Chapter 17

David would have sat up in bed ... he really wanted to. The chest strap stopped that. Realizing that it was the strap holding him down David figured all he had to do was loosen the chest strap buckle ... the wrist straps stopped that. He couldn't holler for help ... the breathing tube ... well, shit.

He went to sleep.

That lasted about three minutes ... the attendant heard the obligatory beep from the heart monitor.

"David," she whispered as she shook him gently ... and not so gently. "I know you're awake, the monitor beeped."

His eyes popped open ... how about that ... he was awake. That didn't stop the squeak she let out when David looked at her.

"I'll run get the doctor." Putting action to her words she ran ... except ... there wasn't a door to run out ... and there wasn't a charge nurse ... Hell's Bells ... there wasn't a ICU desk ... no phone ... and no Doctor. All there was was a hangar bay with three sailboats ... fully rigged. Oh ... and David's bed.

Sort of at the end of her metaphorical tether, she gave out with a second squeak. The realization that she had no one to blame if this went bad ... and no one to write on the chart, 'Remove breathing tube. Discontinue feeding tube ... Start liquid diet. O2 by nose clip. She was IT!

"Damn. I need a Doctor."

One materialized next to her as she walked back to the bed. Third Squeak.

"Yes, Nurse?" asked the Doctor ... who looked a lot like Jim Carrey ... but older.

"He's awake, sir."

"Well, Alrighty then. Let's have a look." He leered down her top.

She slapped at him, "You need to look at the patient not my tits, Doc."

"Patient? Oh ... Right."

Don't you just know ... the Doc was another hologram made by the computer. The pair, nurse and Doctor, walked over to the bed, David raised one finger in greetings ... everything else was tied down.

"How are you feeling, young man?" asked the Doc.

David raised a different finger ... not in greeting.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

The finger raised again.

"Unfriendly this..." he looked at an invisible watch, "Morning. are we?"

Again, the finger raised, distress becoming more evident. Hospitals use drugs to keep a trauma patient on life support from breathing on their own. Most of them are on the breathing machine because they CAN'T breathe on their own. David had gone from 'out of it' to 'fully aware' in a couple of seconds and he was trying to breathe on his own.

Distressful.

Uncomfortable.

Dangerous.

He really needed a nasal cannula (A preformed set of tubes and earpieces attached to an oxygen system that allows a low rate of oxygen constant flow to the nasal passages.) rather than a pressure system. (In order to remove the pressure system they did things I wasn't allowed to watch when I worked for the hospital. You think women's secrets are bad ... Doctors are worse. They don't call it practice for no reason.)

Now that David was breathing on his own, they did the ice chips thing, and the sips of water, until he felt restored enough to give Dr. Carrey a good cussing ... not the time or place to re-live what was said, suffice it to say Carrey walked off in a huff.

To be honest, none of this was Carrey's fault ... but ... any port in a storm, so they say. The Doctor in charge was dead ... the perps were ninety degrees from anywhere and David needed to vent.

After he was unhooked, peed and pooped, the attendant brought a wheelchair and gave David an outing. The hatch was looking straight down at the earth ... this created interesting inner ear problems but the ships gravity was still on the deck of the hangar and not on the hull wall. The attendant didn't notice ... after all ... it had been like this since she came aboard and she had a sneaking suspicion that the hatch was really a huge TV screen ... it wasn't, but such is life and the imagination. It was easier to think that the deck was parallel to the planet and the hull hole wasn't real.

David noticed right away.

A second thing he noticed was the Great Lakes he was looking at were the Great Lakes he grew up with ... Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario. Florida was pointed at the equator and Texas was attached to Mexico.

"What's going on?" he asked.