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Jonathan heard the machines beeping softly, as if his ears were attached to some other body in the distance. His eyes were heavy as he struggled to pry them open. The ceiling above was white, with only a sprinkler and white dome smoke detector—flashing two red dots—to break up the expanse of plainness. Beneath him, the bed was hard and uncomfortable. A feeling of lightness overwhelmed him, making him dizzy and nauseous. He sat up feeling resistance from the cords attached to his skin.
Jonathan fell back down, his head hitting the pillow, where he blacked out.
When he woke some time later, he felt less dizzy and lay, taking in the room around him. Footsteps and muttered conversations echoed in through the open door. He sat up and looked about him at the machines that decorated the room. A monitor showed a rainbow of coloured lines and numbers, though he wasn’t sure exactly what they meant. As he stood on the cold linoleum floor, his bare feet felt a strange adhesion, like a thin spread of glue. Jonathan felt as if he was weightless, his legs feeling nothing. The wall held a number of electrical sockets and air valves for oxygen.
In the corner of the room was a chair stacked with bundles of blankets and sheets. His eyes glossed over the room, seeing everything, but not quite taking it in. A water jug sat next to a clear plastic cup on a portable table. Jonathan’s mouth felt parched. Moving to the table, he reached out to pick up the cup.
His hand stopped at the plastic. It was like he had no strength.
“What the Hell?” Jonathan said as he tried again to pick up the cup, once more unsuccessfully.
The pile of blankets in the corner moved and made a noise. When he looked more closely, he saw two jeans-covered legs poking out. Whoever it was had kicked off their white sneakers revealing their plain white socks. After he had moved across to the chair, Jonathan tried to move the blankets, but his hand stopped as it had on the cup.
“What is happening?” he said to himself. “Am I a ghost?”
An overwhelming urge to vomit spread through his gut. When he turned back to the bed he saw his body still lying—eyes closed—under the sheets, cords and drains attached in a tangled web. How am I looking at myself still in bed? His face was bruised and had certainly looked better before whatever had happened to put him in hospital.
Am I a ghost? he wondered. Does that mean I’m dead?
Peering closely at his body in the bed he saw a thick blue tube attached to his nose, like the CPAP breathing apparatus his grandma used. His chest was rising and falling in intermittent patterns beneath the sheets. His body was alive, but did that life extend to his mind?
A scream echoed down the hall and through the door. Chills ricocheted through his spine. Was it a patient, or a family member? Either way, it didn’t bode well.
He needed to get out of the room. Walking tentatively to the door, Jonathan peeked out at the busy hallway. Nurses walked carrying clipboards. Visitors sat in chairs sipping hot drinks from Styrofoam cups while they scrolled on their phones. Jonathan walked unnoticed past the people in the hall, unable to focus on any one conversation among the hubbub of noise. Not one pair of eyes seemed to focus on him, instead passing over him in a cursory glance.
As a kid he had always wanted to be invisible. Mainly so he could sneak around unnoticed and be the proverbial fly on the wall. Even though he doubted the practicality of invisibility, especially the genital shrinkage from wearing no clothes in the middle of winter, he never dreamed it would become real. Now he had a chance to explore the hospital, and to see people when they thought they were alone.
Jonathan began to walk away from his room, trying to focus on anything interesting. He strode to a group of doctors who were moving from room to room, a tall trolley holding a computer as someone—a doctor presumably—typed notes. Jonathan felt dumb. They spoke in a medical discourse, their use of jargon hard for him to understand.
Disappointed, he moved on to a woman who was having a hushed conversation in the corner with a man. He moved up to the woman and crouched down, his face right in front of hers. Their noses touched. The woman’s eyes peered right through him; it made Jonathan feel like a window.
“But he was caught with the neighbour and his heart stopped. Doctors are saying he may not make it through the night,” the woman said. Jonathan felt the wind of her words blow across his face, but when he tried to touch her, his skin met an impenetrable force that wouldn’t budge.
“So are we telling Mum, or not?” the man whispered back. Jonathan turned and looked into the man’s grey eyes.
“You know we can’t tell Mum. It’d break her heart!” the woman said, her blue eyes glassy, rimmed in red.
Jonathan left the siblings to their family issues and moved through the ward. In the worst moments of their life, people were pretty boring. What he really wanted to do was see a surgery taking place, or somebody doing something embarrassing; something to make him laugh. He wandered the halls, peering through open doors and listening out for juicy gossip. By the time he had reached the bank of lifts, he had neither seen nor heard anything of interest. Instinct kicked in, making him attempt to avoid running into people as he walked.
An empty lift was about to close its doors and Jonathan raced forward, his arm outstretched out of habit, forgetting about his lack of physical substance. The lift’s doors began to close on him as he slid inside and tried to push a button.
Realisation struck, making him punch the metal wall. How would he make the lift move if he couldn’t put pressure on the buttons? Now he was stuck inside the stuffy lift. A pungent stench of stale fart, body odour and cigarette smoke lingered inside the lift, making Jonathan feel queasy. There was nothing he could do but wait and hope somebody would come soon to use the lift.
A sudden thought occurred to him: how would he get back? He would need to rely on somebody getting in who wanted to get to the floor his body was on. Was it even important for him to stay close to his body? If he was a ghost, it meant he was essentially dead. Unless he was, by some miracle, able to relocate his presence back into his body, he would be stuck haunting the world forever. Not that he could really do much in the way of making his presence known, so it would be more like lurking.
Finally the doors opened and a man walked in, a backpack slung over his shoulder, pushing Jonathan back. Jonathan’s feet slid on the floor below him, like an avatar in a computer game.
“Hey!” Jonathan called out. The man pushed the button for the ground floor and stood facing away from his invisible companion. Jonathan debated whether he should get out and stay with his body in the room, or stay and walk around a bit. His decision was made for him as the doors closed and Jonathan felt the lift begin to shake as it descended.
The man began picking his nose and, holding his finger in front of him, examined the snot. He rolled it between his finger and thumb before flicking it, where it stuck to the lift wall near the button panel. Jonathan cringed in disgust. His older brother had often left his snot balls on the toilet wall, grossing out the whole family until he had moved out after high school. But, as far as Jonathan knew, Callum had never left them in public like the man in the lift.
When the lift arrived at the ground floor, Jonathan rushed to get away from the snot-flicking man. He would worry about getting back to his body later. For now, he decided, he would explore some more and see what he was capable of. A crowd of people milled around in the ground level foyer. Some were seated in lounges, chatting in groups; others waited in line for coffee at the café gift shop. Jonathan stood, deciding where to go next among the myriad of hallways and doors.
An overwhelming feeling of being watched made his skin tingle, shivers shaking through his body. He looked around, about to ignore his instinct when he saw a woman leaning against the wall, her eyes focussed intently on him. She reminded Jonathan of a young Elton John, her blonde hair cut short, fringe dangling down to round, sparkly glasses. Her dress was adorned in sequins that refracted colourful specks of light across the floor, like a rainbow mirror ball. When she saw Jonathan returning her gaze, she smiled, yellow teeth peeking from beneath dry, cracked lips.
Jonathan felt his eyebrows crease together as he peered behind him at the beige wall. He moved towards the window to his left, peering out at the busy street of the city outside where people moved about. All part of their normal life, unaware of the number of lives that change each day inside the hospital near them. Peering back at the woman, Jonathan saw she had begun to move towards him, a smile lighting up her face.
How can she see me? Jonathan wondered, dreading conversation. He had never been great around new people. Small talk had never been his forte.
“Another planer,” the woman said cheerily. Her voice seemed too loud for a hospital foyer, easily heard over the quiet hubbub. “Hi. It’s been ages since I met someone like me.” She held her hand out towards him. Stunned, Jonathan took it in his hand and they shook.
“You can speak, can’t you? Your tongue ain’t cut out or nothin’? I met a dude a year or two back who was deaf. Can’t ‘member what happened to him. Think he was pushed onto the road or somethin’ and ended up bein’ taken along on the front of a truck. Least that’s what Karen said after, but. Never did trust her, if you get me. Anyway, listen to me rabbit on. Just I haven’t had anyone to talk to in...” the woman paused, her right hand scratching her head. “Just under a year? Hard to keep track of time here, what with every day bein’ same as the last. Also, get used to no sleep. Some reason us planers can get no sleep. You are a planer, ain’t ya?” The woman’s head tilted to the side as if weighing up whether Jonathan had enough brains to respond.
“What do you mean?” Jonathan asked, looking around at the people around them, all oblivious to their presence. “What’s a... a planer?”
“Taylor told me about it when I first found myself like this.” She swept her hand down her body and stopped talking, looking around her.
“What do you mean? Like, dressed or something?” Jonathan asked, squinting in confusion.
“Huh?” The woman looked at him. “What’s your name, bud?”
“Jonathan. Yours?”
“Marianna. Anyway, so, are you?” She began looking impatient.
“Am I what? A planer thingy?” Jonathan asked. This was why he hated talking to new people.
“Yeah. We were only just, like, talkin’ about it. Are you special or somethin’?” Her tone reminded Jonathan of the cliquey girls in his high school, who seemed to irritate anyone who wasn’t part of their group.
“Yeah, well it’d help if you kinda explained what they are!” Overwhelmed with frustration, Jonathan was thinking about leaving and hoping he would find another planer. He breathed deeply before exhaling.
“A planer is someone who has left their body while they’re in a coma,” Marianna explained as if to a toddler. “They’re like us, and can move around freely, but can’t move any objects or talk to living people. A strong fart’d prob’ly move us.”
“So, we’re ghosts?”
“No, we ain’t dead! It’s called astral protection, or something.”
Jonathan sniggered. “You mean astral projection.” He stopped laughing when he saw Marianna’s glare. “Sorry... But why are we called planers?”
Her glare remained on her face like a grotesque mask. “Because we’re on the astral plane. Duh!”
“So if you’re a planer, you’re still in a coma?” Jonathan asked. “Is your body in this hospital? What happened to you?” He had lots of questions to ask, and had to hold them from bursting out at once.
“That’s a bit personal.” Marianna put her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to you?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really remember. My body’s upstairs on Level Ten, though.” Jonathan glanced up at the ceiling in the direction he thought his body lay in bed.
“How do ya not remember what happened? I remember ev’ry detail of mine. Ev’ry punch and kick; my partner screamin’ at me till I blacked out. My body’s kept alive by a machine. I heard my mum call me a vegetable, but she’s too chicken shit to turn off the life support. Thinks I’ll wake up or somethin’.” Her lips puckered and twisted to the side like she had swallowed something sour. “I tell ya, I just wanted to strangle her, just so she knew how close I was standin’. Anyway, I’ve been waitin’ for my body to be better. I kinda want to be alive again.”
“What happens if our bodies die?” Jonathan asked, looking around them, a weird feeling igniting in his gut.
“I dunno for sure. Say, how’s your body? Did it look okay?” Marianna asked, gazing intently into his eyes.
“Umm. I guess it was okay. I mean, it was alive and not too badly injured. From what I could see anyway.”
Marianna glanced towards the lifts. Jonathan followed her gaze and saw a group of people waiting to go up, one woman holding a teddy bear.
“I’m gonna go see it. You can wait here if you like,” Marianna said, beginning to walk quickly towards the lifts.
“Hey, no! I don’t want you to!” Jonathan called, suddenly worried.
“Too bad. I’m just gonna have a little go in it anyway. I heard that I can have a go in your body and wanna try it out. You won’t even miss it.”
“No, it’s mine!” Jealousy burned within him. Jonathan grabbed her shoulder, trying to force her back. She spun around and punched him in the nose. Pain exploded in his head as he fell backwards. White light clouded his vision as he tried to stand back up. Instinctively he felt for blood, before remembering he was not in his body anymore.
Slowly, his vision cleared and he saw Marianna going in to the lifts, riding on a man’s back. Her arms were thrown around his neck, her feet around his hips, like he had seen toddlers and koalas do.
The centre lift’s doors began to close and Marianna, who was now facing Jonathan, grinned devilishly.
“No!” Jonathan called, racing forward, his arm outstretched. He slammed into the lift doors painlessly, sagging to the ground. He felt embarrassed sobbing in public, until he remembered nobody could see him. Nobody could hear him.
Nobody could help him.
And the only other person who knew he existed was currently in the lift, on her way to take his body from him. And with Jonathan in his incorporeal form, there would be nothing he could do to stop her.
He needed to get back to his body. Nervous and impatient, Jonathan waited for the lift doors to open again. With all his thought, he tried to push the call buttons, but his luck didn’t change.
“Come on. Go up, somebody!” he called into the foyer.
Finally, after a few minutes, a man walked up to the lifts and pushed the button. He was wearing a backpack, leaving no room for Jonathan to copy Marianna and jump on his back.
When the lift door opened, Jonathan rushed in, hoping the man pushed the button to his own level. He was in the lift to the left of the centre one. Had Marianna been able to get to the tenth level where his body lay defenceless? Or was she stuck in limbo, moving to other levels?
The man in the lift pushed the button for Level Eight.
“Shit!” Jonathan said, wishing he had his body back. It had been so easy to do things with his body.
The man rushed off when the lift arrived, leaving Jonathan anxious with indecision. If he got off the lift, he would then have to wait for someone else to get on a different lift, and hope he made it up to his own floor. On the other hand, if he waited in this lift, he might be waiting for hours before somebody else got back on. Then he would have to wait for the lift to go to his floor. Meanwhile, he could be missing a lift to Level Ten.
Jonathan decided it would be safer to stay on this lift, and hope it took him to Level Ten before Marianna. As much as he hated a lot of his life, he couldn’t let her steal it from him. Sure, there was a lot he wished he could change, and he was glad to give those up to somebody else.
But the happy moments. Those were what he lived for. He could not let her steal those away.
Pushing random buttons while he waited, Jonathan planned what he would do if he ever made it to Level Ten.
His stomach jolted as he felt the floor vibrate beneath him, shuddering its way downwards.
Wrong way, he thought. When the lift had reached the foyer, its doors opened, a wave of people pushing their way inside. A flurry of fingers pushed buttons and, with a gleam of hope, Jonathan saw the large ‘10’ illuminated in blue.
“Finally!” he said, feeling energised. He felt his hand tapping his thigh as he waited for the lift to stop at each level.
“Hold the doors, please!” a doctor called when they had stopped at Level Six. She continued talking to a nurse, as if it was an important, but rushed conversation.
“Come on, come on,” Jonathan muttered, wishing he could close the doors. The doctor scribbled something on a clipboard before rushing into the lift.
“Sorry. Thanks for waiting,” the doctor said as she moved to the back of the lift. The doctor pressed the button for Level Ten absentmindedly, checking her phone as they rose. A recorded message announced Level Ten and the doctor rushed out, Jonathan on her heels. He rushed to his room, overtaking the doctor when she spoke to another nurse. Jonathan hoped Marianna was still stuck in the lift.
Even if she wasn’t in his room, he had no idea how to reconnect with his body. He didn’t even know how he had disconnected with it in the first place. Perhaps she had been lying and he really was a ghost. She might be hiding in a corner, laughing at his pointless rush to get back to his body. A quick glance around him as he ran revealed no sign of Marianna.
Inside the room, Jonathan’s body lay on the bed, unmoving. The consistent beep of the monitor showed he was still alive. At a glance the room seemed just as he had left it.
Then he saw her.
How he had missed her, Jonathan wasn’t sure. Marianna was sitting on his chest, facing away from the door. She was staring out at a helicopter that was coming in to land on the roof, bringing a patient for urgent care. She snapped out of her trance, and began to turn in the bed, lifting her legs onto his own.
Silently, hoping to keep his advantage of surprise, Jonathan ran to her. She heard his footsteps as they pounded the floor, their echoes going unheard in the physical world. He leapt over the bed, his arms out to tackle her, like he had learnt playing footy in his youth. They tumbled to the floor, entwined in a tight embrace. Teeth bared, Marianna screamed out as she fought furiously to escape Jonathan’s clutches. She bit his neck, pain flaring across his shoulders as he howled.
Jonathan began punching her head, dull thumps echoing from her skull. A tsunami of pain flared in his groin as her knee slammed into his nuts, his hands moving to protect them from another hit.
Marianna stood up, kicking him as he curled in agony, leaping once more onto the bed. Ignoring the pain, Jonathan got to his knees and reached up to Marianna, who was sitting on his body again. She tried to hold herself in place, but was unsuccessful as she was pulled down, falling next to Jonathan. Her head hit the ground with a soft crack and Jonathan, who moved slowly with pain, placed his shin across her neck. Her mouth was contorted in a grimace as she grunted beneath him.
“Stay away from my body,” he panted. Jonathan could feel her legs flailing behind him as she tried to kick him while struggling to breathe. He punched her mouth, feeling the adrenaline surge through him in the fight for his life.
When he felt his adversary go limp beneath him, he stopped, watching her mouth agape, shallow breaths forcing their way between her lips. Jonathan stood up gingerly, staring down at the woman on the floor. The woman who tried to steal his body almost looked peaceful, as if she couldn’t do anything as terrible as stealing someone else’s body.
The door opened, making Jonathan turn defensively, ready to fight once more. The doctor from the lift walked in, reading Jonathan’s chart. A stethoscope was draped around her neck, bouncing on her white coat as she wrote down the numbers from the monitor. She moved to his body and listened to his chest with her stethoscope, frowning in concentration.
In the corner of the room, the bundle of sheets began to move, and a familiar head emerged from beneath.
“You must be Mrs Forbes,” the doctor said, looking over at Jonathan’s mother. “I’m Doctor Libby. I’m Jonathan’s doctor. How are you holding up? That chair mustn’t be very comfortable.”
Jonathan’s mother gave a weak smile. “No, but I don’t think I’d be getting any more sleep in a comfortable bed, considering the circumstances. I still can’t... It’s just...”
Jonathan moved across to her and threw his arms around her, wanting to feel her warmth. Wanting her to feel his presence. Her tears overwhelmed him with guilt, and he struggled to hold back his own.
“Mum, I’m here,” he said, holding her shoulders and staring into her glassy eyes. “I’m here. Please feel me. I’m here.”
Her eyes looked right through him at the doctor, who moved towards his mum and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We think he will pull through. This coma is to help repair his brain. He’s recovered a lot since he came to us. His brain was starved of oxygen, so we won’t know the full extent of damage until he wakes up. Do you have any questions?”
“Lots. Not much you can answer at the moment, I suppose,” Mrs Forbes said between sobbing breaths. “I have lots of questions for Johnny, if...” She paused. “When he wakes up.” She moved over and took Jonathan’s hand in hers.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he could feel it. What had happened to him? How did he wind up here?
“Will he have any lasting damage or anything?” Mrs Forbes asked, staring at her son’s comatose body.
“It’s hard to be sure until he wakes up. The scans yesterday didn’t show too much damage to his brain, but with brains it’s difficult to judge full function until we see him awake. I’m sorry, Mrs Forbes, but we need to let him recover and let his body repair itself.” Doctor Libby glanced down at her patient. “He’s in good hands here.”
Mrs Forbes answered with silence.
“Please buzz if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you both. Would you like me to organise a social worker to come see you?”
Jonathan’s mum nodded, still staring tearfully at her son. “Please,” she mumbled.
“I’ll do that now. Please try to get some rest. If you do go home, we can call you if anything changes.”
“I’ll just stay here, I think.” Doctor Libby placed her hand once more on Mrs Forbes’ shoulder, before leaving quietly.
“Why, Jonathan?” his mum asked. “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t... I don’t know,” Jonathan said, forgetting she couldn’t hear him.
“When I saw you in the bathtub, I thought you had... I thought you were... dead. You said you were okay after that thing with Mark. I knew you were drinking every night, but I thought it was a phase. I thought you were okay... Please, wake up, Jonathan.” His mum whimpered. “Please.”
Jonathan kissed her forehead. “I’m gonna try, Mum. I’m gonna try.” He clambered on to the bed, glancing furtively at Marianna on the floor. The pain from his struggle had subsided to a dull throb. Kneeling on his own chest was the weirdest feeling he had ever had, looking searchingly in his own face for answers. How did he reconnect with his body?
He tried shoving his hand in his mouth—fingers first—and seeing how far he got, but his lips remained partially closed, stubborn and unmoving. Next he copied what he had seen Marianna doing and sat on his chest, thinking how wonderful it would be to wake in his body, once more a corporeal being.
Still nothing happened.
Maybe I need to lay down on my body, like a toddler’s puzzle, he thought.
Just as he was about to wriggle down to lay on his own body, a sweeping force threw him from the bed to the floor, where he slid to the door. His head cracked against the immoveable wood, leaving him dazed, his vision blurry.
Looking up at where he had been only seconds ago, he saw Marianna smirking down at him as she climbed onto his chest.
“Thanks for the body, Johnny Boy. Your mum’s gonna love me!” Marianna said, giving him a quick wave as she slid down to lay on his body, moving beneath his mum’s drooped head above his torso. Jonathan fought through the haziness to stand up and rush to the bed.
As suddenly as she had appeared, Marianna had disappeared. He looked down at the ground, expecting her to have slid off, but she was nowhere in sight. The monitors beside him began to beep more quickly, his vital signs improving.
“No, no, no,” he said, feeling his heart beat faster. His hands were sweaty as he clawed at his body, trying to find some way to drag Marianna out, desperate for his body back. “No! You bitch!”
A roar of anguish escaped his mouth, hurting his throat. “That’s my body!”
The eyelids on his face began to flicker, and he felt his body twitch beneath him.
Beside the bed, his mum began stirring, her face filled with hope as she looked up at the monitors, then at her son’s body.
“Jonathan! You’re awake!” Mrs Forbes cried, before pushing the button to call the nurse.
“Hi... Mum,” Jonathan—the fake one—mumbled through cracked lips, looking around the room, before focussing on the woman in front of him.
“My baby boy.” Mrs Forbes leaned forward to hold her son in a teary embrace. An embrace full of warmth that Jonathan should have been feeling. Instead, a feeling of cold dread washed over him as he climbed to the floor, shoulders slumped.
“I’m your baby boy,” Jonathan muttered. He stood watching the exchange, despair drilling into his gut. With each passing moment, the pain seemed to grow inside him until he could bear it no longer.
As he began walking out of the room, a nurse came briskly in, ignoring the soul of her patient as she passed. Jonathan stood at the threshold, looking out at the ward. Lonely among a sea of people.
He began walking aimlessly down the hallway, peering in to each room, looking for another soul or a comatose body. Or some way to get his own body back. Some way to be back with his family. He knew he would be lonely until he found someone like him.
Until he could inhabit some other body.