“I…” Jay lapsed into silence.
He looked at Mahmoud. Ever since the day Angela dropped him off for his session, he had sensed a distance between them. He did not know how to breach it. His relational skills did not extend so far.
“There are some radical suggestions coming from Umar here.” Mahmoud indicated Umar with his hand as he got off the wall against which he had been lounging. “We’ve done all we can dare without resorting to some pretty invasive procedures.”
“How invasive?” Jay asked.
“How old are you Jay?” Mahmoud countered.
“What has that got to do with anything?”Jay snapped. When Mahmoud did not continue, he mumbled, “Twenty five.”
“These toxins were pumped into your system for six years from when you were eighteen. With all you’ve come to learn, how invasive do you imagine we would have to go?” Mahmoud asked.
His words sounded like the knelling of a massive gong in Jay’s head.
“What would be the…outcome? What’s the odds…can… is it possible that I survive it?
“That’s the risk we are reluctant to take.”
The room lapsed into silence.
“What are the odds I survive the crazy hormones?” Jay asked.
Again Sarah Jane responded. “In the amounts and combinations, very bad odds. Massive organ failures, possible dementia and all the attendant issues…not good odds.” She sounded apologetic. What was she apologizing for? She didn’t do this to him.
“Do it.”
“What?!” Mahmoud exploded.
“Jay, the risk…” Greene began.
“It’s like Umar says, we are all dying anyway. I’ll rather choose than… there’s no reason why I shouldn’t . The alternative…if I have to go out, then let me choose this way. At least I would seem to have tried.” The despondency in Jay’s voice was heart wrenching. Sarah Jane sniffled as she tried to fight back her tears.
When Jay made to look at her, his gaze was snagged by Umar’s.
“Everything. We’ll give it everything.” He said, his tone so solemn, it sounded like he was vowing.
Jay looked round at the occupants of the room. These were so much more than his Team. These people here were his friends. His burden sharers.
CHAPTER 6
“He did!”
The voice seemed extraordinarily loud. Jay winced as he tried to open his eyes. There seemed to be…glue on his eyes? Why would he have glue on his eyes? There was a very loud explosion of sound in his ear. He made to move his hands over his ears and discovered his hands were held bound to…a bed? Where was he?
“I’m telling you. He moved!” the voice came again. Jay gritted his teeth. The voice was being way too loud.
“Jay?” another voice asked its cadence easier on his ears than the first one, pitched lower too.
“Jay can you hear me?” it asked again. Jay struggled to respond. His throat was working, but no discernable sound was coming out of his mouth.
“I think he’s trying to say something.” Voice One said. The voices tickled his memory and he tried to scratch at that tickle.
“Water on a straw!” The second voice said. He felt someone take his hand. He could feel that the person had been extremely cautious while picking up his hand but it did nothing to stop the sharp pain that seemed to emanate from that contact point all the way to his head.
“You’ll pull through Jay. You’re a living, breathing miracle. We…we’re waiting Jay. It’s going to be some party when you wake up.”
It was a male voice. Voice two was male while Voice One was female. Jay smiled. ‘That’s sorted out’ he thought to himself as he let sleep, blessed sleep claim him.
>0
Jay held on to the railings in a death grip. He was using the treadmill today for the first time since he began his physiotherapy.
“Easy does it.” His therapist encouraged.
He supposed he ought to be glad. He had lived through a horrific lot these past few years and had survived to tell the tale. It wasn’t gratitude he was feeling right now. He was just exhausted! He needed, really needed to lie down but his therapist was a slave-driver. She didn’t let up!
It was like she sensed that he had reached the end of his rope because she said, “Ok Bozo! It’s a wrap for today.”
Yeah! She had jokes. He slipped down onto the floor mat. His limbs were literally shaking as sweat poured out of his pores.
“Looking good.” She commented as she made some notes on her pad. Jay just closed his eyes. He really didn’t want to see her right now. If he was up to it, he’d be thinking up ways to torture her right now. “At this rate, we may actually exceed our expected rate of progress.” She looked down at him and smiled. “You are one very determined young man.”
“Hahaha!” he grunted in response.
“Need a hand?” she asked ignoring his sarcasm, as she held out her hand to him. Jay looked at it with all the loathing he felt for her slave-driving ways and she burst into mirthful laughter.
“Come on. Let’s help you up and into your room.” She tucked her pad under her armpit and helped him to his feet. They began to make their way to his room, slowly. “Really,” she continued, “I’m impressed with how fast and how well you’re doing. I wish all my patients were as determined to heal and get better as you are.”
“That’s not how my body feels right now. I’m beat!” Jay said tiredly.
“I know. You’re doing great though.” Janet cooed. “Just thought you should know. Keep your head up ok?” she ended as a question.
The phone by his bedside was ringing as they got into his room. Janet helped him to his bed and then straightened to leave. “I’ll leave you to your phone call.” She smiled as she turned and smartly worked out of the door. The phone stopped ringing as Jay made to pick it up. He sighed as he fell back on his bed. He hadn’t really wanted to pick it up anyway. He wondered who would be calling him. Mahmoud was out of town. The rest of the team had scattered temporarily, they assured him, to attend to other matters that had been left hanging as they had struggled to pull him through his surgeries.
The phone began ringing again and he picked it up reflexively. “Hello”. He grunted into the phone.
“Hello” was the cautious response. “Is this..? Jay?”
“Hello? Who’s this?”
There was a relieved breath released. “It’s Angie. How are you?”
Surprise made Jay unresponsive for a few seconds. “Hello? Jay? Are you…”
“I’m fine Angie” he said quickly. “Just surprised.” “How did you get…”
“Your number?” She thrilled. “I ran into Mahmoud awhile back and he gave it to me. Said I could call you when… well he said to give you a little bit of time and then I could call to find out how you are.” She was quiet for awhile. “Is this a good time?”
“It’s as good as any.” He replied. “How are you doing?”
“Fine!” She thrilled. “What’s…how’s your recovery coming up?” “When can we come see you?”
Jay winced at that. “Not for now Angie.” He tried to soften his tone so as not to reveal how panicked her questions made him feel. He couldn’t imagine facing the Acha family in the condition he was in.
“Oh!” she said on a low tone. There were few moments of uncomfortable silence and then she cleared her throat nosily. “I didn’t mean to be forward or anything…”
“Angie, you weren’t forward at all. I just…I don’t feel up to seeing any one for now. It’s been tough Angie. Really tough!” Jay said as he tried to make his rebuff less hurtful.
Her sigh was really loud across the line. “How are you doing? Really?” she asked. “We couldn’t give enough praises to God when you made it out of surgery alive.” She stumbled on. “I was so scared Jay.” Her voice went small again like she was reliving her fear for him.
Jay felt his lips stretch in a smile. “Do I get to answer any of those questions or were they entirely rhetorical?”
his laughter bled into his voice.
He could feel the smile in her answer when she said, “You may begin attempting the questions, now.”
And the conversation turned easy from then on. Jay realized he had missed the Achas. Somewhere along this crazy road he had been set upon, they had become the Oasis.
CHAPTER 7
Jay shut up from the bed in a cold sweat, a scream held up just behind his lips. His face was contorted in a grimace. Sweat poured out from him like he had just gotten dunked in water. He slowly put a hand to his chest and clutched it like he was in the throes of a heart attack. He dragged in a lungful of air and lay back, gingerly, against the pillows.
He tried to remember the dream that had him shooting up from his sleep in terror but try as he might, he could not. Sleep was out of it. He was wide awake with adrenaline pumping through him like he had just…run a race, jumped off a plane… whatever!
He swung his feet over the side of his bed and walked into the en-suite bathroom. He used some water to wash his face hoping to clear the last vestige of terror from his mind. His pulse was still going strong and he took deep, long breathes to try to calm it down.
He heard his alarm go off in the bedroom as he stood looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. A rap sounded on his door.
“Jay. Time to go man!” Mahmoud called out
He was leaving The Centre today.
“Jay!” he called out again and this time opened the door to his room.
“In here.” Jay mumbled.
Mahmoud followed his mumbling to the bathroom door. He began to say something and then caught sight of Jay’s face and the sweat pouring out of him. Immediately, he went into his ‘doctor mode’.
“Are you feverish?” he asked as he felt up his forehead, his face wrinkled in concern.
Jay swatted his hand away, albeit weakly. “Just didn’t sleep well was all.”
“Why?” Mahmoud asked, his stance subtly changing to a more militant one. Jay’s brow furrowed at the thought.
He shrugged. “Nightmare. But I can’t seem to remember what it was about now.” The furrows on his brows deepened as he struggled to recapture the threads of his nightmare.
Mahmoud’s stance didn’t exactly change. Jay sensed, rather than saw him relax. He pushed off the door against which had been leaning and walked back into the bedroom.
“Well, you had better get ready. Daylight is a-wasting.” He said as he opened the door to continue out of the room. Just before it closed, he turned back to say, “Except you’ve changed your mind and have decided to take up permanent residency with us.” He quirked
Jay snorted as he slammed the bathroom door on a wince and began to prepare for his big break. A smile touched his face as he contemplated rejoining ‘life’. The smile widened. He did not reckon it would be smooth sailing, but heck after the last decade he had had…it would work out. He felt optimism bloom in his chest. It would all work out somehow.
***************
They had been driving awhile now. Jay glanced at his wristwatch. It had been some six hours or so. He glanced at Mahmoud sitting beside him at the steering wheel of the car. The scenery and the hustle and bustle of the occasional town, city had kept him fascinated at first but even that was losing its attraction.
“We’ll be stopping for food soon.” Mahmoud said as Jay swung to face him. “Don’t get so antsy yet.”
Jay sighed and slung lower on his seat. “I was getting antsy.” He agreed. They continued in silence for a short while.
“So…any luck remembering what you dreamt about?” Mahmoud asked, suddenly, or not. That was a leading question if Jay had ever heard one, and he had heard plenty.
“Snippets. They’ve been coming at me all day but I can barely make sense of them. I’m not even convinced if I’m not making some of it up.” He said his exasperation evident in his voice.
“Care to share any of it?” Mahmoud probed.
Jay turned to him. “If I can’t make sense of it, what hope do I have of making it make any kind of sense to you?’ He asked.
Mahmoud turned on the indicator light and made a right into the parking lot of what seemed to be a roadside bukka. “Let’s continue this over lunch shall we?” he said as he turned off the engine. He got out of the car as he indicated to Jay to do the same. Jay felt the first shiver of apprehension go through him as he gingerly got out of the car. He had gotten used to the doctors and medical staff at The Centre. Even the occasional strange face at the hospital grounds hadn’t bothered him. He supposed he had become inured by his surroundings at The Centre.
But now…now, he had to face strangers in a strange place. His shiver of apprehension steadily grew until he felt his stomach roiling with it. Lunch…hah! He doubted he could keep anything down. He felt the sweat rolling down the sides of his face and pooling in his armpits.
“Jay?” Mahmoud’s voice seemed to come from very far away. Jay turned to look at him over the top of the car. It seemed that time had morphed into some slow motioned film.
“Are you okay?” he asked and just like that, time readjusted itself to real-time.
“Yeah, Yes, I am.” He replied as he drew in a deep breath, tucked in his stomach and moved around the car to join Mahmoud at the front.
As they came into the bukka, Jay was assaulted by the smell of different savory stews and soups and the noise…oh the noise! There were servers moving between tables and kitchen, patrons calling out one last addition to their orders, children whining and mothers soothing. It was a cacophony! It filled Jay with a strange mix of anticipation and dread. He eyes were like saucers as he looked around him. It wasn’t that he had never seen this scene before, he had, but it felt different. He wondered if he looked different to the people around him. Suddenly, he felt strange in his own skin. It was like the various parts of his body were mismatched. He expected someone, perhaps a more precocious child to walk up to him any moment now and begin to inspect him like he was some foreign object. But no, no one seemed to pay him any particular attention… except the pretty lady at the far corner closest to the kitchen door.
The moment Jay’s eye connected with hers, the feeling of dread coalesced in him. The room swam before him and he felt his body lose its balance as it dropped slowly to the floor in a faint. He heard Mahmoud rush at him, felt his arms come around him and then darkness.
CHAPTER 8
‘How are you feeling now?’
Jay looked up at the person who just spoke to him and his eyes locked on her!
He struggled to remember why he had this feeling of unease creeping along his nerves as she stood by him. He mumbled a response of some sort and went back to staring at the floor. His head felt like a swirling whirlwind of jumbled thoughts. He could hardly latch onto one before it was yanked forcefully from his hands and floated away like debris caught up in the upsurge of a violent storm.
‘That was a quite the scare you gave everyone.’ She continued. Jay continued to look at the ground. He sensed and then saw her feet move her closer to him. Finally, when she stood so close to him that the fabric of her dress brushed against him, he looked up at her again.
‘They know you survived you know.’ She said conversationally. Jay felt again a surge of unease prickle along his spine. He saw the subtle menace, and was that pity, weariness in her eyes?
He continued to look at her uncomprehendingly while she continued starring at him in expectation. Of what? Jay wondered
‘You had better…have a plan in place. They can be relentless and unforgiving. It cost them a lot…that stunt you pulled.’ She continued.
The unease increased exponentially with each word out of the woman’s mouth. The thoughts which he could not gather began to flutter and settle in scattered areas around his mind.
‘Are you trying to say something?’ he asked. ‘Because I have to tell you that I…I’m confused at what you’re saying.’
She smiled. It started as a tiny upturn of her lips on one side and bl
oomed in to a wildly amused smile. Jay could have sworn that that smile actually chuckled. ‘Little boy, don’t try these games.’ She turned to leave and hesitated at the last moment. ‘I wasn’t the only one here today. Even if I weren’t inclined to tell them, the others will.’ She pierced Jay with a long, sharp look. ‘Watch your back Jemima. You may think looking more like a boy will save you. It won’t. They will…they want what they want.’ With that, she swept out of the small room where Jay had been taken to recover from his faint.
Jay held a hand to his forehead, his eyes shut tight against the blinding flash of light in his head. He chanted silently to himself, ‘You are not going to faint!’
‘How’s the head?’ another voice asked. This one he recognized. Mahmoud had come for him.
‘Can we leave? Now?’ Jay asked as he stood wobbly to his feet.
‘What’s the rush?’ Mahmoud frowningly asked.
‘Let’s just leave.’ Jay answered as he walked past him into the main area of the bukka. ‘We’ll talk in the car.’
‘I thought you were ready to eat earlier.’ Mahmoud questioned as he caught up with him.
‘Can’t we get something to go? I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.’ Jay responsed as his squinted eyes scrutinized all the faces around as if searching for something or someone. Mahmoud followed the track of his eyes as it perched from face to face.
‘Jay, do you mind telling me what’s going on?’ he asked.
‘In the car Mahmoud! Let’s leave! This place is creeping me out!’ he snapped as he stalked out of the building. In his haste, he slammed into a man who was walking in the building causing the man to stagger. Jay looked up at him and saw he was a middle aged man. Dark skinned with some grey in his hair over a well preserved face.
‘I’m sorry Sir.’ He apologized as he side stepped from the man and continued on his rush towards the car.
‘You want to watch where you are going son!’ the man called out. ‘You should take it slow so you see where you are going.’ He continued cryptically. ‘It isn’t everyone you should bump into.’ He turned abruptly and went on into the building.
Jay walked on, indeed his steps slower, to the car. The fresh air had taken the edge away from his migraine but he still felt slightly nauseous and antsy. He wondered what was taking Mahmoud so long. This was one of those times when he wished his friend wasn’t such a scientist. He was like a dog with a bone once he set his mind on a course of action. They could have gotten food somewhere further down the road couldn’t they? He gripped as he paced beside the car.