Feeling any better today, handsome? You’ve got a bit of color in your skin. We’ll have these curtains closed, what do you say? I was right to let the sun work its magic. I always say you should grab the sunshine in both hands and rub it all over your face when you get the chance. There’s more snow coming, so you enjoy Mr. Sun while he lasts. Beautiful blue sky, too—though there are black clouds rolling in. My brothers and me, we used to purse our lips and blow when the clouds came, trying to push the rains and the snows back out to sea. Let them have it back in Nantucket, that’s what Mother would say. They’ve got the clothes for it. Anyways, I’ll leave you to it. You need your rest. I’ll be back to clean you up but don’t be clock-watching now. I hope your friend comes in again. I know you enjoy his visits. You just keep it calm, though, y’hear? Your pulse rate went too high last time. You need things steady and safe. Get yourself back to strength. We’ve been betting on whether your eyes are blue or brown. I’ve said brown. Carys from Ward C swore blind you had blue. Said she heard it from the anesthetist’s lady friend. Blue and unresponsive, though you don’t want to hear that, I’m sure. I don’t want to cheat. I want you to open your eyes and show me those twinkly brown peepers while you smile and praise Jesus for the miracle that you are. God bless now. I’ll be along in a while . . .”
Never fecking shuts up, this one. Well intentioned, but Christ, it’s like living with a presenter on children’s TV. Don’t know who she is. Just a noise. A sort of rainbow noise, like looking through a crystal. Not like Holy Joe. He’s beige. Parchment, maybe. Voice like crinkling paper. Typical fecking Bible thumper. Prayer after fecking prayer, psalm after bloody psalm. I’m the miracle, that’s what they say. A miracle. Bollocks. I can’t fecking move. Can’t open me bastard eyes. Can’t do a thing but listen and smell. Decent food, by the whiff of it. No flowers, but there’s something like Christmas trees and cinnamon wafting up what’s left of me nose. Shouldn’t have said that out loud, Doc. Don’t distress the patient. Poor bastard doesn’t know his own name but he knows he’s had his nose sliced off and a bullet put in the back of his head. Should be pushing up daisies. But he survived. Miracle Man. Modern Lazarus, though Lazarus didn’t spend the next two weeks in a hospital bed in a fecking coma, did he? But Lazarus didn’t come out swinging, and this one fecking will. He’s fecking strong, is this one. Doesn’t die easy. Doesn’t go down, even when his legs are telling him to fall. He’s a fighter. Doesn’t know his name, but he knows that much. Knows he doesn’t give up. Knows he can take a beating and come back stronger. Knows that somebody is going to pay for this. Somebody is going to fecking bleed. Just remember. Try and remember, son. Think now. There was snow. Snow like icing on a cake. Some greasy prick in sweatpants trying to make you squirm. Trees like sticks of charcoal. And then he ran and you watched him go; told him to run till his lungs burst. There were shouts, and then the shadow was falling forward and there was a bang and it was all fecking dark until Nurse Rainbow started telling you how lucky you were to be alive and that you needed to get your strength but she were praying for you, and so was this nice man who wanted to read to you from his Bible and said he was family . . . Remember. Get better. Start swinging. Make somebody fecking bleed.