Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

Three thirteen and eleven seconds. The door behind him opens and people come in. Yes, certainly more than one, probably more than five. He thought about how blind people could tell a lot about what’s going on from the sound. The click of a switch started a buzz and a flickering light came from behind him. Then the sound of... kind of a wahffing and tiny rumble... like an x-ray being put on one of those light back things, that was it. Then voices, young, male and female, some nervous. "My God" "Whoa" "incredible" and other interjections.

Then a steady voice. "We have here a victim of hanging," it said to the others, "notice the displacement of cee four five and six. The patient manifests quad lateral paralysis while respiration and circulation seem to be functioning normally."

"The patient would like something to eat." William blurted out.

The other voice answered while moving around the bed into his field of vision. "It seems that your gastric system is not fully functional."

William could now see that the speaker was a doctor. "Can you repeat that in English Doc." He complained.

A voice behind him questioned. "Not fully, is there partial digestion?"

The doctor continued teaching as if the patient wasn’t there. "From the MRI it appears that the stomach is working but the intestine is not functioning. What problems can we expect?" He paused glancing around then selected his victim, "Lewis."

Lewis, came back with a quick question. "Is there food in the system?"

Smiling the doctor responded. "The proverbial last meal."

Lewis said. "Then first the remnants of that meal must be evacuated, then the stomach should be disabled or the acid will be dangerous."

"And how will this evacuation be accomplished?" The doctor continued.

"Gravity?" Lewis guessed.

The doctor chuckled. "Lewis, you are always so entertaining. I guess we could hang him by his legs until it drained out. Which brings us to the immediate problem. We have here a man that is strapped to a back board. Keeping the neck immobile may be keeping him alive. Notice on the X-ray, if the vertebra move it could complete the execution."

Another voice from behind asked. "Will the vertebra fuse in this position? In which case the backboard may be removed in nine to twelve weeks."

"Yes," the doctor responded, "or we could surgically adjust the spine to stabilize the patient."

"With what prognosis?" asked yet another voice.

"We can almost certainly maintain the patient's current condition." responded the doctor.

Three sixteen and twenty six seconds, William was amazed how easily he had began to ignore the conversation and focus on the clock. These words were not intended for him so he just forgot about them. Very uncharacteristic for him to let that slide. Again out of nowhere, a rancid burp arrived in his mouth. He cleared his throat and asked. "How ‘bout some Tums?"

The doctor feigned a little clapping of his hands. "The patient has discovered the digestive dilemma on his own." He glanced around again. "Martin, what is the answer to the patient's question?"

Another voice, a girl, said. "Wouldn’t hurt, won’t help, best to pump the stomach and let it shut down on its own."

"Good," the doctor replied lifting a clipboard and writing rapidly across the page. "Lets order a stomach pump and prep him for surgery first thing tomorrow. You will all be expected in the gallery in the morning."

William spoke again. "Can someone contact my next of kin?" he asked.

"I’ll have a clergyman stop by." The doctor replied sweeping out of the room with his flock of students in his wake.

William hadn’t thought about what becomes of a last meal, he guessed most people hadn’t. Now that he was still alive he figured that it wasn’t his last, he guessed now that is was. Time crawled along at its usual pace till at six forty one and twenty three seconds the door opened again and a woman walked around into his field of vision. She was well dressed and carried what could have easily been the worlds largest bible under her arm.

"I’m sister Goldstein from the First Apostolic Pentecostal Church of Christ. I was visiting with one of our parishioners this evening and they asked if I could stop in to see you." The lady said.
"Can I pray for you?" she asked.

William was so bored he considered her offer for a minute then replied. "I don’t pray, but could you contact my sister and tell her that I’m here?"

"Of course." The lady replied. "I can call her from this phone right here."

"I don’t know her number, I’m not even sure of her name." William responded. "I only know that when she got out of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women last month she went by the name Judy Jones. I saw it on the news."

"I see," she said, "going to be a little more to this than a phone call."

"She’ll have a probation officer that should know where she is. The hard part will be talking her into seeing me." William responded.

The lady jotted a note on a paper she kept in her bible pages. "I will plead your cause for you, she said, "is there anything I might say to convince her."

William thought, "Tell her I changed my mind. It’s not her fault."

"I’ll see what I can do." the church lady said as she left.

Time ticked on. In the morning, at seven twenty three and forty nine seconds, an orderly came in and rolled him out of the room and down the hall to surgery. He was happy to see the anesthesiologist and he counted backwards to the best rest he’d had since he woke up with a bag over his head.

When the anesthesia wore off he found himself sitting slightly elevated in the recovery room. He could look around a little and there was no clock. A nurse came over and checked his pulse.

"You’ll be back in your room in twenty minutes." she offered.

He only thought, that’s a long time.

Back in his room, facing forward on his bed, he found someone waiting. "Judy," he said, "you came to see me."

"I heard they tried to hang you and screwed it up." Judy responded. "Figure you got some real money coming to ya, I’ll help for a share."

"That’s what I’m talking about. Can you find a good lawyer?" he asked.

"I already got a guy. He figures your good for a couple million," she said, "I want half."

"Lord knows I owe you that." William admitted. "I didn’t know they’d lock you up so long."

"Twenty five years, and not a day off for good behavior." Judy complained. "I was seventeen when I went in, a sniveling kid. Don’t mistake me for a sucker now, I’m tough as nails and twice as hard. You can’t suck me into feeling sorry for you again, and you ain’t gonna get a lick of concern from me."

"I was only twelve when you went away, you didn’t care what happened to me then, I wouldn’t imagine you could care now." William said.

"Maybe I cared more than you remember." Judy corrected. "You killed the old pervert and I took the blame cause you were so young. I knew what ever happened to you couldn’t be as bad as what they did to me."

"You thought," corrected William, "That they’d let you off because he was screwing you."

"Well they didn’t, now here we are twenty five years later, you’re still helpless and I’m still screwed." Judy carried on. "I want a guarantee that I get half, or no lawyer."

"In case you hadn’t noticed, I can’t sign anything." William taunted. "So you’ll need witnesses. and I might buy them off.

Judy grabbed her purse from the window seat and headed for the door.

"Wait," William called after her. "I think we need to work on some new family dynamics. You can have as much as you want. I’ll leave you everything in my will. You see, I don’t intend to live long after I get them back for what they did. There ain’t much to live for."

"Poor baby," Judy taunted, "Just get me some serious money and I’ll kill you myself."

"Would you?" William pleaded.