Blip.
“Hello, Mr. Zarkoff, this
is the Oncology Support Center at Metro Health Hospital Downtown…”
Blip.
“Hello, Mr. Zarkoff…”
I continuously replayed
the message in my voicemail as I sat in the private examination room, but it
only made my heart sink more, every word feeling like a punch to the chest.
“- Our on-call oncologist needs to speak with
you immediately concerning your wife Andrea…”
It was almost a nervous
tic at this point, almost soothing to press the buttons on the phone’s touch
screen, hearing their satisfying little blip as they activated. It was the one
thing in my life I had control over, unlike everything else. Orderly. Neat.
Calming. Always, always I could pause the voicemail, or delete it, or replay it
as endlessly as I wanted, over and over and over and over and over and over…
Blip.
“Hello, Mr. Zarkoff?”
I started like a nervous
jackrabbit, and looked up at the now open doorway. The stern-looking face of a
middle-aged man, black hair trimmed neatly, scrutinized my tired eyes for
attention.
“Oh… hello, doctor, I’m
sorry, I was just…” I glanced down at the phone, shutting the voicemail off.
“Nervous habit of mine.”
“It’s understandable, Mr.
Zarkoff.” A weary, sad smile from the doctor. “I’m Dr. Schmidt, I’m sure you
were listening to the voicemail the front office sent you, correct?”
“That’s correct,” I
murmured, locking the phone’s touch screen as I pocketed the device. “You said
you had something to talk with me about?”
The doctor pulled over
the swivel chair and sat down, eyes holding the same detached, unreadable look
as every other doctor had before explaining bad news. I felt my stomach start
to do nervous gymnastics as I looked to him. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad news.
Maybe he was remaining detached because that was how he’d been trained to
react. Maybe he’s just trying to remain professional.
“Well, Mr. Zarkoff,
here’s the thing,” the doctor said, clasping his hands in his lap. “We’ve
discovered that your wife’s cancer is in a bit more of an advanced stage than
we thought. We had hoped it was only stage II or so, but it’s looking like it
may actually be stage III. She’s going to have a long battle, even though the
chemotherapy has started and seems to be working alright. We’re doing all we
can, but it’s still going to be very difficult for her.”
“What do you mean, ‘seems
to be working alright’?” I responded in alarm, standing. My heart was speeding
like a racecar without any brakes. “Is
it working or not?”
“It’s working as best as
can be expected, but this type of cancer is extremely aggressive and can –”
“I know, alright? I’ve
been told by enough of you white-coats that this cancer is a son of a bitch to
get over, and that Andrea might not get over it at all, and that there’s a good
possibility she could die from it. I
know!”
“Mr. Zarkoff, please calm
down. I understand how upsetting all of this must be, I know you’re scared for
your wife. But we are really, in all earnestness here, doing the absolute best
we can do for her right now. I cannot be any more honest with you than I am
being right now when I tell you that I am trying everything I can to ensure she
recovers.”
My shoulders slumped, and
I stared at the oncologist blankly as he continued to speak.
“Now, I know you’ve been
told that this is a difficult cancer to treat, but it might put your mind at
ease to know that inflammatory breast cancers like your wife’s have a good rate
of sur-”
The tinny voice over the
intercom cut off the doctor’s words.
“Paging Dr. Schmidt,
emergency in Room 411; Dr. Schmidt, emergency in Room 411.”
“I’m… sorry, Mr. Zarkoff,
I have to step out for a second…”
I watched in frustration
as the doctor rushed hurriedly out of the room to attend to the emergency, the
door slamming behind him as he left. The anger I felt probably paled in comparison
to the horror of a loved one being in an emergency situation, but it still
stung. This hospital’s staff was probably overworked to hell, of course they’d
have no time for me or for Andrea. Of course, they couldn’t give her absolutely
everything. Of course, all they could do was try their hardest to fight for
her. They surely didn’t mean to abandon both her and I when they were so busy…
did they?
Of course not, Michael, I thought, shoving the idea from my mind. They have a lot of patients to take care of
and if even one of them has a problem, they have to attend to that person. Even
if it isn’t Andrea.
But what if it is?
Oh God. No, Michael. No, no, no. Don’t think about that. She’s fine.
They just said she was doing fine. Her room isn’t even Room 411. She’s fine.
She’ll be fine, Michael. She’ll be fine…
“Mr. Zarkoff?”
I looked up expectantly
at the man who had just entered the room. Odd, I hadn’t even heard the door
open, and yet there he was, standing in the corner, hands folded behind his
back, dressed head to toe in blue surgical scrubs. His eyes, an unappealing
shade of hazel-green, scrutinized my face as he quietly began to smooth the
wrinkles from his surgeon’s gown and gloves.
I suppressed a cringe as
I realized both garments were spattered and speckled with the blood of a
patient that had just been operated on. I never was very good with blood.
Disgusting…
“Hello,” the surgeon
responded in a voice like an oil slick. “Dr. Schmidt asked for me to speak with
you, seeing as I was the only one available and my next patient isn’t for a
good several minutes. He said you were quite upset and needed someone to speak
with.”
“Um… yeah…” The stench of
blood on his clothing was almost enough to make me faint, and his tone wasn’t
helping matters. “Yeah, thank you…”
The surgeon nodded
slightly in response, seeming to notice my unease, and walked towards the sink
to rinse his gloves.
“I do apologize for the
mess,” he continued, watching the bloodstains dissipate into the water
streaming from the tap. “My last patient had to have a rather large tumor
removed from her abdomen; quite messy work. But yes, I thought you looked a
little pale… Is this about Andrea?”
I nodded numbly as he
dried his gloved hands and turned to face me once more.
“Yes… yes, it is about
her, actually,” I responded, finally gaining my composure again. “I was told
she was having some difficulties, though I don’t suppose you’d have any
information about that…”
“Actually, I do,” the
surgeon replied eagerly. “You see, I work very closely with the Oncologists and
nurses in this area, and I have become acquainted with your wife through
hearing about her. At this moment her condition is stable, although they are
correct in telling you that your wife has a stage III cancer of the breast.
They have done a mammogram as part of her checkup and already have discovered
several tumors, some of which have gotten quite large and have started to
spread to the other side. They will likely need to be removed via mastectomy,
which they should be scheduling her for soon, I expect…”
I wanted to throw up.
“She’s… She’s really
going to have to go through surgery after all, then?” I asked worriedly.
“Oh yes,” the surgeon
responded. “And of course, there’s still another several rounds of chemotherapy
to go. Poor thing, chemotherapy is quite a nasty process. Essentially they’re injecting
her with mass quantities of poison, which causes cells to lyse. That is, the
cells essentially explode and die. And those drugs are so indiscriminate that
they attack non-cancerous cells as well as cancerous ones…”
“Please stop,” I
muttered, sitting down and holding my reeling, light head. “I’d rather not…”
“Of course, the way
cancer cells proliferate is completely random, usually stemming from DNA damage
which causes the cell to multiply non-stop without dying as normal, and so the
abnormal cells pile up into the structure known as a carcinoma. From there,
pieces of it can break off if the carcinoma is large enough and spread through
the blood stream, eventually spreading to other large organs in the body, such
as the liver, heart, lungs… even the brain. Of course, that’s without
treatment, and your wife is undergoing aggressive treatment, so there is a
chance she might even live…”
“Stop it, already!” I
snapped, stomach swimming with nausea. “Just… Please… please stop it, I don’t
want to hear about it anymore…”
“Well, then.” The
surgeon’s eyebrows raised in intrigue. “I do apologize for not beating about
the bush. The truth is, Mr. Zarkoff, there is no telling whether your wife will
survive the treatment or not, even though her prognosis seems alright. The rest
of the staff is trying their hardest, yes, but they are just as worried she
will not pull through as you are. They know better than to be fully optimistic…
and you do too, yes?”
My ears began to burn,
and my nails dug into my palms as my fists clenched in anger.
“Besides,” the surgeon
continued, turning to look at the clipboard Dr. Schmidt had left on the counter
top, “It does no good to sugar-coat a bitter pill, does it? After all, doing so
would simply make your wife’s inevitable death that much harder to bear…”
“She isn’t going to die!”
I stood, and my hand somehow
found their way onto the surgeon’s shoulder just as he turned to face me, his
eyes continuing to scrutinize me. His eyes… There was something wrong with the
color of his eyes, they weren’t just hazel-green, they looked… rotten, rotten green is the only
descriptor I have for it, a sick, moldy green. And his skin under his scrubs
didn’t feel right, it felt like the scrubs stuck to him, like a bandage
clinging to an open wound. But more so than that, he had a septic smell to him,
a bacterial smell like a festering sore, a smell that made me regret getting so
close and made me wonder just what in the hell kind of tumor he’d been
operating on earlier…
“Would you kindly let go of
my shoulder, Mr. Zarkoff?” he asked, his tone suddenly gone harsh and cold.
I obliged, and backed
away a bit, skin crawling. There was something wrong with him, something horribly wrong. He was very clearly sick
with something I was pretty sure I didn’t
want to catch from him, something that could very easily be contagious.
Something that, I
realized with a shudder, was now all over my hands.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” I
muttered, stumbling over to the sink to wash my hands. “I was… I was just…”
“You were upset, I know,”
the surgeon responded coolly, setting the clipboard back on the desk where it
belonged. “It is understandable to be upset over watching a loved one die. But
then again, it is healthy to fear death. After all, all organisms wish to
continue living, yes?”
I watched, speechless and
confused, as the surgeon calmly walked to the door and opened it with a soft
squeak.
“I really am sorry for
this, but I must be going now. My next patient is due for surgery soon and I
cannot be late. I will be sure to keep in touch with you concerning your wife’s
condition, however… Oh, and speaking of your wife, she would probably like to
see you before you head on your way… Good afternoon, Mr. Zarkoff.”
The door quietly closed
behind him, shutting with a soft click and leaving me in confused silence. Not five seconds later,
Dr. Schmidt returned.
“I’m sorry about that,
Mr. Zarkoff,” he said, retrieving his clipboard, “But I had to attend to a
patient whose vital signs dropped. You didn’t wait too long, did you?”
“No,” I replied, drying
my hands and sitting back down. “But the surgeon you sent in to speak with me,
the one with the weird hazel-green eyes? He was extremely rude and I think he
may have been giving me too much information.”
“Hm, that is serious,”
the oncologist murmured, giving me a stern look, “I don’t seem to recall a
surgeon matching that description in my department, but if I see them I will
speak to them about it. As for your wife, she is doing well at the moment, and
if you have a moment, she would like to speak with you before you leave… Would
you be able to do that?”
Why did you even have to ask? Of course!
“Yes, I do,” I replied,
standing. “Show me where her room is?”
The walk to Andrea’s
hospital room was short and uneventful. The doorway to her room opened up into
the small room, which she happened to have to herself at the moment despite
there being a second bed there. Her bed was closest to the window and faced
towards the apartment complex, curtains parted to show the soft snowfall
outside.
Her face turned to me as
I approached, and she carefully sat up in bed. One look at her and I could tell
she wasn’t feeling good – the chemo drugs were already starting to do a number
on her judging by how tired and sickly she looked, but her dark eyes lit up as
she saw me walk in with the doctor.
“Michael…” she said
softly, smiling tiredly. “Hi, how are you…?”
“I’m alright,” I replied,
taking her hand gently in mine. “You holding up alright?”
“I’ve been better... And
I’ve been worse. You look tired and worried, hon, you alright?”
“I am tired, I’ve been
worrying about you ever since you’ve been here.”
Her face fell in worry.
“Michael, please, I know
it’s hard,” she said, bringing her other hand over mine. “But it’s not going to
help either of us if you’re worrying yourself sick over me… I’ll be fine… Dr.
Schmidt said that there’s a good chance the chemo will work, and then maybe
once I recover you and I can go up to your folks’ place for New Year’s or
something… instead of Christmas…”
“Maybe…” I thought aloud,
thoughts swimming. The steady beeping of the pulse monitor continued in the
background.
It does no good to sugar-coat a bitter pill…
“No,” I muttered, staring
out the window at the soft snow falling all around. “No it doesn’t…”
“What doesn’t…?” Andrea
asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Michael, you look exhausted, honey… you
should really get some sleep when you get home.”
She was right, of course.
I hadn’t been sleeping well for a while now, not since she’d started getting
sick. And as always, she had a point – I
couldn’t do anything if I was tired all of the time…
“I was going to do just
that when I got home,” I replied softly. “I’ve been so tired lately I’m
starting to see things, and that can’t be good…”
“No, no it really isn’t,”
Andrea scolded, finally finding enough energy to become her old, stubbornly
confident self again. “Now you get home and you get some rest. I’m not going
anywhere soon…”
A small smile from her,
and she let go of my hand. My cue to leave.
“I’ll see you soon,
Andrea,” I said, walking towards the door.
“See you, babe,” she
said, the last words I heard before entering the silence of the hospital
hallway and back downstairs to the main lobby.
The main lobby was almost
empty, oddly enough, save for a few waiting visitors and waiting patients. In
one seat, an elderly woman sat knitting, perhaps waiting for the receptionist
to call her name. In another, a young-looking mother breast-fed her very new
baby. In a third, a man and woman helped console their crying son, who looked
to have experienced a broken arm. A nurse quickly attended to the trio, and
escorted them down to the emergency visit wing. And in one distant corner, just
far enough away from everyone else, a man in black clothes and a top hat sat
with what appeared to be a little girl in a black dress, both of them looking
expectantly in my direction…
Oh God…
The sudden recognition
sent my heart into my throat and bristled into a cold sweat over my face and
back. The whole room went cold, and it was as if time itself slowed down. Not
them again. Not again…
I turned and quickly
began to walk towards the front lobby entrance. Their eyes burned into me,
following me out the door. Well, at least the man’s would have, had he any to
speak of…
My thoughts raced as I
quickly walked down the hill towards home.
Ignore them, Michael, they weren’t who you think they were, it’s just
coincidence. He didn’t really have no face, you were just seeing things. You’re
going to get home, take a Xanax, go to sleep, and wake up, and everything.
Will. Be. Fine…
If that was the case,
though, why did everything still feel so horrifying? Why was I worrying so much
over nothing? Why did everything feel so wrong,
so off-kilter and foreign?
Why did I feel like I was
being followed?
I slowed down my walking
pace for a second, collecting my thoughts and trying to calm myself down.
Inhale, Michael. Exhale. Breathe. It’s just an anxiety attack. Nothing is out
to get you. Nobody is following you.
I shut my eyes and
focused as I slowed to a stop.
So did two other sets of
footsteps on the pavement perhaps about three feet behind me.
Michael… Michael, don’t panic. Don’t think about them. Don’t look at
them. Don’t acknowledge they’re even there. Just take the long way home,
confuse them, lead them off your trail, anything you can. Just. Don’t. Go.
Home. And don’t. Panic.
I picked up my pace and
turned down a narrow alleyway, desperately trying to calm my shaky breathing. The two other sets of footsteps echoed off the alley walls, increasing tenfold,
pointing out just how claustrophobic this alley was…
I began to shake and
turned down the nearest side alley, breaking into a run. There’s more than a
few of these small alleyways in downtown Grand Rapids, a small maze between
buildings. If I played my cards right I could lose my pursuers in them, and
then I could get home and forget all about the strange surgeon, the little boy
from the park the other day, and the man that was following me now.
Their footsteps at first
increased in speed, then began to fade. Yes! All I had to do was run down some
more side alleys, just a few more, just one more…
There!
The alley opened up
towards the street, not that far from the apartment complex and the park. And
what was better, I couldn’t hear their footsteps behind me anymore. I’ve lost
them. Good. One last check before I head out of this alley for good…
But as I turned around, I
realized the reason why I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore.
The man was already right
behind me, staring down at me expectantly with the eyes he didn’t have, rangy
arms casually at his sides. The little girl, Mori, peered out from behind his
stilt-like legs with sad eyes, silently watching as I stood there frozen,
trembling.
“Please don’t leave…” her
voice sounded so upset, so disappointed. “He didn’t mean to scare you… Besides…
he won’t let you just leave…”
“W-what?” I asked, my
voice coming out in a half-whimper. “What do you want from me?”
“He thought you looked
nervous,” Mori said, fidgeting. “Scared. He likes it when people are scared…”
I swallowed nervously.
God, I wanted to move. I wanted to run so badly, I wanted to get the hell away from them, but something… something
kept me rooted to the spot, frozen in fear… something in the man’s eyeless
gaze, pinning me to the spot, holding me there like a moth pinned on a
corkboard, I… I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t run. Not from him.
He nodded slowly, tilting
his head in intrigue as he scrutinized me, scanning me for weakness. I was sure
of it.
“He says you’re scared
about your wife again,” Mori said, stepping towards me. “He says you’re scared
she’s going to die and you can’t help her. Because her disease is getting bad,
because the Doctor said so. He saw what happened. He saw everything.”
I nodded numbly, and shut
my eyes, trying to pretend they weren’t there. Maybe if I ignored them, they’d
go away.
“You shouldn’t do that,
Mr. Michael. He doesn’t like being ignored. You’re going to make him upset… And
you don’t want to make him upset.”
Skeletal, cold fingers
brushed against my face, numbing my skin, and my eyes instantly flew open.
No. No no no. Please no. Never touch me again. Please...
“Well it got your
attention, didn’t it?” Mori asked. The man folded his arms, and the girl did
the same. “He thinks you’re being stubborn. What are you going to do if she does die, Mr. Michael? What are you
going to do if the doctors can’t help her? What are you going to do?”
The man’s gaze seemed to
intensify in darkness and power, burning holes into me. He wanted an answer, an
answer I couldn’t give. And all I wanted was to go home and go to sleep…
“I… I can’t… I don’t...”
That awful stare kept me
pinned to the spot as I tried in vain to move, as my eyes shifted from him to
the girl and back. I felt like I was on stage, I felt exposed and vulnerable… I
didn’t have an answer. How could I have an answer to that when I didn’t even know what was going to happen next?
“I… I don’t know…” I
murmured, and my shoulders slumped. “I don’t know… Please… I don’t know, and I
just want to go home… Please, just leave me alone and let me go home…”
The man drew back a bit,
as if surprised by my answer, and inclined his head in thought a moment.
Then he proceeded to lean
down towards me, reaching for me with curious, skeletal, cold fingers…
I ran, my legs suddenly
able to function again.
They didn’t follow.
I don’t remember the run
back home, all I remember is pulling the door to my apartment open, slamming it
shut, and locking the deadbolt. A cold sheen of sweat drenched my forehead and
soaked the back of my shirt as I palmed a single Xanax in one shaking hand. I’m
seeing things, I’m feeling paranoid, and this needs to stop. Andrea was right.
I really, really need sleep.
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