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When Yomiel finally woke, he knew it wasn’t the first time. Dim flashes of brief consciousness scrolled through his memory. He remembered words like “surgery” and “stable” being murmured over his hospital bed. He was sure someone had held his hand at one point before he slipped into darkness again.
His fingers clenched.
Yomiel let his eyes roam around the room. His vision was still bleary, but he could make out the space well enough. It was the same stark white one would expect from a hospital room, although Yomiel had to give it credit for the turquoise trim along the walls. He turned his head towards the steadily beeping heart monitor. It stood like a little sentry to his right, reminding Yomiel that his heart was actually beating. The slight pinch of an oxygen meter’s clip felt strange around his fingertip. All those years of numbness…
Muscles jerked at the sound of a door clicking open. With the bed set so low, Yomiel couldn’t see the nurse’s face until she was nearly at his bedside.
“Ah! Hello, glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling, Yomiel?” The nurse spoke to him gently as she checked his vitals. She scribbled on her clipboard before stashing her pen away in the pocket of her robin’s-egg scrubs. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her eyes were kind.
“…Feeling alright, considering. I’m…disoriented.” Yomiel said slowly, gesturing sloppily to his head. He wasn’t drowsy, but every movement felt sluggish. Whatever painkillers they put in him must still be screwing with his brain.
“That’s pretty normal; you have been asleep for a while. Do you feel dizzy at all?” The nurse asked. Yomiel shook his head.
“Any nausea?” Again, he shook his head.
The nurse nodded and smiled, satisfied. She asked, “Do you remember me at all?”
“Heh, no.”
“That’s alright! I’m Nurse Vera. I’ll be looking after you. It’s pretty late, so I was wondering if you were up for eating dinner tonight?”
Yomiel stared through her as his brain buffered a second. He managed a nod, and Nurse Vera left his side to grab something. She mentioned something about adjusting the bed, but his mind was wandering by now.
As the bed lifted him to a position resembling sitting, Yomiel ignored that he couldn’t feel any shift from the hips downward. A stray strand of hair fell in his face when the bed stopped. With a clumsy hand, he felt his loose, un-styled hair. Had they washed it? Combed it? When would they have done that? Was he really out that long?
And when was the last time someone asked him about food? When you’re a walking ‘shell’, meals stop being a priority.
He startled when his stomach decided to voice its disagreement with that thought. The feeling echoed inside him while his organs made themselves known. It all felt so new and amplified…
“Hnnngh…quiet.” he groaned, gripping his middle.
Vera returned with a tray holding a plate with a Tupperware lid. The tray clicked neatly in place on the sidebars of the bed, and Vera carefully lifted the plastic lid.
There sat the prettiest serving of spaghetti Yomiel had ever seen. Steam rose hot off the homemade noodles and well-seasoned meat sauce. Just the right amount of Parmesan was sprinkled evenly over the meal. It’s tantalizing smell quickly filled the room.
“I doubt that this is the hospital’s food.”
Vera laughed. “You doubt correctly! Miss Sissel brought this for you today. She’s been coming to visit you since you were admitted.”
Yomiel froze. Any mention of her still caught him off guard. He looked at the platter with a new appreciation. Sissel had been coming to see him after what he’d done, and even cooked a meal for him. The back of his eyes stung.
Despite himself, Yomiel couldn’t quite bring himself to be excited about the dish itself.
Vera pulled a wrapped set of plastic utensils from her side pocket. After opening it, she neatly set the utensils down with a napkin next to the full plate at Yomiel’s lap.
While Vera turned to throw away the wrapping, Yomiel concentrated on picking up the fork. His fingers wrapped around it easier than he expected, and a little triumphant smile graced his face.
The fork hovered over the steaming noodles.
He sat.
And sat.
“Is something the matter with your spaghetti?” the nurse asked kindly.
Yomiel glanced at his plate, fork sitting numbly in his grasp.
He couldn’t tell her he’d just spent an alternate decade as a walking corpse, with no functioning digestive system to speak of. He couldn’t tell her of when he first tried to eat, back then, and felt a wrongness so otherworldly he couldn’t open his mouth again for hours. He couldn’t explain how the other few attempts had ended with the same result before he gave up. That version of him might’ve loved to divulge every horrid detail of his suffering, but that was all behind him now.
“No, nothing’s wrong, I’m just… It’s still kinda hot. I’ll let it cool.” he lied.
“Well alright. Is there anything else you need? The bed level is okay?” Vera asked. Yomiel nodded his head.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
Vera smiled and reached for the head of the bed. “Before I go, there’s a remote for things like the lights, the tv, and so on.” she said, pulling a wired, round gray remote free from its pillowy prison. Yomiel did a once-over of the buttons while she set it down gently at his side.
“If you need anything, just hit the ‘nurse call’ button, okay? I’ll be back later to check in on ya.”
“Okay, thanks.”
By the time Nurse Vera was opening the door, Yomiel was already staring at his plate again. He let his wrist rest against the tray, fork still in hand. Anxiety stirred in his gut, a sensation he didn’t quite miss, now that he thought about it. There was nothing wrong with the food; it was just spaghetti. He knew that. So why was this so hard?
“You’re alive again. You have to eat if you’re alive.” Yomiel chided himself before twirling a measly bit of pasta onto his fork and popping it in his mouth.
He stiffened, eyes scrunched, anticipating the wrongness and not-nausea to overwhelm him. The seconds ticked by, and it never came.
Yomiel’s shoulders relaxed. His eyes opened.
“…Oh.” His voice was soft and quiet.
It tasted as good as it looked, and it wasn’t too hot after all. Long-buried memories of the time he and his fiancée spent together welled to the surface. Her cooking, her voice, the sound of her laugh, the way she would hold his hand…
After a long moment, he let himself chew like any other normal person having dinner.
~~~~~~
Later, when Vera returned to check on him, she noted that the plate was licked clean. Yomiel would deny it and also insist that no, he absolutely had not been crying.