself at how much his death affected me. And you see if his mother had died, little Johannes would have been alone. It scared the shit out of me when Erik appeared in my house a few days ago, and even after we got talking, it was still hard to admit to myself that I was talking to a ghost. But his wish was quite simple. He wanted to save his mother. That’s it. And I certainly couldn’t have turned him down.”
“So that’s it? Erik’s gone and Jeanne is......”
“......cured,” Dr. Papada finished for him. “She’ll pick her son up from her neighbor’s and go home. And look at it this way, Raymond, it makes our hospital look good. One more patient defeats cancer. Listen I better get going. Who knows what my wife is thinking right now.” He turned and walked away. “See ya at work tomorrow.” Ray watched the old man disappear into the darkness.
