Last Words
I remember falling but not much else - no time for fear or panic, no time to wonder who or why, no time even for pain.
I was crossing a footbridge over a main road when somebody seemed to heave me up and push me over the side, onto the road below. Memory plays tricks and you hear stories of memories suppressed because the conscious mind rejects them, but I don't think I saw anyone at all. Again, I can't remember what I was doing on the bridge - returning from the shops on the other side, maybe - or of being with anyone. On the other hand, some individual did throw me off. Bastard! I think a vehicle may have hit me as I fell, and slammed me towards the side of the road, but I'm not sure. I just remember falling and then hospital.
I have a vague consciousness of lying on a trolley in accident and emergency, being prodded and examined by a doctor and undressed by a nurse. I was embarrassed in a detached sort of way to be naked, but she didn't hurt me, though I didn't seem able to do anything myself.
"No response," I remember the doctor saying about some reflex. I told him I couldn't feel anything. He shone a light into my eyes to examine them.
"Hmm," he said, noncommittally. "How did it happen?"
"I was thrown off a bridge," I said.
"According to a witness, she just jumped off a footbridge, onto the Aire Valley Trunk Road," said the nurse, ignoring me completely.
The Doctor pulled a face. "Makes a change from paracetamol and vodka, I suppose," he remarked.
I was about to say that no one in their right mind would choose to jump onto a main road from a bridge. Before I had chance to speak, he continued: "Well there's extensive pelvic and spinal damage and the head injury, though there's not much blood loss that I can see. Renew the drip. Take some blood samples in case we need to give her transfusions for internal bleeding later. Send her for X-rays of her spine, pelvis and head, then send her up to intensive care and let Doctor Dennison have a look at her."
The doctor rushed off. The nurse bustled about, acting as if I wasn't there and then things went hazy again.
I became conscious a second time on the ward, but only briefly. I was linked up to a variety of monitors and I couldn't move. I wasn't held down in any way, it was just that I was unable to force even the slightest movement of my muscles: not a finger, not my head, not even my eyes. It was brief but boring and very, very scary.
The third time I became aware I was wide-awake and could sense what I couldn't see. I could hear and speak and think, but I still couldn't move. It was some time, possibly days, later, when a doctor - presumably the Dennison they had mentioned in accident & emergency - had come onto the ward to examine me, bringing several students with him. I could see him when he stood at the end of the bed and a bit of the side reflected off the face-mask helping me to breathe. I could see he was about the same age as my mum - early to mid forties I should guess - and the nurses stood alongside him in a way that suggested he had some authority, even the one as old as my gran.
I couldn't see much of the students except when he called them forward to look at some bit of me. He shone a light in my eyes, held up the X-rays to examine them and drew in a long breath. He looked over the various monitors connected to me and then turned his attention back to the students.
"Let's recap," Dennison said. "Female in her early twenties,"
"Twenty three," I told him.
"Pelvic damage on the right side. Substantial and fairly serious but I could repair that. Spinal damage looks much more serious. I think there could be near total paralysis from the waist down."
I thought Dennison was a bit blunt, considering he was speaking in front of me. Not very high up on the bedside manner scales, perhaps: it was just like he thought I couldn't hear. He put down the X-rays of my back and bum on the bed and picked up the one of my head. He was out of my sight but I think he was looking from the X-ray to the various monitors.
"Pulse a bit fast and temperature a little high," he said.
"Not enough to cause real concern, surely," the older of the two nurses suggested. I could still just see her, but I could hear them both clearly enough.
The older nurse moved back into full view again: she had greying hair that had been very auburn - the colour still showed a bit - and a sharp though pleasant manner. Perhaps she wasn't as old as my gran at that, but she must have been close to retiring age.
"Oh no, I agree," Dennison said. "It's the head injury that concerns me. How did she get the injuries, do you know."
"Some one tried to kill me," I said.
"Attempted suicide, I believe," said the sister ignoring me like Dennison had done.
"Like hell it was attempted suicide!"
"Well, the attempt was nearly successful," Dennison remarked drily. "She hasn't shown any sign of life?" he asked.
I wished they wouldn't talk about me as if I wasn't there.
"Not really," the older nurse said. "I've thought once or twice she might have responded to her position being changed as we settled her in, but nothing of her own accord. Three days and still nothing."
"I've tried to talk to you," I said, annoyed and worried as well. "But you won't take any notice of me."
They were still taking no notice of me. I don't think they could hear me. Perhaps I couldn't communicate at all, as well as not being able to move.
Dennison nodded slowly to the nurse and then spoke to the students I couldn't see. "There's no sign of life on the EEG. Unless there's any change in the next hour or two, we're going to have to think about switching off the various life support features."
"Please don't switch me off," I said starting to panic. I didn't know whether I could breathe without this thing on my face and I couldn't move to feed myself or drink anything. If they switched off all this gear I'd be a goner. Besides, I wanted to know what had happened on that bridge. "I'm not dead yet and anyway they haven't caught the person who tried to kill me."
" I think I'll talk to the relatives when I've finished my rounds. I'll ask them to drop in this evening.
The doctor was obviously taking no notice of me at all. I screamed in panic: "FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T SWITCH ME OFF!"
He ignored me completely. I might as well have said nothing.
He glanced at his watch but I could see the ward clock from where I was lying - it was just turned ten thirty.
"I'm due in the operating theatre at two," he said, presumably to the students. "And I want you to pop into my outpatient clinic after I've finished here, but," he added to the nurse, "There might be time to phone the relatives before lunch and set up an appointment if we push on. Right," he continued briskly, "Let's see what else you have for us,"
The curtains around me swished open as the junior of the two nurses followed the doctor and the ward sister and the students to the next bed, to close those curtains as briskly as she had opened those around me.
II
Bernard Dennison considered himself a very competent surgeon, as indeed he was, but it did incline him to arrogance and a feeling of infallibility. He had often saved his patients against the odds and he wasn't relishing giving up on Mrs Linda Braithwaite, but he was satisfied she was already brain dead. What on earth prompted a presentable young woman, in her early twenties and apparently not long married, to jump off a road bridge? He sighed and opened the door of his office.
Dennison hung his jacket over the back of a chair and sat down at his desk. The post had arrived, though most of it was internal. He skimmed through to make sure there was nothing urgent then turned to the phone. Actually it was a fax machine, incorporating an ordinary telephone and an answering machine. A sheet of paper projecting from it showed there was a fax waiting. He tore off the short message and glanced at it.
Then he looked again more carefully.
The message read simply 'FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T SWITCH ME OFF!'
He had been thinking about Linda Braithwaite and about contacting whoever was her next of kin. Presumably a relative must have dro
pped in to see her and the ward sister had said something. This was abrupt to the point of rudeness.
He examined the fax. There was no cover sheet or header. There was no signature or other indication of the sender, just the short, stark message. He looked carefully at the printed details of the sending machine. It was a local number. In fact, he thought it might be one of the hospital numbers. He picked up the handset and dialled the switchboard.
"Do you recognise this number?" he said, and read it out.
"That's one of the patient lines," the operator told him. "Let's see ... " there was a brief pause as she looked through a list. "It's the patient line from the Intensive Care Unit."
"Thank you," Dennison said, surprised, and put the phone down, wondering if the sender was still around.
'I might just catch them', he thought.
He gathered his notes for the afternoon's work, put Linda Braithwaite's notes and the fax on top, grabbed his jacket from the chair, and rushed out of his office, heading for the ICU.
Dennison bustled into the quiet of intensive care, breaking a silence one could feel. Brenda Easterman looked up from her work at a bedside, saw Dennison dump his notes on the nursing station counter and went over to see what he wanted.
Dennison looked around the ward, empty except for still patients and silent but for quietly beeping monitors.
"I gather some relative of Linda Braithwaite must have been in," he said.
"There's been nobody at all since you left, except for the porter collecting the laundry."
"Well who sent this?" he demanded, waving the fax at her.
Sister Easterman looked at it. Then she looked at it again. "I don't know who sent it," she said. "We haven't got a fax on this ward."
"Is this some kind of a practical joke?" he snapped. "It's come from the patient line in Intensive Care."
Brenda looked at the fax again. "I don't think so," she said. "The patient line is mobile unit and can be plugged in to various sockets, but you have to have a Patient Call Card with a PIN number, so I don't think you could send a fax from here, even for a joke."
"What other explanation could there be?" Dennison demanded. "Anyway, I have to go to the theatre. I haven't time for unfunny practical jokes." He slammed down the fax, picked up the bundles of notes and stormed out. The atmosphere subsided slowly to calmness, like a pond after a flight of ducks have flown noisily away.
Brenda Easterman looked at the fax again, thinking that practical jokes did not seem to be likely, nor did they seem physically possible without her knowledge. In fact, a practical joke did not seem physically possible at all. If there was a logical explanation, for the life of her, she could not see what it could be.
She folded the paper carefully and put it away in her uniform pocket. She had an idea as to who could possibly throw some light on it. She would phone her sister when she got home.
III
Brenda Easterman finished putting away her shopping, took her mug of tea into the living room and flopped into an armchair. She kicked off her shoes, took a sip of tea and picked up the phone to call her sister.
"Judith? It's Brenda here ... Look, an incident happened at work today that seems just right for you and your weird friend ..."
"I presume you mean Toby. He's not weird, you know. Just psychic."
Brenda gave a little laugh that was more a good-humoured snort. "As far as I'm concerned you're both a bit weird," she said.
This time it was her sister's turn to give a very similar sort of laugh. Judith put on a strong Yorkshire accent. "T' whole world's weird except me and thee and sometimes I'm not so sure about thee." She said, and added, "So tell me about your weird incident."
"I said your friend was weird," the nurse said, "but the whole incident is a bit that way. We have an attempted suicide in a coma in intensive care. Doctor Dennison was round this morning. He talked about switching off the life support equipment. When he got back to his office there was a fax saying, 'For God's sake don't switch me off'. No heading or anything. No signature, just the message."
"Didn't the fax have the sender's number?"
"Yes. And that's the weirdest thing of all. It gave the number of the patient line from the intensive care unit. I swear nobody went near the phone with a fax machine and anyway, you need a patient call PIN number to make a call, so you couldn't fax out without reprogramming the machine first."
Judith hesitated a moment as she thought about it. "I don't think you could re-programme a fax machine to give a PIN number on request," she remarked doubtfully. "You're right. This really is weird. I think I'd like to have a look at your coma patient who sends faxes to a doctor while lying in a coma."
"I was hoping you might say that. I wondered whether your psychic friend could throw any light on the affair. Do you think Toby would like to see the patient for himself?"
"I'm sure of it. I'll give him a call and see if we can visit this coma victim tonight. If not, we could maybe go tomorrow night."
"Dr Dennison was talking about seeing the relatives tonight about switching off life support."
"Then we'd better go tonight. Can we just walk in?"
"Visiting in the ICU is any time, subject to the duty sister's discretion. Janice Adams is on duty this shift. I'll ring her up if you're sure you're going."
"What's the bloke's name? The patient, I mean."
"Her name," Brenda corrected. "It's a twenty-three year old woman. A Mrs Linda Braithwaite."
"Okay. I'll call Toby and see whether he's free and call you back. This does sound really unusual. Weird."
"Ah," Brenda said, "So you do admit to being weird!"
Judith laughed. "No. Interested in the unusual, yes, but weird ourselves, no! Talk to you in a minute."
IV
Lying on your back for hours on end, unable to move a muscle, is boring. A nurse stuck headphones on me and turned on some hospital radio programme. In one way it was a relief from the monotony, in another I could have done without bland pops and forced good humour. I could have cheerfully strangled the DJ when he talked about getting out of bed and dancing. Well, actually, I couldn't have strangled him, any more than I could get up to dance, but at least I could think about my situation when it was quiet.
I had a vague recollection of coming back from the shops, across that footbridge, carrying something. It must have been shopping. I wondered what had happened to it. When the nurse took off the headphones and changed a drip I thought over my present position.
It was clear that that I couldn't move a muscle, not even my eyes, so probably I couldn't move my mouth to speak. I could see. I could hear. I could think. I could even think the words I wanted to say so clearly that it felt like I was saying them, but no one could hear me, so I can't have been actually talking. The reason everyone ignored me was not lack of interest but my total inability to communicate.
Two people appeared at the foot of my bed. One looked like a younger version of the older nurse I had seen around earlier, but she was a bit smaller with masses of auburn hair held in some sort of clip. This new woman was more my mum's age and wearing a green dress that matched her eyes and went with her hair colour. She was really rather nice looking, with an air - no, a feeling - of latent power. Sort of like a friendly and amiable looking lioness. The bloke next to her was big, black and old. He had searching brown eyes and really friendly 'feel'.
"Good evening," the big bloke said. "I am Tobias N'Dibe and the lady is Judith Easterman."
"She looks like one of the nurses," I said, not that anyone could hear me speak.
"Not surprising," this Tobias said, apparently knowing what I was thinking. "She is the younger sister of one of the ward sisters.
"Is she a nurse then?" I wondered.
"Oh no. They are genuine sisters and there is a family likeness, but their occupations are quite different - one of them tries to save lives while the other tries to understand life. Their souls are not very alike either."
"Can you hear
me?" I wondered
"Yes indeed. Not your words, but your thoughts."
"That's a relief. I can't seem to communicate with anybody."
"Actually you did communicate earlier today, in a most unusual way. That's why we are here."
"But they can't' hear me. The doctor even wants to switch off the life support do-hickey."
"And you sent him a fax saying 'For God's sake don't switch me off'. It caused rather a stir, you know."
"How did I do that?"
"If the emotion is strong enough, it's surprising what the mind can do. So, why was it so important to you?"
"They wanted to turn off the do-hickey - whatever it is, I can't see. If they did that I'd be dead. Isn't that reason enough?"
"Possibly. But I detect something more."
"I didn't attempt suicide. I was pushed off the bridge."
"Pushed?"
"Picked up and thrown. Either I didn't see who did it or my memory's playing tricks and telling me I don't know. Anyway, I want someone to catch whoever tried to kill me. I want to know before I die."
"That may be a little difficult to do, under the circumstances.
"What d'you mean?"
The big man looked sad but friendly. "I mean, Linda my dear, that you're dead already."
"I can't be!"
"Oh, but you are," he said, perching on the side of the bed like a large, elderly robin and taking my hand. "That's why I can hear you and talk to you."
"That's not fair. What about whoever tried to kill me?"
"I'm afraid they succeeded, but that doesn't mean they'll get away with it."
"What do you mean?"
"Karma, Linda my dear. Karma. Whoever killed you will have to pay for it in this or some subsequent lifetime. The scales of karmic justice stretch for all eternity, and everything must be settled in full. Balanced. Why don't you let go of your body and go on to your own next lifetime?"
The auburn haired woman smiled like a friend too. She reached over the other side and took my other hand. I could feel the warmth of them both flooding through me. Suddenly everything seemed all right.
V
At that moment the jagged but uneven lines pulsing across the monitor screen went flat and a little alarm began beeping insistently
Mike Crowson – Former teacher, former Secretary of the UK Green Party in its early days - is an Occult and Esoteric Consultant, offering free and unconditional help for those in genuinely occult or psychic difficulties, based on some 40 years of study and research. He is a Mason, Rosicrucian and an Adept of the Western Mysteries, and can be found and contacted at: https://www.mikecrowson.co.uk
His books include:
Witchmoor Edge Series:
Witchmoor Edge
On Edge
Outside Edge
Over the Edge
Edgeways On
Female of the Species (Short Stories)
Occult Novels:
The Rings of Poseidon
Only the Darkness
Heat Stroke
The Flag and the Flower
The Riddle and the Key
Wytchmoor Peak
(and ‘Sealed Entrance’ coming shortly)
Parallel Loop (Short Stories)
The first three are available free as .pdf from obooko.
Non-Fiction:
Psychic Lifeline
(Recognizing and Managing Psychic & Occult Harm)
Poetry & Plays
What’s Left for Tomorrow (Poetry)
All This Homework’s Killing Me (Play)
The Poser in the Porsche (Play)
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