Drifting Along the Infinite Spring

Chapter 8 - Lessons in Convalescence

January 2, 2038 [3]

A news report floated in front of Martha as she lay on her back. Refugees from Florida and South Carolina waited in lines for food or medical care within the converted Georgia Dome in Atlanta. James once told her that he had solved climate change in a few of his previous lives. Martha wondered if he would have done so in this, if only she'd reached him in time.

A knock came from her open door. "Hey, hey! Well if it isn't my favorite resident, Miss Beckett." It was Roland, a six and a half foot, 300 pound orderly with an unfailingly positive attitude. He wasn't Martha's favorite orderly in the convalescent ward, because in this life, there was no such thing as favorites – or even least favorites. There was only regret and the unbearably slow march of time.

"How's Miss Beckett feeling today?"

Nothing below the neck – same as the last forty years, she thought while staring straight ahead.

"Not talking today either?" Roland said with an encouraging smile as he gathered supplies – a plastic wash bottle, a tube of antimicrobial ointment, a box of latex gloves, and a box of bandages – on her bedside table. "Well that's alright, that's alright."

After Martha's not so grand theft auto had left her quadriplegic, her life had taken a predictably dismal path. Her father's mental health had crashed as violently as his Toyota. Given the circumstances, any parent would have fallen apart. But Martha wondered if the same psychological damage Steven had suffered in her last life had been lurking just below the surface, accelerating the collapse. Regardless of how or why, he'd been inconsolable, eventually falling out of contact with his only daughter.

Martha hadn't made things any easier by responding to the doctors' initial questions with unfiltered honesty: This was her third life. After she died, she would start her fourth. She'd fallen in love with a boy in his 250th who lives in Illinois, and so on, indulging any and all of their curiosities. Fairly quickly, they diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia, possibly brought on by head trauma from the crash. She'd spent six months in a psych ward before giving up on the truth in the hope of being taken off antipsychotic medication with its smothering side effects. The hospital eventually discharged her with a diagnosis of clinical depression – at least they got that diagnosis right.

Presently, Roland took a pair of latex gloves out of their box and began to pull them over his hands. "I still remember that one time you spoke to me a couple of months back. You said 'Thank you, Roland' and my heart leaped. You have a voice like church bells, it's so pretty. Maybe I'll get to hear it again someday."

Objectively speaking, Roland was a fantastic orderly – an angel if ever there was, but again... not in this life.

He looked at the footage of the refugees and sighed. Then he waved his hand up and to the left, commanding the projection to close and the image disappeared. "You don't need to worry about that. You're safe here. New Mexico isn't perfect, but it won't flood anytime soon, that's for sure." He positioned a pillow on the side of her head. "Let's see how we're looking today."

He slowly rolled her away from him and on to her side. Out her room's window, the snow-covered Sandia Mountain range loomed in the distance, unmoved as she. Behind her, Martha heard the crinkle of bandages being removed then Roland coughed and cleared his throat, most likely a reaction to the smell from her bed sores. The rotting flesh wafted around to her nose but she didn't care. She'd gotten used to it. A perfume befitting my life choices.

"They are just not healing," Roland said to himself as he began to clean the sores – not that Martha could tell what he was doing. She couldn't feel the water or the ointment or the bandages. As far as she knew, Roland was playing a cruel joke and neglecting them to fester. I don't care. Let it all rot.

With little to no physical sensation in this life, all Martha had left was her mind and it had been a near constant struggle to keep from thinking of Tiffany Cipowski and her own catastrophic mistake. As Ronald hummed a tune she couldn't place, Martha succumbed to the urge and pictured herself staring at Tiffany from across the hallway. One version of herself crossed to intervene. The other stayed and made it to Illinois.

Martha pinched her eyes shut, hoping to quash the image, and went to her go-to distraction. In kindergarten, my best friend is Jesse and I'm afraid of my teacher... She'd found obsessing over her first life to be an effective and practical diversion from her torturous self-contempt. Mercy would come for her eventually and she'd have another chance to get it right. So she ran through it, rehearsing it in her head from kindergarten all the way to the cross-country move again and again as if preparing for a lead role on Broadway.

"Alright, that'll do it for this round." Roland propped more pillows against her back then walked around and squatted to her level as she continued to lie on her side. "I won't turn you again for a couple of hours, but I'll stop by before then – just to check on you, okay?" He smiled sadly. "And Miss Beckett, I know things are hard for you – real hard. But... try to think positive. Studies show our thoughts have a real effect on how well our bodies heal."

Martha dropped her eyes to break contact. I wish for death.

Roland waited a few moments in case she wanted to speak.  "Okay then. I'll see you soon," he said finally, then stood and left the room.

Of course, there was another subject Martha tried to avoid to an even greater degree than Tiffany. But she hadn't seen James in roughly 143 years and his absence had made her heart grow fonder. Oh, how I hate that goddamn expression.

Sometimes, if she was feeling especially masochistic, she'd rehearse their time together – from his playful teasing in the cafeteria all the way to his cold apology as he lay dying. But despite her prolonged anguish and heartbreak, Martha shed no tears. In fact, she hadn't cried in a very long time. Tears had become trivial and superficial for the depth of her sadness.

All of a sudden, she felt light headed and her breathing began to stutter. A loud beeping sounded somewhere in the room. It had taken eighty-five years for her heart to give out in her first life. But living without the boy she loved, without the only true happiness she'd ever known – it couldn't survive past sixty.

Author's note:

Anyone ever been away from their boyfriend/girlfriend for a couple of months?  Maybe they're away for work or going to a different college...

143 years (and counting).