Lois lay perfectly still in her comatose state sleeping through the battle outside the castle. Carol sat beside her holding her hand with the door propped open to circulate the air. The sudden departure of the two perched patrolmen had stirred Carol’s attention; however, her focus was and would always be on her sister. She would not leave her side until she did all that she could to bring Lois out of her seemingly wakeless sleep, and even then she would keep trying.
Nurse Ann had left the room to let the two sisters reunite. In fact, the nurse encouraged Carol to talk to her sister in the hopes of awakening the tranquil woman from her trance. Carol did just that, softly petting her sister’s hand and massaging her ears with her familiar voice. Carol also realized that her sister could stay sleeping for months, even years, which seemed horrifying to consider. The moments alone with Lois allowed Carol to examine her sister. She studied Lois’ perfect hairline rounding her face, her small, creased chin, and subtle nose flares from her involuntary breathing. Carol counted the tiny eyelashes lined up on Lois’ closed eyes, but in a sudden flash, she noticed a twitch under her eyelids. At first, she questioned the quiver, but convinced herself it did actually occur. She wondered whether such an occurrence was normal.
Carol realized something changed in the hypnotic sound hitting her ears. It wasn’t the electronic monitor as Lois’ heartbeat remained constant and rhythmic over the course of her stay. The subtle difference had occurred outside. The sound of the rain had stopped, which the continual electronic beat next to her masked. No longer was the howling wind, pelting rain, random booms of thunder, or flashes of lightning present. Carol stood up and walked toward the window, curious to see what her ears had deduced. As she neared the drawn blinds, she noticed a hint of light through the cracks. Carol parted the blinds. Her eyes filled with the emerging sun through the distant buildings. Without warning, the electronic heartbeats changed tone; the constant tempo escalated and began to resonate random notes.
Carol saw her sister’s eyes rapidly moving under her lids. Her left arm twitched slightly, and her toes fluttered.
“Lois. Can you hear me? Come on, sis,” Carol said as she squeezed her hand.
Lois moaned and whimpered under her breath.
“Nurse Ann! Nurse Ann!” Carol yelled.
Lois attempted to open her eyes, but they seemed to shudder randomly.
“Yes, baby. It’s your sister. You can do it.”
Finally, the princess opened her eyes wide as her pupils flexed from the light. Regaining her orientation, she focused on her sister’s tears.
“What… Where am I?” Lois asked.
Before Carol could answer, Nurse Ann burst into the room and widened her eyes at the awakened woman. She ran to Lois’ other side and rubbed her legs through the sheets with excitement.
“I’m your nurse, dear! You made it through!”
“You were in an accident, honey. But you’re okay now,” Carol added.
Lois registered the two women’s enthusiasm. She glanced at her right arm covered in a cast. It was all puzzling. She had a deep throbbing from within her brain as her mind caught up to her body. The words hitting her ears didn’t fully click, but one did stand out.
“Accident?” Lois repeated.
“Yes. You and Roger were driving home from dinner last night. Remember? It was your anniversary,” Carol said.
“Actually, the night before last,” Nurse Ann clarified as the sunrise peered through the window and warmed her face.
“Do you remember that?” Carol asked.
Lois studied her sister’s face, but everything was a blur. The moments before her awakening were lost in a void. She felt like she had been gone for years, unable to remember falling into the sleep from which she had just awoken.
“No. I, uh, don’t know,” Lois unsteadily replied.
Slowly, she digested Carol’s words as her brain regained control. She realized some sort of event had put her in the hospital. The excited nurse, beeping heart monitor, and tight cast all proved her plight, but something that Carol mentioned rose to the top of her mounting questions.
“Roger? Where is Roger?” she asked as she searched for him in the room.
Lois yearned for her husband, her partner, her crutch. Carol and Nurse Ann remained mute. Their silence concerned Lois, as she hoped to hear that he was just down the hall on his way to reunite with her, but these words didn’t echo inside the confined room.
Suddenly, a warm masculine voice startled the trio, “He didn’t make it.”
Lois tried to place the faceless man, as she recognized it wasn’t the familiar voice of her husband, her Roger.
“What?” she responded.
Det. Cleveland stepped into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, completing the circle surrounding Lois. His outward expression was unreadable and aloof; however, he felt overwhelmed with deep emotion. He had witnessed something that would change his life forever and now it was his duty to deliver the dreaded news.
“He died in the accident, trying to save you,” he said tenderly.
Carol and Nurse Ann felt a chill run through their bodies. The only thing they could do was hold on to Lois tightly and never let go. Det. Cleveland removed the item Roger had carried with him throughout his journey, the picture of the loving couple. It was still wet from the rain. He placed it softly on Lois’ chest like a petal that gracefully fell from a dying flower. Lois looked at the image as her world suddenly crashed. She realized she had awoken to a different world, a world where love no longer existed.
“Roger loved you very much,” Det. Cleveland whispered as he held Lois’ legs through the covers.
The detective watched her as she studied the picture with a blameless gaze. A deep flow of sensation overwhelmed him as the thought of Roger’s journey pierced his emotional shield. His typically logical and unaffected mind was no match for the subjectivity of life and love. Det. Cleveland was a changed man and would never be able to go back to the way things were before he started the case. A tear formed in his eye and held for a moment on his lower eyelid teetering like an overfilled glass of water. Then, it trickled down his cheek.
“Oh, Roger. I love you…” Lois mumbled.
Tears poured down her face, as she could not think of anything else other than her loving husband. She thought of him sitting behind his prominent desk in his office, his nonchalant sway as he walked to her after a day’s work, and his soft voice mouthing the word “dynamite” when she energized him with her feistiness. The forgetful man could never be forgotten, as he would always be just as she remembered him.
Lois held the rain-soaked picture snugly as a droplet of water slid down her arm through the open crease of her gown and rested over her beating heart.
Nurse Ann, Carol, and Det. Cleveland clutched Lois tightly and bonded with her as one over Roger’s quest driven by undying love. They held on to her and would never relinquish their grip.
Outside the hospital, the sun had risen over the distant skyscrapers and bathed the city in warm light. It burned out the rain clouds as a beautiful and vivid rainbow cast over the energized city.
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About the Author
Jonathan Sturak grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He is a Penn State University graduate and holds degrees in Computer Science and Film. He currently lives in Las Vegas where he uses the energy of the city to craft stories about life and the human condition. The Place Called Home, Sturak’s essay about Eastern European heritage in Northeast Pennsylvania, was featured on Glass Cases, associate literary agent Sarah LaPolla’s pop culture blog at glasscasesblog.wordpress.com. Sturak is also a contributing editor at NoirNation.com, the premier location for international crime fiction. His debut thriller novel Clouded Rainbow was published in December 2009 and has over 200,000 downloads on the Amazon Kindle. His other works include the adventure romance His First, Her Last: The Incredible True Story of an American Lost in the Philippines (2013), thriller novels Vegas Was Her Name (2013) and A Smu
dge of Gray (2012), as well as the collection From Vegas With Blood (2011). Sturak keeps updated information on his website at sturak.com
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