Chapter 1: Accidents Will Happen

I maintain that the eye and the brain can absorb an enormous amount of information in a millisecond. I believe this from my own experience. For instance, the front of a dark green 50's era Ford flatbed with stake body sides as it hurtles toward my passenger side door is one of those indelible memories. The yellow grille bars were nicely painted I recall. Unfortunately, it was the last thing I would recall for some time.

I thought it was odd that an almost sixty-year-old truck would pick that particular moment to run through that particular stop sign and slam into me. It seemed so incongruous. Why would anyone put that much effort into restoring a relic and then drive like an idiot? It didn't compute.

When I woke up, I knew immediately I was in a hospital. Not a very modern one by the look of the walls and ceiling. The bed looked like an old-fashioned type as well. I didn't have a clue which of the five or six regional hospitals I might be in, but one thing was certain, this wasn't one of the newest. That, plus the fact that it smelled of disinfectant.

I had a couple of very uncomfortable tubes in my arm. One was an IV drip I guessed, but the other was out of my line of sight. I relaxed as best I could and tried to take stock of my injuries. Ribs, for sure. I remember the cracked ribs I had from playing football, and I was sure that was probably mild compared to what had happened to me this time. Head? Yeah, mostly neck though, maybe whiplash? I had a cut on my forehead by the feel of the bandage on it. The rest of me was just sore. Sore as hell.

I was pretty groggy, wondering if anyone had called my wife, or the kids. Kids? They were in their forties. I searched for a call button, but there was none to be found. The hell with it. I just closed my eyes and drifted off into dreamland. Weird dreams they were, too. How did my parents get into them? My brother was there as well. I hadn't seen him in years. The hell with it.

The next time I came to, there was a nurse in my room. She was fussing with something, but I was too out of it to figure anything out. Whatever they were giving me for pain was working like a charm. Of course, trying to remember what happened took a monumental effort. I decided to start with the basics.

Name? Lee North. Age? Sixty-eight. Home? West Vancouver, B.C. Occupation? Retired factory manager. Married? Yes, to Belle. Her age? Sixty-six. Children? Mark, age forty-six. Occupation? Civil Engineer. Second son Philip, age forty-three, CAD designer for an engineering firm. Grandchildren? Four: James, Randal, Joshua, and Matt. First three are my oldest son's. Matt is Phil's only son. Daughters-in-law? Two, Ginny with Mark, and Carol with Phil. Not bad. I got them all.

Okay, so the brain is still working ... not very fast, but ... still operating.

"Nurse, where am I," I croaked in a voice I didn't recognize.

"You're in the east wing of the Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver. How are you feeling?"

"Punchy. I don't know what I'm on, but whatever it is I'm feeling no pain ... literally or figuratively."

"I'm sure the doctor will be along in few minutes to check in on you. Is there anything I can get you?"

"I need to pee."

She turned to and simply said, "Go ahead." She grinned then, explaining, "There's a catheter installed. It'll hurt a bit, but just relax and let it happen."

"Thanks ... I think."

I relaxed and closed my eyes as I willed myself to do something I had spent the better part of sixty-eight years trying to avoid. I just let go. She was right. It wasn't pleasant, but like the saying goes, it feels so good when you quit. Plus, my bladder was saying thank you.

I began to notice some things I hadn't at first. My hands, for example. They were smooth, and the lump of cartilage covering a bone spur on the back of my left wrist was missing. So were the liver spots that had come with advancing age. Surely the accident hadn't caused them to disappear? My nails were bitten almost down to the quick. I hadn't done that since I was a kid ... a teenager. What the hell was going on?

I carefully felt my head to determine what other injuries I might have. Aside from the cut on my forehead, I couldn't detect anything, but one side, at the temple, felt like it was badly bruised. I didn't want to touch it any more than necessary. As I ran my hand over my head, I realized I had hair on top. I hadn't had any hair there since before I was fifty. Now I was really confused. I wondered if I was hallucinating. My father had suffered from that when he had his heart surgery. The Meperidine made him imagine all kinds of things that weren't real.

I slumped back and tried to relax again. I was sure the doctor would have some answers for me. As I lay there, I noticed an angry scar on the inside of my right wrist. When I looked at it, I knew what it was. I had fallen skiing at high speed, and my ski pole had snapped off and gone airborne, landing in my wrist like a well-thrown spear. I was seventeen years old when that happened. Suddenly, the scar from the surgery to repair the tendon looked fresh. What the fuck was going on?

I tried to calm myself. Was this some hallucination caused by the pain killers, or was something else happening? I'd been hit on the head, at least once. Had that rattled my brain pan? This hospital had me confused. The more I looked at my surroundings, what I could see of them at least, the more I wondered just how modern this place was. Something was horribly wrong, but ... what?

I tried to relax and not think about the weird situation that I was in. My thinking was muddled and confused, obviously. This wasn't a rational set of circumstances confronting me. I tried to concentrate, but it was futile. I closed my eyes and drifted off once again.

I'm not sure when the doctor finally got around to visiting me. There was daylight outside, so I assumed I hadn't been out very long.

"Master North," he said in a deep, resonating voice, "I'm Doctor Wooley. How are you feeling?"

"Goofy. Whatever you're giving me for pain is really messing with my mind."

"Morphine will do that sometimes. I'll cut the dosage back a bit. Let the nurse know if the pain is too much."

"What happened?"

"You were in a traffic accident, I understand. You were very lucky. The other driver didn't survive. You've been here since yesterday afternoon. I suppose you were driving home from school," he said, looking at his notes.

"School? What school?"

"I'm assuming you are a student at Sentinel Canyon High School. Yesterday was the last day of the year. Not a good way to start your summer vacation."

"Are you out of your mind? I'm a retired salesman. I haven't been in high school since 1959. If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't very funny."

He pulled out a penlight and examined my eyes, shining a beam into them. Great! Now I had spots before my eyes to go with my other problems.

"I'm guessing your head has taken quite a hit. A concussion probably. That might cause you to be disoriented. Why don't you try to rest? I'm sure your parents will be along later today. Maybe that will help you remember."

"My parents? My parents died ten years ago. Has everyone gone crazy in this place, or is it just me?"

"I think it's safe to assume that it's just you," he smiled. "Take it easy, son, you'll recover soon enough. Don't let these little things bother you."

Jesus, just what I needed ... a condescending doctor trying to humour me. There were way too many questions that needed answering, and right now I wasn't getting any help with that.

I slipped in and out of sleep over the next few hours. The nurse came and went. A different one this time. Much prettier, but dressed in an old-fashioned uniform.

They finally brought me something to eat. I had no idea what time it was, but I was hungry. Hungrier than I expected to be. I looked under the metal lid and nearly lost my appetite. Whatever it was didn't look like human food. It might have been meatloaf, some kind of sloppy mashed potatoes and carrots. It smelled something like food, but only just. There was no gravy and no salt. I tried the meatloaf, and knew I wasn't going to be very happy with this meal. There was a cup of milk, and some kind of custard for dessert. It looked like a rabbit had shit in it recently. I had visions of starving to death in the next few days.

I forced myself to eat as much as I could. The carrots were overcooked, the potatoes were tasteless, and enough said about the meatloaf. The milk was homogenized with plenty of milk fat, and tasted like cream to me. I'd been weaned off that a long time ago, drinking skim milk for years. I couldn't bring myself to try the dessert. I seldom ate more than four or five desserts a year. It was my good fortune not to have a sweet tooth.

They took the tray away and left me to my thoughts for a while. I assumed I would have visitors, but no one had shown up yet. I wondered why. Perhaps doctor's orders.

I wasn't prepared for what happened next. A woman, about forty or so, and a slightly-built man entered the room. It took me a moment, but all the pieces fell into place. It was my parents. My long-dead parents. They were younger, but it was them all right. I didn't know how to react. This had to be a hallucination. It couldn't be anything else.

The woman, my mother, had tears in her eyes and she was afraid to get too close to me it seemed. My father ... that's who he was for sure ... stood back and nodded, just as I remember him doing so often all those years ago. The proof that it was him was the nicotine stains on the fingers of his right hand. He was a chain smoker. Eventually, it would catch up to him. I remembered how often he tried to quit and just couldn't make it stick. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes.

"Oh Lee, we were so worried," my mother cried. "I thought you had been killed. I didn't think anyone could survive that crash." She leaned over carefully and kissed me. It felt good. For the first time, I quit worrying about what was going on and let things happen to me.

"I guess the car is pretty messed up, eh? Sorry, Mom."

"I don't care about the car. The only thing I care about is you getting better. The doctor says you will be in here for another week, but you'll be able to come home after that."

"Mom ... you were ... I mean ... you are a great cook. When I come home, I'm counting on you to make up for the awful food in this place." I gave her a smile in an attempt to cheer her up. It worked.

"You can have anything you want, as long as you get better."

"Dad ... has anyone said what happened? All I remember is seeing the front end of a truck coming at me. I don't remember anything else."

"It was old Ray Hodgson, Lee. Apparently, he had a heart attack and lost control of the truck. He probably died before he hit you. It was a brand new truck, too. They'd just finished painting the company name on the door that morning. A real shame. We'll miss him. He was a fixture in this community ... just like Hodgson's Lumber Yard."

"I'm just glad he didn't take me with him," I said. I could only barely recall Ray Hodgson. "I guess the car is a write-off."

"They looked at it and decided they couldn't repair it for what it was worth. We'll get a settlement from the insurance company in a month or so."

I relaxed, now knowing I was an actor playing a role. I needed some more information, though.

"What day is it? I mean, the date?" I asked without looking at them.

"It's June 20^th. Yesterday was your last day of school. You're finished high school and you'll be going to UBC in the fall," my mother stated proudly.

That was a key piece of information. It meant it was 1959 in this strange world where I was captive. I decided to play the role to the hilt. I needed additional information.

"I seem to have lost parts of my memory, so you'll have to excuse me if I ask some dumb questions. Do I have a summer job?"

"Yes," my father said. "I talked to Tommy French, and he's given you a job at the brewery on the packaging line."

I remembered that job. It was great. Eight to four, under-filled beer at morning, lunch, and afternoon breaks. The drinking age was twenty-one, but everyone looked the other way as long as you didn't do something stupid. It was going to be a good summer ... assuming this was real.