A Penny For Your Thoughts

A short story about a chance occurrance with some rogue positrons

I lay flat on my back on a green vinyl trolley wearing a grey short sleeved smock over my day clothes. A dry face towel had been placed across my face to cover my eyes, nose and mouth. I wasn't told why my face needed to be covered and I lacked the linguistic ability to ask.

I heard the cushioned patter of soft shoe footsteps pad in and out of the room accompanied by the low chatter of a conversation which could have been about the price of bacon at the local supermarket for all I knew.

My mind drifted to the thought that this must have been what it was like to be dead. The fact that they could not see me suggested to me that they thought that that must have meant that I could could not see them. In other words, I was as good as dead. And whilst it was true I could not see them physically with my eyes, I could see them with all my other senses.

I tried to slow down my racing heartbeat with deep breaths, an old trick I had learned many years ago when I was a child playing hide and seek with my siblings. By the time my heart got down to less than fifty beats per minute I could have easily been taken for dead. This was the closest I ever got to being a fly on the wall.

When people thought you were dead or asleep, they became less worried about being overheard and were therefore more relaxed. The barriers dropped and they would speak openly about the most intimate parts of their lives. However, this morning the chances of me learning anything from tittle tattle gossip were inhibited by my lack of knowledge of Japanese.

Eventually I sensed somebody of diminutive stature come right up close to the trolley I was laid out on.

"My name is Tomoko, but you can call me Beyonce if you like. You don't know what I look like, but I know you and we will meet again and I will say hello. So don't worry."

It was a soft, friendly, almost feminine, voice which confused me a little. I had a fleeting thought to ask the owner of the voice if they were male or female but wished not to cause offence. Instead I asked....

"Can you please tell me why I have a towel over my face?"

"Yes, it's to protect your eyes. What we are going to inject you with can make your eyes over sensitive to bright lights. For this reason your face is covered and the lights have been turned down low. Don't worry, it won't be long now."

And with that Tomoko, or Beyonce, shuffled away from the trolley and out of the room. Suddenly I heard the clatter of something being dropped on the floor. I had no idea what it was, but whatever it was, it was enough to provoke what sounded like it might have been a curse. The offending object was duly retrieved and seconds later I heard the soft shoe shuffle of at least two people leave the room. Once again I was all alone.

My mind drifted back to my childhood when I had seen a film which deeply effected me. It was a story about a car crash victim lying on a hospital trolley with no visible signs of viable life. He could hear the doctor telling a nurse that he was dead and got very upset. He tried to move a finger to attract attention to the fact that he was very much alive, all to no avail.

Then, just as a nurse was about to draw a bedsheet over his face he cried a sadness laden tear. Fortunately at the last second the nurse saw the tear in his eye and took it as a sign that the man was not at all dead. As a very impressionable child I was deeply touched by that and shed a tear of my own.

As I relived that childhood moment a tear trickled down my cheek. This is what it must have felt like. Some say the dying often shed a last tear before they die, a tear of sadness at the great sense of loss, at the realisation that all is at an end.

A tear for all the things that didn't work out or for the dreams and wishes that had failed to transpire. Others say it is a tear at seeing the face of God or loved ones waiting on the other side. In my case the tear was for the deeply felt losses of a colourful past and the loss of an impending future still yet full of hope.

Then my mind drifted once again. This time I was sat in some pavement cafe patio with an elderly friend who upon seeing an old man in the street with a zimmer frame said out loud to me "You know, I don't drink to forget my past, I drink to forget my future." And suddenly, I somehow understood what he was getting at. To try to forget or to lament a future yet to be realised was something to be profoundly felt.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity before once again I heard footpads enter the room. Within seconds I felt a small hand take mine and turn it palm down. Then I felt soft fingertips run down the back of my hand along a vein. This was followed by a sharp pain as what was no doubt a hyperdermic syringe pierced my skin. This in turn was followed by a burning sensation as some sort of liquid was injected into the back of my hand. How little did I know how much what was being injected was going to change my life in some very mysterious ways. Thirty seconds later I was once again alone.

Eventually, after about half an hour, two completely different people came into the room and removed the towel from my face before helping me to my feet. I could tell from their scrubs and demeanour that they were not doctors. They seemed more like technicians, which was indeed what they were.

We passed along a short series of passage ways which lead us to a room which housed what I can only describe as a massive white encased doughnut. I was politely but firmly asked to lie back on a conveyor which would feed me into what was in fact a scanner.

As I lay back on the conveyor I felt strips being tightened across my abdomen, my chest and across the top of my head. It was explained that for the next hour I must not move an inch. Then everybody left the room and yet once again I was left alone and afraid. I had no idea what if anything was going to happen other than I was going to be fed into this big doughnut.

Backwards and forwards went the conveyor, to the smooth noise of what sounded like a turbine. I half expected to feel something, though I could not for the life of me think quite what that might be.

At some point I became aware of having what I can only describe as a greater degree of mental clarity concentrated somewhere in the frontal lobe. After an hour the technicians came back into the room and as the one I could see walked towards me I realised I could read his mind.

I didn't get his name, but somehow I knew it was Yoshiro, or Yoshi for short. And not only could I read his mind, but he knew it. As he leaned over me to release the chest strap, our eyes met and he momentarily stopped un strapping the belt. He had an expression on his face and the thought in his mind that said "What?"

He had been thinking about making out with Tomoko and realising that I was possibly reading his mind he came over all guilty and tried to quickly change his thought pattern to having a McDonald's burger with his wife.

However, he wasn't quick enough to change his thoughts and he looked away as he commenced unstrapping me. I said nothing about what had happened. But we both knew that whatever it was, it wasn't normal.

And not only did I pick up on his mortal thoughts of a desirable make out with Tomoko, I also picked up on the fact that something during the last hour had not gone according to plan. I decided to put all of this out of my mind for the moment and simply followed instructions to leave the room and go back to reception to get dressed and check out.

As we strolled down the hospital corridor my wife looked at me with a questioning look on her face. "I know." I said before she could say a word. "Know what?" she replied. "We should book ourselves a table at our favourite restaurant before it gets too late."

"How did you know I was going to say that?" my wife said surprised.

"Errr, I'll tell you later, it's complicated." I said. And with that we went to our next appointment. How little did I realise just how complicated things were going to become over the course of the next few days.