‘Tis Charity
to Show
Chapter VI
Part 3
It was like
that teatime scene from Alice in Wonderland, but worse, because none of it was
happening on the pages of a book.
It all was happening live in front of her, and there was no rabbit hole
she could hoist herself out of to escape this madness.
Directly
across from Rand, Nurse Rose shoveled food down her mouth without break, her
free arm encircling her plate territorially. Riley, on the other side of the spectrum, didn’t touch a
morsel of food, but talked incessantly, punctuating almost every pointless word
with jabbing, grand gestures. He
was a man unhinged, who even resorted to climbing onto the table when his
gestures and pronouncements weren’t enough to get everyone’s attention.
At the head of
the table was a remote Spock; hands steepled, his eyes rolled so far up into
his head that only the whites were visible. Rand shuttered, feeling a chill sweep across her shoulders.
“Let’s hope
this is as bad as he gets today,” she thought.
On the other
end of the table, directly opposite of Spock, was a frazzled Scotty pulling at
the bottom of Riley’s shirt in a vain attempt to keep him off the table. Poor Scotty looked pale, haggard, but
then everyone did. They were like
hollowed eyed ghosts of patients in an abandoned, decrepit, haunted asylum.
Dr. Begay
sat next to Rand, his elbows on the table, his head cradled in trembling hands.
“Mathias, is
everything OK?”
He had an
agonized, knotted expression on his pallid face.
“Mathias, is
everything all right?”
He began to
take quick, raspy breaths. They
were uneven, coarse; the breaths morphed into jarring gulps for air.
“Mathias,
what’s wrong?”
Begay
wrapped his arms around his stomach and gritted his teeth, grunting violently.
“Mathias! Talk to me!”
Rand reached
out to Begay, but he fell away from her grasp and landed on the floor, his
chair crashing audibly behind him.
His body sputtered and jerked like a helpless fish taken out of its
water habitat. He let out a
piercing scream that flayed Rand’s nerves.
Fighting
against the invading noise, she jumped off her own chair and positioned herself
over the doctor.
“St-staples! Please! God, please!”
“Staples?! What the hell are you talking about?!”
“My
guts!! My blessed guts!!”
“Your
guts?!”
“DAMN
IT! CAN’T YOU SEE THEY’RE SPILLING
OUT OF ME??!! GOD!! MAKE IT STOP!!!”
Rand looked
around the surrounding area where Begay lay tossing around, then observed the
spaces between his fingers and arms wrapped around his waist.
“Mathias?! There’s no blood anywhere to indicate
you’ve been injured…”
“Get the
fucking staples!!”
“Maybe if I
could move your arms away…”
“Are you
nuts?!?! They’ll spill out!!!”
Rand bit the
bullet and prodded gingerly with her fingers under his tightly strapped
arms. There was no gaping
hole, no wetness, no injuries.
Nothing.
“Nurse
Rose! I need help here!”
When Rose
didn’t come, Rand became irritated.
“Nurse
Rose!! Where are you?!!”
Rand jumped
up from where she was and surveyed the spectacle in front of her; Riley was
being carried off the table by Scotty, Rose was shoving food in her mouth to
the point of self-affixation, and Spock was still absorbed in whatever netherworld
held him captive--away from the humans.
“Earth to
assholes!” Rand bellowed, not giving a Good God Damn how Spock would react.
“I have an
emergency over here! Dr.Begay is
having an attack of some kind!
He needs restraining! If
it’s not too much trouble, I need help here!”
As if on cue,
Riley and Scotty immediately stopped what they were doing and ran to either
side of Begay.
Rand watched
hotly while Nurse Rose robotically reached for Riley’s abundant plate of food and
dumped the contents onto her own plate.
Beyond angry, she leaned across the table to where Rose sat, picked the
plate up from under Rose, and tossed it over Rose’s head where it crashed on
the floor.
“You might
want to get a hypo needle for your doctor in between your face stuffing,” she
said icily.
The two
women were locked in eye -combat, frozen where they were, yet ready to strike,
like cobras watching each other.
They were poised like this for a small amount of time until the nurse finally relented, getting up
from where she sat and walking away, her eyes still locked on Rand as she
headed for the medical room.
Rand turned
her attention to Spock. Her eyes
level, she stood in front of him.
“Mr. Spock,”
she said, pointing to a helpless Begay.
“Our doctor needs assistance!
Can you please help us restrain him at least! We could use your strength!”
Spock said
nothing. He unsteepled his hands
and rolled his eyes from behind his head, the brown of his irises reappearing
and focusing on Rand with creepy precision. Rand clenched her jaw and tried her upmost not to flinch
while the Vulcan sat quietly, looking at her with dispassion. Finally, he pushed himself away from
the table, picked up his plate of food, and simply walked out of the dining
area without saying anything, or looking back.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.