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I’m not claustrophobic. At least, I didn’t used to be. My current situation might be causing me to rethink things.
It’s pitch black and I’m lying face-up on a frigid slab of metal, ankles tied together, wrists bound over my chest and mouth duct taped to oblivion. Occasionally I can hear Nervous Guy’s voice echo throughout the morgue as he talks to his stiffs. Other than that, the only noise is the sound of my own breathing ricocheting off the drawer ceiling, mere inches above me. I always knew my ego would be my undoing, but wildly underestimated the janitor’s role in the plot. Turns out, he’s got top billing.
I thrive under pressure. Give me three coding patients and a bed shortage and my fuse is lit. I ride that rush of adrenaline like a hawk riding thermals and everything clicks into place. I’m The Doctor and The Man and you’d be pressed to hear differently in the direst moments. But this pitch black body box that drives needles of icy air into my exposed skin is not “high stress” or “high pressure.” It is unmitigated terror and my instincts that tell me to go go go are useless as long as I am trapped.
I try consciously to fight the rush of adrenaline that is about as useful as a plastic bag over my head. It makes my breath come in erratic bursts, and it takes too much time and too much effort to slow it into the even, controlled motions that will at least prolong my inevitably running out of air. I wonder momentarily how all the corpses do this before remembering that the dead don’t breathe.
As long as you’re breathing, you’re alive.
It is redundant, obvious, effectively meaningless. But I decide on it as my survival mantra. I can’t believe I’m using the word “mantra.”
I know in all likelihood I will be found long before I run out of air. I’m slightly less convinced that hypothermia won’t win out. I curl and uncurl my fingers and toes to the best of their restrained ability and force my mind elsewhere. To somewhere warmer, with boundless oxygen. A beach enclosed by thick forest, perhaps.
I’m lying back on a recliner with a book and a beer. The ocean waves crash and the wind playfully tousles the curls that fall across my forehead. The air smells like salt and—wait, is that peaches?
My eyes snap open and are met with the darkness that is beginning to feel more like a blanket than a prison. That’s probably not a great sign, I decide. A mix of hypothermia and hypoxia are causing my calming thoughts to mutate into vivid hallucinations. At least that explains the intrusion of a completely irrelevant element into my Happy Place. Good God, I can’t believe I’m someone who has a Happy Place. But if ever there was a time for one...
Once again feeling the horror of helplessness, I force my eyes closed and rebuild my beach-scape.
The sand feels warm and the soothing sound of the ocean beckons me to gaze into it. I focus on the deep blue, its intensity welcoming and comforting. Except, the shoreline is receding. No, make that the entire ocean. The whole Pacific is pulling away from me in a unified motion. But it’s not water. A pair of crystal blue eyes gazes at me, and when I realize I am gazing back, I am again warm and calm.
Newbie?
I’m conscious again and more confused than ever. I’m also freezing and I have to intentionally clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. Involuntary or not, the sound of my teeth ricocheting off of one another echoing through the tiny chamber is maddening. I no longer have a concept of how much time has passed. My faith that I’ll be found in time is diminishing. The entire situation is so infuriatingly ridiculous that I want to either laugh hysterically or bash my head against the ceiling. But I’m still breathing, still alive, and for that reason (and the duct tape) I do nothing.
Nothing at all.
Except realize that even in the blinding blackness I can only see blue. I should be angry—incensed, even—that in the one moment I finally have to myself, away from his inane pestering, Newbie is the only thing I can see. My consciousness is faltering and he’s the image that it can still conceive in stunning clarity. I should be infuriated, should be screaming through my taped lips. But I have neither the need nor the energy for performative rage. I am too depleted to fall into a crisis of emotion or identity, too unsure if I’ll ever even have a chance to speak anything aloud again, to fall into anything but calm acceptance. I only find myself wishing that it didn’t take being on the wrong end of a morgue visit to figure out what all but the most conscious parts of mind seemed to have always known.
Without warning, heat and light envelop me with a ferocity so intense that I am convinced that dying actually feels like being consumed by a celestial campfire. When I force my eyes open to adjust to the light, I am met with two eyes staring back at me in utter disbelief.
“Doctor Cox?” Newbie shouts in my face. Well, half-shouts, half-spits. “Thank God! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Are you alright?” His hands are gently squeezing my shoulders as he speaks. I jerk my chin upward and raise my wrists. “Oh, God, of course!” He nods understandingly, and without quite enough warning he tears the swaths of duct tape from my mouth.
“Get some s-scissors or a s-scalpel or something, would ya, F-Francine?” I stutter through chattering teeth. Newbie nods and races away, appearing a moment later with a small knife that he uses to slice through the tape binding my wrists. His left hand clasps over my fingers as he makes the final cuts that liberate my hands from one another. The immense warmth sends a shiver down my spine. I have no medical explanation for that one.
“Jesus, you’re freezing,” he worries. “I’ll call up to get some blankets down here.”
“Med School’s really paid off there, Skip,” I say with admirably little snark. “Help me sit up, will ya please?”
Newbie nods as he finishes sending his page and grasps my arm again, placing his other hand behind my back to help me into a shaky upright position. He’s looking intensely into my eyes again and I can’t tell whether he’s trying to check my pupils or communicate telepathically. I don’t break my gaze as I place my free hand over his. He jumps slightly, but doesn’t object.
“Thanks for finding me, JD,” I say quietly. He glances at our hands and back up to me.
“You’re welcome,” he responds in a matching tone.
I don’t remember either of us moving an inch, but somehow he is close enough that the faint aroma of peaches finds its way back to my nose, and I only just recognize it as our lips make firm, assured, caring contact. It lasts a mere few seconds, but is enough to breathe an entirely new life into my lungs. We pull apart and smile quietly at one another. Newbie breaks the silence when he can no longer contain himself.
“So, uh, do you want to get dinner after work? You know, assuming you’ve thawed out by then,” he adds nervously.
I can’t help but grin. The kid saves lives but is still afraid to ask out the person who just kissed him.
“Yeah, Newbie. Dinner sounds nice,” I reply with a chuckle.
Moments later, Carla and Barbie arrive with a couple blankets and the requisite diagnostic equipment. They are relieved to see me conscious and talking. I’m relieved that there may actually be a future for me and I decide to do everything I can to ensure that Newbie is a part of it. As long as I’m breathing.