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Aurelia hated shifts in the coma ward because it was mostly just waiting. They’d either wake up or die and there was barely any way to help. Her only source of entertainment was the visitors. She’d noticed that people were willing to say things to blank sleeping faces that they would never say to waking ones. It was a morbid pastime, watching them, but significantly less morbid than the staff who bet on which ones would get their plugs pulled. Animals.
There was one patient in particular who interested her. Jonathan Sims was written on the white board in his room, along with the name of the attending physician and her own. Seeing the words “Nurse Okoli” always made her smile a little, proud of herself. Her mother had framed a picture of the first time it had been written out like that. Jonathan Sims had no family listed. He had no emergency contact. He seemed on paper to be the type who would sit quietly in his bizarre state of all but brain dead, and be forgotten.
Instead, he had a constant stream of strange visitors. A rumor was going around the hospital that someone had been arrested in his room. The other nurses prodded her for details but all she would say is that a middle-aged man was lead out in handcuffs wearing a knowing smile. He had not been the only odd one. There was a woman who... appeared, every now and then. She wore of those tacky pantsuits Aurelia associated with faces on realty signs and her face was impossible to keep track of. Every time the woman showed up she’d ask the man a one word question and then exit through a door that never seemed to be there when she went to check in. She willed herself to forget those visits, fearing she’d go mad if she tried to puzzle it out. Less unsettling, was the girl who came in a couple times with the boyishly short hair dyed that shade of red that proudly announced its own artificiality and three piercings in a row on each ear. She always wore strange t-shirts, one advertising “The Orbiting Human Circus of the Air”. She was sweet, sometimes bringing snacks to share with other people visiting their loved ones. She once saw the girl leave a small stuffed cat on Sims’s side table and say, “The Admiral misses you.”
There were less kind visitors, though. Once there was a scarred woman with no visitors badge whom Aurelia noticed on the security camera. The woman’s hands twitched at her side, as if itching to grab something in her jacket. She looked feral. Aurelia quietly phoned security and tried to sneak closer to see what was going on, but the woman stalked out of the room at just the wrong time. She looked her over, crouched next to the door frame, and said in a thick Welsh accent, “Stay away from him if you know what’s good for you.”
Security found no sign of the Welsh woman but did their best to calm her down. Something in that woman’s eyes... the only word she could think of to describe it was bloodlust. She wondered what could possibly connect her with the man whose heart refused to work and whose brain refused to stop working. She thought of Sims as a man torn in half between life and death, unlike the rest of the patients who were suspended in Limbo. They were stationary. He was being bodily dragged in two opposite directions. You wouldn’t think it, just glancing at him, but he was made of something strong. She was sure of it.
And then there was the man with the mess of curly blond hair and soft voice whom she assumed was his boyfriend. He was tall, awkward, and never failed to say hello to her when he visited. She was pretty sure he’d introduced himself at some point but she couldn’t remember the name for the life of her, and by the time she realized he’d be one of the ones who came in regularly it was too late to ask. He showed up like clockwork; an hour in the evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays, several hours on Saturdays. He’d read books to him, tell him about his day at work (Which from what Aurelia could hear, sounded like a library, maybe? It seemed as though they both worked there.), and occasionally brought people with him. A woman in a hijab and/or another woman with an extremely short Afro who both looked uncomfortable. People often looked uncomfortable in the coma ward. It was disconcerting seeing someone you cared about drained of what made them themselves. The two women came very rarely and never without the boyfriend.
Presumed boyfriend, Aurelia reminded herself. He’d never explained who he was. Sims hadn’t said to contact him if something happened. But she could see it in the way he looked at him. It was the same sad longing she saw in the faces of isolated husbands and wives, wishing for their patients to become people again. He also never left without whispering something to Sims. She imagined it was something like, “Please wake up,” or “I love you.” That’s what people usually whispered to unhearing ears.
But no one was there when Sims woke up. It was a grey Monday morning and he sat up suddenly like he’d just remembered he was late for work. Aurelia had rushed in to check his vitals and try to keep him calm. Many who woke up without warning started panicking. He didn’t. His face had a grim set to it that she hadn’t expected. He coughed a bit as she took his pulse, so she checked his breathing as well. No heart beat. No air moving through his lungs. Nothing.
He asked what day it was. She stared.
He asked if he had any injuries. She began slowly backing away.
He sighed and went looking for his phone and normal clothes, finding them on the table next to the hospital bed. Aurelia yelled for assistance.
He had left before anyone came, a dead man walking.