Moving On

Henry Smith was not sure where he was. It felt as though he had been sinking, deeper and deeper, and was now slowly coming up for air. He could hear people shouting all around him, their words, indistinct and strangely muffled, hitting his ears along with a cacophony of other noises Henry couldn’t place. As his senses slowly returned, he became aware that he was lying down. However, he was not stationary. In fact, he almost felt as though he were floating. The feeling was rather pleasant and Henry vaguely wondered if he was dreaming.

Suddenly, he felt a bump which broke his reverie and brought with it pain. Henry tried to gasp and found his chest felt oddly tight. Now lights were starting to burst behind his eyelids.

It took an almost superhuman effort, but Henry finally managed to open his eyes. And almost immediately, he wished he had kept them shut.

Everything seemed determined to assault his senses. He realised that the people leaning over him and shouting were in fact doctors. He realised he was lying on a gurney which was being pushed with extreme urgency down a hospital’s corridors. The lights flashing by overhead were little more than a blur. It hurt his eyes to look straight up. But far worse was the pain shooting throughout his body. It was pure agony, which was exacerbated every time the gurney hit another little bump.

Now panic was beginning to wrap it’s tentacles around him, constricting his airway. Henry had been afraid of hospitals for the better part of his life. He hadn’t set foot in one since he was a small boy. He hadn’t even gone to see a physician, except when absolutely necessary. In his mind, if he went into a hospital, he would be leaving it in a pine box. And he couldn’t die. Not now, when he had other people depending on him.

He tried to grab one of the doctors and tell them to stop, but his arms no longer seemed capable of obeying his commands. Now scared out of his mind he began hyperventilating and wheezing. One of the doctors shoved an oxygen mask on his face. “Relax,” the doctor said.

Henry looked up and saw a kind-faced man in his fifties looking at him with considerable concern, but trying to force a smile on his features. The man exuded authority and a certain amount of self-confidence. His hair was almost entirely grey, but thick and his eyes were a dark, soft blue. They were eyes one couldn’t help but trust. And Henry wanted to trust him. But his childhood phobia still had too strong a grip on him. When his breath refused to return to normal, the doctor placed a calming hand on his shoulder.

“Not a fan of hospitals, are you? Well, you’re not the only one. We’re not so fussed about them either,” he said, trying to ease Henry’s mind.

It worked. Henry slowly relaxed and stared at the doctor in confusion. How the doctor could joke at a time like this was a mystery to him.

They passed a large open area and the smell of antiseptic assaulted Henry's nostrils. It was a smell everyone typically associated with hospitals. And Henry knew this smell only too well and he loathed in equal measure. It conjured up images of a time he had worked his entire life to forget and threatened to overwhelm him. In what seemed like a trance, he realised the doctor was speaking to him again.

“Don’t worry,” he was saying. “We’ll take good care of you.”

But Henry’s eyesight was beginning to fade. Darkness was gathering at the edges of his vision. He shook his head and tried to say something, but only a gurgle came out and then he promptly passed out.

Suddenly, Henry was no longer the successful 30-year-old Internet Designer. He was eight, sitting cross-legged on his parents’ old couch, in the tiny, dilapidated apartment they were calling home. He was watching a silly cartoon. His mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner and humming softly to herself. Occasionally, Henry could hear her. It warmed his heart. He had always loved his mother’s singing.

His father was not home yet. He worked nearly 14 hours a day just to make ends meet and when he was home all he did was eat and sleep. He never payed any attention to Henry and only paid the bare minimum of attention to his wife. However, she never asked for anything more and, in their own way, they were both content with their life.

Henry was hungry and his stomach was rumbling, but he knew he had to wait until his dad returned home. When he eventually did, he stopped briefly to say “Hello” to his wife and inhale the mouth-watering aroma of her cooking. Then he nodded in Henry’s direction and went into the bathroom.

Henry didn’t say anything, he waited until his mother called him to dinner and only then did he jump up off the couch. Halfway across the living room, however, his entire world turned upside-down.

An explosion rocked their entire apartment. Henry was thrown to the floor. He screamed and covered his head with his arms, feeling millions of pieces of debris raining down on him. Something heavy struck his right arm and he cried out in pain. He made himself as small as he could, praying it would all end soon.

When it did, he didn’t immediately realise it. Slowly, cautiously, he dug himself out of the rubble and raised himself to a standing position. Trembling from every joint, he took in the devastation all around him.

The wall to the kitchen had been blown out. As had part of the ceiling. He could see his upstairs neighbour’s couch hanging through the hole in his living room, which now had the look of a demolition site. But, unbelievably, the building had not collapsed entirely.

Henry could not believe that what he was seeing was true. Convincing himself it was all just a nightmare, he closed his eyes and pinched his leg hard. When he opened them and found himself back in the destroyed apartment panic began to set in earnest. With it came awareness and he saw an image that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

His mother had been blown into the living room by the blast. Her entire body was covered in raw burn marks and she was lying on top of a pile of rubble that used to be the kitchen wall. Henry screamed and tried to make his way to her. He wanted to help her, to save her. Before he could stumble over, his father brushed passed him. Henry could see he had been injured too. His face was covered in dirt and blood and he was limping heavily, but seemed otherwise unharmed. He knelt over his wife and carefully tried looking for a pulse. He finally found a spot where he could place his fingers and held his breath while he waited.

Henry knew what his father wanted to do. He had seen it on television. He was aware of holding his breath while he waited for his dad to say something. When nothing happened, Henry felt tears burning his eyes and he let them flow.

Suddenly, his father’s eyes went wide as saucers and he screamed. “Get a paramedic here, NOW! Go, boy, go!”

Henry wasted no time. Already he could hear sirens in the distance. He made his way over the debris in his apartment and flew down the stairs which had miraculously survived the blast. Once out of the building, he frantically searched around for a paramedic. Spotting an ambulance, he ran over to it.

“Come quickly, please! Come on!” he said, pulling at the sleeve of a paramedic, who was preparing his equipment to start tending to the injured.

“Slow down there, kid. You’re hurt, you need care.”

The paramedic leaned down to start examining Henry, but he jerked back. “I’m fine! My mother needs help. Please, hurry!”

The paramedic looked at him sympathetically. “We will, but they need make sure the building is safe first.”

“Please.” Henry was now crying again, begging. “She is in a bad way. She is dying. Please…”

Seeing the helpless little boy who looked as though he had been through hell and back crying uncontrollably at the thought of losing his mother won over the paramedic. “Where is she?”

“5^th floor, right where it happened,” Henry said, chocking on every other word.

The paramedic nodded. With no regard to his own safety, he decided to go in and try to pull out Henry’s mother. His partner elected to go with him. He left Henry in the ambulance with another colleague of his and the 2 paramedics entered the building.

Henry waited for what seemed like an eternity for his parents to come out. Finally, they did. The two paramedics were carrying his mother on a stretcher, covered in a special blanket, while the paramedic Henry had talked to before also carried his father, slumped on his shoulders. Henry ran over to the group, as they were loading his parents into an ambulance.

“Are they OK? What happened to dad?” he asked.

“Not sure,” the paramedic answered, catching his breath. “We’ll take them to the hospital. You stay here and someone will take you there very soon.”

“But…” Henry started.

“I’m sorry kid, you have to stay here for now.”

With that the paramedics climbed on board and the ambulance sped off towards the hospital.

Henry was left alone, surrounded by paramedics, firefighters and other trauma victims. The smell of burnt flesh was unbearable. Someone tended to his injured arm and placed him among other people who were not severely injured. As he looked around, Henry could not believe the sheer devastation he was seeing all around him. He knew it had originated from their kitchen and felt scared, sitting among the people that were injured because of that. He didn't know - he could not know - that the explosion had been an accident: a gas leak his mother had not been able to detect in time. No one was to blame.

Eventually, more ambulances came to transport the few remaining survivors, including Henry, to the hospital.

Once there, Henry was met with even more chaos. They had been taken to the ER. Here, doctors were running around everywhere trying to care for all the victims. The smell of burnt flesh was now intermingled with that of antiseptic, which, by the end of the day, Henry would learn to fear. He tried looking for his mother and father, but couldn’t see them in all the throng. The cries of all the victims were unbearable and Henry tried to cover his ears.

Out of nowhere, someone ran into him, knocking him over. The nurse helped him up and gave him a quick look-over. Then she told him to go to the waiting room and stay there until someone went to get him.

Henry did as he was told, making his way slowly through the throng, so as not to get knocked down again. When he got to the waiting room, he found himself an empty chair, sat and placed his head in his hands. He tried blocking out the sounds and smells of the hospital, but it was no use. The noise was everywhere and the smell was clinging to his clothes, choking him. He cried and cried, occasionally looking up, hoping someone was about to come for him. But it was no use. For hours on end, no one came. He was left all alone, hearing the other people’s screams, the doctors telling relatives someone close to them had died, all the while smelling that insufferable odour.

And suddenly the image changed. He was no longer living his darkest nightmare of 22 years, but watching it. He was 30 again, tall, his clothes no longer smelling of antiseptic, watching the frightened 8-year-old trembling with uncontrolled crying that no one in the entire hospital paid any attention to. He knew that this little boy was soon about to get the worst news of his life: that his mother was dead and that he was going to live with his father. He knew that the boy’s father would slowly drink himself to death, that he would wind up in that very same hospital, with liver failure, and expire there too. That from that moment on, the little boy would be forever changed.

He also knew that somewhere, in a different hospital, he, the real Henry, was at that very moment fighting for his life, putting all his faith in a bunch of doctors.

Henry had never set foot in a hospital since the day his mother died. Even when his father was dying, he never went to see him. He associated hospitals with death and, deep down he knew that because of what he was seeing he must be dying too.

His eyes shifted to the other side of the waiting room and his breath caught in his throat. On a chair, her head hung low, sat his wife, pregnant with their first child. He knew she was waiting for news about him. He ran over to her and knelt down in front of her. He tried calling her name, tried brushing the hair from her face, but she couldn’t see, nor hear or feel him. He was less than a ghost. Cursing himself, he started crying.

Henry was normally a very cautious driver. But that day his wife had called him, to tell him she wasn’t feeling well. So, Henry threw caution to the wind and rushed to her side. He hadn’t even bothered to put his seat belt on. He was nearly home when another driver crashed into him from the side. Had he been paying attention, he might have been able to avoid the accident.

He cursed himself again and looked into his wife’s face.

“No,” he told himself forcefully. “I am not leaving her alone!”

He tore himself away from her and ran down the corridors, crashing into doors, skidding around corners and taking the stairs 3 at a time. He eventually arrived at the operating theatre and crashed into the OR.

The image that met his made him stop in his tracks. He was lying on the operating table, surrounded by doctors who seemed weary and tired, but pumping energetically on his chest. The monotonous tone of the machines told him his heart had stopped. As he looked at the scene, he realised the doctors may not be able to revive him. He tried screaming at them, but it was a futile gesture.

Then, one of the doctors asked for the electric paddles. He placed them on Henry’s chest and pressed the buttons. There was a sound like a crack and Henry’s body jerked violently. Again and again, the doctor charged the paddles and again and again, Henry heard the pounding his body made when it jerked on the table. And suddenly the pounding was inside Henry’s head. It felt as though someone was trying to split it open. He fell to his knees, grabbing his head and screwed up his eyes as tightly as he could.

The next time he woke up, he was lying in a hospital beat, a machine softly beeping at his side and a tube shoved down his throat tat was helping him breathe. His whole body felt as though it were on fire, the drugs they were surely pumping into him barely dulling the pain. He realised someone was holding his hand. He turned his head with some difficulty and saw it was his wife. She caught the movement and beamed down at him.

“Well, hello there,” she said.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Smith,” said another voice. Henry looked around and saw the kind-faced doctor leaning over the foot of his bed and smiling at him. He went over to pull out the tube. Henry chocked and coughed but eventually it came out. “You gave us quite a scare,” the doctor said. “But we got you back in the end.” Then he turned serious. “You were very lucky. You’ll need a lot of time to recover, but you should be back to 100% in no time. I’ll be back to check on you later.”

With that, the doctor left. Henry turned to his wife and tried asking her non-verbally how she was doing. His throat still felt too raw for speech.

She understood. “I’m fine.”

Henry’s eyes travelled to her belly.

“The baby is fine too,” she said. “We’re all going to be just fine.”

Henry inhaled deeply, feeling the smell of antiseptic envelop him again. He felt a quick pang in his heart but nothing more. The past was past, it was time for Henry to finally look towards the future.

“Yes,” he rasped. “We’ll be just fine.”