'Mom, please be alright.'
'Come back soon.'
'Be safe and sound.'
'Come back safe and sound.'
'God, please, make everything go well. I can't do without my son.'
'Why? Why us? It is so unfair! Everything must go well.'
'God, take me, don't take her…'
Grim faces, dim faces, tearstreaked faces…
Worry. Fear. Hope. Dread. Despair.
The emotions around actually seem hazy to my focused mind. Not only am I tired, but I feel pain in my thigh, and weak throughout. But my gaze remains fixated on the sliding to the operating theater of the emergencies.
Doctors walk back and forth, some passing by, others leaving or going in the operating theater. Sometimes, nurses come running out or running back, their steps and their faces reflecting the emergency of what they are dealing with.
Each time the thick door slides to the side, it is a moment of hope, of fear, of a verdict good or bad. It is a torture to wait, to hope for a quick result, while also hoping for the box to never open, for Schrodinger cat to never reappear. But when it does reappear, cries of joy or despair pierce through my hazy focus, and makes my heart beat. But Liz only has two bullets in the stomach. Without any mistake, like a main blood vessel torn by clumsy hands, she should be fine.
The bullets have remained lodged inside her. They must have kept the wounds under control, right. She seems to have taken them in the liver. But the portal vein should not have been touched, right? Nor any other important vessel, right?
She didn't lose too much blood on the floor of our living room. 'Mike' wanted to make her feel pain to break me, so as a trained killer, he must have known how to avoid extensive damages, right? And he should have done that with the first bullet. However, I can't sure about the second one. He has wanted to kill her.
No, that was with the third bullet he never got to fire at her. So the second one should not have done damage to kill. Still…
I purse my dry lips, because I can only hope. My hand goes to my left leg to stroke the bandage over the skin and muscles torn by the bullet. With an additional distraction, my heart calms down slightly, but my eyes can't leave the door of the operating theater. It suddenly opens, quiet, too quiet, but at the same time like a magnet, dragging the gazes that want to pierce through it to see beyond, before they come back to focus on the doctor who is coming out.
At moments like this, I doubt anyone would have trouble remembering the face of the one who must flirt with the fate of people important to them, not even face-blind relatives. So it is like a lottery, with everyone checking whether the small white ball which weighs so much, figuratively, is stopping in the expected black case, in the red one, or unfortunately it is the other way around. Then it is like a slot machine, the hopes and the prayers while it is turning about to give an answer. And they read it, even before they hear it, the ones whose relative that doctor has been trying to treat.
"Nooo!!! No, no, no…"
The cry pierce through my heart, cutting its string to make it slide down my stomach, as my apprehension grows. I don't know who has been inside for that woman who has crumbled, and is held by a man who is only trying to be strong, but I know that I hope Liz comes back sooner.
I don't even register the rest of what happens. I don't process the thoughts I perceive, I don't listen to the quiet but sad words that seals a fate by announcing the state of the cat that has been in the box. I breathe, in and out, slowly and deeply, calm and focused.
"Max Lockdream."
"Huh!?"
I don't even know when my concentration has slipped. I'm stunned when I hear my name and reply reflexively. I raise my head, and my heart jumps, because I recognize the doctor, and I freeze, chilled. I'm suddenly afraid to hear the news, to know what turn fate has decided to take. I can't feel my legs. I can't stand up. Faced with the deciding moment, I become like a Buridan's donkey, unable to choose a path. Or maybe I am like a Pavlov dog, frozen by a reflex we all have when the time comes to stand before hope and despair.
My chaotic thoughts help me escape for a moment, but I feel the gazes that fall on me from the side, as the doctor waits. The pity, the sympathy, the empathy, even… the schadenfreude. That, more than other feelings, sickens me to the point of disgust even in my distracted state. It pulls my quickly beating heart back, and muffles its thunderous sounds that have pushed my thoughts away. And before the fear comes back, before it makes my mind crash again, I do the only thing I can, I rely on the only crutch I have, and I read the only mind that has the answer, 'my' answer.
'Elizabeth is lucky. But while she is unconscious, someone has to take care of her sister.'
It is only now that I see it, the small smile, the relaxed brows, the happy twinkle. I have missed those before, my mind has refused to see those before, afraid of seeing the opposite, but now I see those signs on the face of the doctor, and my hanging heart falls back down like a stone in water.
*Pu-dong*
The surprise must have shown on my face, looking more pleasant than despairing, before the relief floods my being, because I see the smile on the face of the doctor grow wider, before going blurry… Blurry and tilted.
Is the doctor playing a trick to chase the gloom out of my heart? Because it seems the whole world is tilting along with him. But if so, why does his blurry image look like he is panicking? He seems to be shouting something, first, at me, then at someone to the side, as if he is calling someone. A nurse? A fellow doctor? Is he calling for help?
But the noise, the words, I can't hear them. It is like the world is shutting down. Or… am I shutting down?
He runs over wobbly, and some nurses arrive too. It seems I really am the one shutting down. But Liz is alright, and that is all that matters. That is the best news.
I smile, and I let myself bathe in the relief gushing out of my being, before the blur of the world turns into darkness, and silence.