“MOM! MOOOMMM! COME HERE! MOOOOMMMYYYY!” screeched the nine year old Jimena whom knelt on the sidewalk in front of her Manhattan home.
Mrs. Poleski ran down the sidewalk, nearly tripping over her own feet.
“Jimena! Tell me you’re okay! JIMENA!”
“Mom! I’m fine! But-sh-she’s NOT!”
Mrs. Poleski’s attention turned to the body of a young woman that lay sprawled in their flowerbed, head lolling on a meticulously pruned shrub.
“Oh. Oh.” Mrs. Poleski fumbled for her cell phone.
“Hello? Operator?”
“What’s your emergency?” the responder queried.
“There’s a body in my flowerbed!”
“A body? Is there any sign of life?”
“I…hold on.”
She dropped to a squatting position, one which wasn’t the most comfortable, given her attire of high heels and a tailored skirt-suit. For the first time, the features of the body became apparent, her eyes drawn to a scarlet welt on the woman’s forehead. The woman’s lips were parted, a bruises spotting her arms, a dirty blue sweatshirt and torn jeans hanging limply on her lifeless limbs.
Mrs. Poleski probed the woman’s battered temple for a pulse.
“She’s alive.”
“I need your address, ma’m so that the paramedics can-“
“2150 Blackwell street, Manhattan.”
“Good. Is the person breathing?”
“I think so.”
“Is there any blood?”
“Some. Not much. Just a few cuts, not big…”
“Please don’t touch any bodily fluids. The safest thing to do is assume that they are contaminated with hazardous material.”
“Th-thankyou. But what should I do?”
“Is head injury possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then do not attempt to move the person-“
It was then that the cell phone slid from Mrs. Poleski’s fingers, and she sat back wearily on her heels.
(a mistake in this instance: high-heels+buttocks=ouch.)
“Mom?” Jimena had been sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, speechless throughout the phone call.
“Go-g-go ahead, to school,” Mumbled Mrs. Poleski, making a shooing motion with her hand.
Looking reluctantly over her shoulder, the nine year old obeyed.
As her daughter walked away, she let out a long breath and wondered what the repercussions of this incident would be.
“Well….” she said aloud.
“What happened to you?”
“Needless to say, I don’t expect you to answer me. But please, please, don’t be dead.”
“Great, now I’m talking to a prospective corpse.” Mrs. Poleski ran her fingers through a mass of carefully styled hair.
“What’s next? My daughter will have night terrors about finding a body on the sidewalk.”
She unleashed another sigh, this one of relief at the whine of an ambulance siren.
The medics did their jobs as efficiently as ever, lifting the limp form from the pavement and onto a gurney in the ambulance. A heart, oxygen monitor, and an IV drip were immediately applied, due to obvious dehydration and low blood pressure.
In the ER, the doctors ran blood tests for everything they could think of, including any medications the patient might have taken. The results caused the lab technician to do a double take at the patient record. This woman has anneisthesia in her, she thought. But it says here she’s an emergency patient. What’s going on? Not even an elephant needs that much to numb up!
Doctors did an MRI as well to insure that brain trauma wasn’t present. The hippocampus was astoundingly active, that is, for someone who was out cold. All the doctors could do was give her stimulants and hope for the best. Some of her medications included traces of fox-glove leaves, which have chemicals which, in the raw, can induce fatal heart palpitations.
Gradually, the patient’s heart rate increased, and the amount of medication needed was reduced. Within forty-eight hours, a pair of gleaming brown irises caught the rays of midmorning light, the pupils rapidly shrinking.
The eyes roved in their sockets, the owner altogether taken aback.
“Oooh ahhh a wheee…”
“OOOwheeaarrrrrr aa-ahmm I?”
Those are the first words I can remember speaking. I managed to lift my head, looking up at a huge white void. Blinking rapidly, I drew into focus a world of gleaming tiled floors, pale pristine walls and miles of clear tubing, all connected to a dozen monitors which pulsed and beeped. The tubes ended neatly in a needle that pierced the flesh of my forearm. It was an IV.
A platic band around my writs held the words: Monroe Hospital patient # 12530.
I was at Monroe Hospital. Wherever that was. What was I doing in the hospital? I wanted to know.
“Heeeey! Hola! Bonjour!”
A woman in a smock covered in pictures of flower pots came running through the door.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“Yes, I am. Would you tell me where the heck I am?”
“You’re in New York, Manhattan.”
“Which is in the United States?”
“Yes. Now, since you’re awake, I need to do the orientation test.”
“Okay. “
“Touch your nose, touch my finger.”
I complied, baffled.
“Close your eyes and touch your forehead.”
I did so.
“Tell me what year it is.”
“2010.”
“Good.”
“What’s your name?”
“Uh…..”
“Do you know your name?”
“Uh…..”
That was what scared me: I didn’t know who I was.
“Can you count to ten?”
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And I can keep going.”
“Good. Do you know the pledge of allegiance?”
“Something like ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United State of America and to the uh…’ well, I don’t know the rest.”
“That’s okay. Can you tell me what day it is?”
“November twenty second.”
“No, it’s the thirtieth.”
“Why am I in here, though?” I proceeded to finish my original statement.
“According to your records, you were found on the sidewalk.”
“Why was I on the sidewalk? What’s wrong with me?”
“We uh..don’t know. You had a large amount of antisthesia in your bloodstream, though. Enough to almost kill you.”
“What?”
“That’s all we know. Can you tell me what four plus two is?”
“Six. And six squared is thirty six. And the principal square of sixty four is eight.”
“You’re definitely not brain dead,” smiled the nurse.
“I’ll say. My neurons are firing quickly enough.”
“A neurologist, are you?”
“I don’t..I can’t remember. I can’t remember.”
The nurse frowned. “Do you know how old you are?”
“Uh…” It was my turn to frown. I knew that Pluto had been demote as a planet, I thought I could also say what I wanted to in Hebrew, and I recalled something similar to trigonometry. But who was I?
“You…are you ten?”
“No.” I looked at my chest as I said this, recognizing the large mounds of flesh as signs of post-pubescent life.
“Eleven?”
“No. I’ve got breasts. I’m not a kid. I know that.”
Absently, I rubbed my tongue inside my mouth. There were rough, empty areas on the very back of my jaw.
“I’ve got these scars on my jaws. I’ve had my wisdom teeth removed. That means I’m at least eighteen...”
“Wow. You mean…I mean….just stay here. Don’t go anywhere. Just stay here.”
The nurse’s eyes grew large, round, the whites showing. She made a sort of nervous dance, and raced out my room door.
What was going on? There wasn’t much she’d told me. Found on the sidewalk. Who am I? Why am I here? The antisthesia part-why was I full of surgical sedative if I was an emergency patient? Had I tried to commit suicide? Was that why I couldn’t remember who I was? Had I blocked a memory-the memory of who I was? These questions raced through my mind, bringing with them a pain that seemed to originate deep in my head.
Oh, what was going on?
I would find out sooner than I realized.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,738 Reviews
Great beginning which certainly catches the readers attention and keeps him reading. All I find to complain are mostly grammar errors.
I think the sentence sounds weird and it should be rephrased somehow like "Is there possibly a head injury?"I think this first paragraph doesn't capture the attention of the reader well enough. Try to make a more interesting beginning, since despite the following parts being very interesting, some people might stop already after reading the first paragraph.
Great work for a story I will follow with certain interest
If she is alive her limbs can not be lifeless.
I loved the story! It grabbed my attention very quickly. I also liked the fact that you gave each character an individual personality.
Heh, Nice.
This piece was pleasant to read, though it did seem like a lot of talk. Perhaps a little more description would be nice, but it's enjoyable as is. The medical descriptions are great, the patient's analytical mind is pretty entertaining, there's very little I'd advise changing. There was some spelling errors, and once or twice I got a little too lost, like where the woman is talking to the unconscious character to comfort herself. Otherwise, it was a good read, and I look forward to browsing your portfolio.
Hope to see more, Miss Vox Nihili.
Heya - nice job, Vox! This was v. interesting to read, and you've kept us in suspense throughout the entire thing. Not many people can pull that off, so congrats. *applauds you* I'll just run over a couple of things that you might want to think about changing, because somebody has already critiqued it quite well.
Let's get to it. *brandishes her pastel pink, glass nibbed pen*
Your medical descriptions are incredible. They truly are. You obviously know your stuff. You've also compromised really well between explaining what each treatment is (for the people who don't know), but keeping those descriptions short and subtle (for the people who do). Nice!
Here, we get slightly lost (don't worry, it's nothing to do with your writing); on the first read, we're not sure whether it's the lady or you - the narrator - speaking, because there isn't any indication that you've switched voices.
So here, put everything that the woman thinks to herself in italics. It's a very picky point, but it will help readers understand what is going on.
Another niggly point, but it will really help to improve the first part. I had to go back a few times and read over everything before I understood that the mother was talking with herself. What you should do is put all - or at least, as much as you can - into one line. That way we know that it's just her speaking, and that she's not having a two-way conversation.
"Well..." she said aloud. "What happened to you? Needless to say, I don't expect you to answer me. But please, please, don't be dead. Great - now I'm talking to a prospective corpse."
Mrs. Poleski ran her fingers through a mass of carefully styled hair. "What's next? My daughter will have night terrors about finding a body on the sidewalk."
Just a little typo, nothing life threatening.
That's me done!
Ja-
Thanks for reviewing! Especially the spelling of anesthesia. I couldn't find it on spell check. I'll be sure to add more details-I usually ham it up with almost poetic descriptions.
While on the phone Mrs. Poleski tells us her address, that she lives in Manhattan, so it isn't needed here.
I really like this! It has personality.
There's a lot of talk, try to add more detail/description. You did a fantastic job with the medical senes, it sounds like you really know what you're talking about.
Anyways, great job! It really caught my interest, I can't wait to read the next part.