Tranquility

“Where’s Donnie?”

This was the first coherent thought Donald Myers experienced. He did not know whether he had actually said the words aloud so he tried again. He opened his mouth to speak and instead he began to scream. Pain swept over him like a scalding hot blanket. Killing pain. He smelled something sweet burning. Then mercifully, he passed out.

Just three seconds after arriving at Saint Andrews Medical Center, Doctor Jonathan Anders, Chief of Surgery, heard his name associated with a code red over the hospital intercom. It was going to be one of those days. He altered his course and headed for the nearest phone when his beeper went off. He glanced at it without taking it from his belt. It was the Trauma Ward. He quickened his pace.

In the time it took him to cross the hospital via the staff tunnels, he counted two more codes including the names of two of his colleagues, a trauma physician, and a lead plastic surgeon. He didn’t need a slide rule to know he had a burn victim.

Someone screamed just as he came through the double doors and stepped into chaos. At least, it would seem like chaos to a civilian. To Dr Anders, it was a well-choreographed ballet. A symphony of activity that should have prepared him for what was to come. Instead, he was taken by surprise when he swept open the curtain where the scream had originated. 

There were twelve people in white milling about the small space between the curtains. At first, he could see nothing of the patient at all. Then he realized that some of the people in the makeshift room were just standing still, looking at the gurney. A mixture of shock, surprise, and horror filled their faces.

“All non-essential personnel out.” He barked loudly, his voice carrying throughout the ward. As the room cleared, he saw the bed with a large black thing lying on it. At first, he could not make out what it was. Then the smell hit him and he knew exactly what he was looking at. He was looking at what should have been a dead human being, burned beyond recognition. He noticed the trauma physician standing at the head of the bed looking puzzled.
“What have we got, Dr. Childress?”

Dr. Childress continued to stare at the thing on the bed. A look of deep thought on his olive tanned face.

“Phillip?” Dr. Anders said impatiently.

“Oh, sorry John.” Childress shook his head. “What we have is a white male in his late twenties; severe third degree burns over…, oh, I’d say 95% of his body.” He paused for affect. “I’ve given him 10 mils of Morphine in the only place I can find to put it, the Basilar artery in the back of the neck, just below the base of the brain. Outside of that…, well, there’s just not much more we can do.”

Dr. Anders made his way between two nurses at the bedside to examine the man. A nurse beside him looked up in frustration and said, “I can’t find a vein.” She looked at the syringe in her hand and then back at Anders. “I… I can’t find…” tears had welled up in her eyes and she swallowed hard.

“That’s because his veins are no longer there.” He looked around at the remaining staff. “Clear the room.” For a few brief moments, no one moved. Anders was beginning to think no one would. Then the thing on the bed moaned. The room cleared almost instantly. Anders leaned close to the man’s face, put his lips where his ear should have been and whispered into the blackened lump. “Sir, if you can hear me, you have been in a terrible accident. You are badly burned. We are trying to help you.” 

Don Myers lay with his eyes closed for a moment trying to figure out where he was. He knew he was not home in bed. He was outside in the fresh air. He could hear water nearby and felt the softness of the grass upon which he was lying. The back yard, maybe? Then a thought struck him. I am on vacation with my family. Linnie, my wife, is playing with Donnie Jr. down at the beach. I must have dozed off and I’m in that state of waking where you don’t remember exactly where you are or how you got there.

He opened his eyes, fully expecting to be on vacation. He was not. The darkening sky was overcast and while it was not raining, it felt as if it could start at any moment. He sat up and looked out over a lake so serene and tranquil that he was sure he must have still been dreaming.

There was an old wooden dock in front of him lazily stretching thirty feet over water so calm and clear you could see the lakebed. In the near distance, the silhouette of a hilly coast seemed ready to bathe in the impending storm’s rain. A very warm mist floated languidly over the still water.

“He restoreth my soul…,” he said aloud, remembering a picture of a place like this on a calendar he had seen in his father’s study as a child.

“He does indeed.” spoke a voice from behind him. Startled, Don leapt to his feet and spun around to face the speaker.

An elderly man in an impeccable white suit stood looking out over the water. One hand was in his pocket, the other held a pocket watch. He glanced at it and then spoke in a voice that seemed to make Don drowsy. “Indeed He does.” Then the man smiled and Don felt suddenly completely at ease with him.

“Who are you, mister?” Don asked, almost casually.

“I’m Peter.” He said, still smiling.

“Well, Peter.” Don approached the stately man in the white suit slowly and stood beside him. “Where am I?”

The man looked back out over the lake. “Look out there and tell me what you see.”

Don turned and looked out over the peaceful scene. “It’s a beautiful lake but I don’t see anything familiar.” Don looked at the man again and asked. “Where am I, Peter?”

Impossibly, Peter’s smile grew even brighter. “My friend, you are almost home.”

“What’s this?” Dr. Anders asked, bending over the body. “There is something in his hand.”

Dr. Childress came around to his side of the bed and looked. “Part of the steering wheel, perhaps?”

“No, I don’t think so.” He took the man by the wrist and pried the arm up. It crackled like dry timber and broke off at the elbow. The man moaned, but didn’t move. Dr Anders held the arm up under the bright light.
“Oh my God.” He said in amazement. It’s a child’s arm.”

Childress took it from him and carried it over to a stainless steel table in the corner of the examining room. “He must have tried to drag his family out of the car after the accident.” He lowered his voice. “His wife and child died instantly in the crash but before the explosion and fire, mercifully.”

“I wonder what is keeping him alive.” Anders said, still standing over the man. He took the updated chart from the bed and studied it for a moment. Then he leaned close to the black mass on the bed.

“Mr. Myers?” He glanced at the chart again. “Don, can you hear me?” Ever so softly, Don made a faint sound lower than a whisper. Dr. Anders leaned in closer.

“My family…, okay?”

Dr. Anders stood straight and ran his hand across his elderly features. He looked tired. Dr Childress had joined him on the opposite side of the bed and the two men looked at each other helplessly.

“Peter, I don’t know who you are or where I am but I do know that I have never been here before. Where is my wife? Where is my son?” He knew he should be angry but he felt calm. “Please, Peter. If you know, tell me.”

The man in the white suit walked out onto the dock. “Your family is already home.” He raised his arms indicating the far shore. “Why don’t you join them?”

“What are you saying?” Now Don could feel the old anger rising slightly inside him. “Are you saying my wife and son are here somewhere?”

Peter turned to him and smiled that calming smile. “Just let go, Don.”

“No!” Don almost screamed. “I will not. My family is not dead. They are at home. She is probably worried sick about me right now. I have to get back to them.”

“Listen to me, Don.” Peter opened his arms and a warm breeze lightly tussled his white hair. “You should accept this. Let go and everything will be all right. Your wife and son are waiting for you.”

Don felt his anger flare. “Send me back. NOW!”

Peter put his arms down and sighed heavily. “Don, let me introduce you to someone.” He looked past Don into the forest behind them.

Don turned and looked into the trees. What had been a serene, peaceful forest a few moments ago was now a dark, tumultuous tangle of wind blown leaves and branches. From within that chaotic place, the figure of a man appeared to be walking toward them unscathed by the debris.

“Who is that?” Don had to raise his voice over the wind, which had picked up considerably.

Peter answered him effortlessly. “This is pain. He waits for you there where you think your family is. You must believe your family is not there, Don. Your family has moved on and waits for you to let go.

Pain stepped out of the forest and approached Don. The two stood facing each other. The features of the man’s face horrified Don. His hair, jet-black, was singed and smoking. His eyes were also black with no white around the pupils. They seemed to pull at Don’s very soul.

Pain raised his hand in front of Don’s face and extended his first finger. An evil smile spread across his face seeming to go from ear to pointed ear. The huge mouth became a black chasm with a bright red tongue that was forked at the tip. He flicked it over his pointed, elongated teeth made stark white by the blackness of his mouth. Pain placed his finger on Don’s chest and Don began to scream. 

Doctors Anders and Childress nearly jumped out of their skin when the burned man suddenly started screaming again. They had finally started an I.V. in the man’s neck, the only viable vein they could find in his melted body. They both agreed it was a futile effort. Whatever was keeping this poor soul alive was doing him no favor. He simply could not survive much longer. After less than a minute, Dr. Anders, almost completely un-nerved, leaned in to the screaming man’s face and waited. When the man stopped screaming to draw a new breath, Anders whispered into his ear hole.

“Mr. Myers, your family is dead. Your wife and your son died this morning in the same car crash that put you here.”

Don Myers suddenly stopped writhing. He was holding his breath. His blood-filled eyes straining toward the ceiling.

“Don,” Dr Anders said in a calmer voice. “They’re gone and there is nothing more that we can do for you.”

For several long moments, the terribly burned body lay frozen in its awkward dance with death.
Don Myers let out his breath and died.

Peter put his hand on Don’s shoulder. Pain was gone. Don turned and looked across the peaceful lake. At that moment, the clouds began to break and beautiful sunshine illuminated a woman and a small boy on the far shore. They were smiling and waving to him. He looked at Peter and said. “I’m ready to go home.”

Saint Peter smiled.

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