My Brother's Keeper

Chapter 1

He walked in around 9:30 that morning, per usual. He had on a light brown corduroy jacket, and black dress pants with those sharp nosed shoes he always seemed to be spotting when he came to visit. He walked down the short distance from the hospital entrance to the receptionist counter. Meeting a familiar face there, she offers a smile. "Hi Pule, early today I see." She beams softly with that same smile, as she grabs her files from under the counter, a pen and her name tag that wrote Patricia on it.

"Yes, I have a meeting in two hours and I just wanted to come visit before it started." Pule offers, his tone neutral as it can be. Patricia, with her baby seal eyes looks up at the young man, a look of understanding and pity mingled into a soft gaze. "Of course, my dear. Let's go and check on him, shall we?" Patricia offers as she starts walking from behind the counter and down a long corridor. The walk to the room 545 is always so long. The Patient they were going to see is on the third floor. And it took a while to get there sometimes, or that's how Pule felt.

He's been doing this for close to a month and everyday, it still feels like the first time he came here. He's heart doesn't know the difference, his mind, his senses don't know the difference. They just remember the smell of antiseptic and artificial fragrances contained in soaps muffled his nostrils. The eerie silence with muffled mumbles danced around his ears. Usually there's a sense of urgency that grips your heart when you are here, that's in the air. But today? It's not there. Or hasn't came yet. But he as a dreadful feeling all together, a feeling of not knowing what to expect, what to do or how to feel.

They get to the room and a cool morning draft flows past his face. His ears become cold as his fingers ball into fights inside his jacket's pockets. He clenched his jaw as he looks, from the doorway, at the person who was laid down on the hospital bed, eyes hyper focused on the frame of the person and his mind blurs out Patricia's movements in the background around the frame and bed. She's doing her nurse duties, ensuring the drips are working, checking vitals, the adult brief he relieves himself in, and starts using a urinary catheter to empty any fluid in the bladder for the morning.

He walks closer to the body that laid so still, and at the time he didn't notice it but he was holding his breath. He's eyes looked down at the closed eyes, the stillness, the eerie stillness of his face haunts him. So much. He finds his hand, like a snake, making its way out of the jacket's pocket and onto the Patient's hand. Pule's palm touched the Patient's fingers, more so grazed and finally he let out a slow breath. Patricia, knowing how hard this must be for Pule, even after all this time has past, decided to step out for a moment to give the two some privacy. Her heart ached for the poor guy, he's been through so much and it seemed like life still had so much more pain in stored for him.

"He's hand feels warm." The Patient said to me the narrator. "He's hands always feel warm." He says once again, distantly looking at the gesture of Pule touching his still body's hand from the other side of the bed, on the visitor's chair. He got up and walked up to stand next to Pule. "Yknow I introduced him to the cologne he's wearing? I always said to him "You see this guy? This guy Jean Paul makes scents for money makers. Important men only. A scent for a somebody. If you want to be a somebody Pule, you wear Jean Paul Gaultier Le Parfum." I was talking utter shit because I had never even worn the scent. But I would sample test it a lot at Dischem. It smelled like wealth, I thought to myself. I guess he listened to me." He chuckles as he joined Pule at looking as his still body.

"When will I wake up." He whispers to himself silently. His spirit roamed around the room for a bit more time. Simply watching Pule. At first Pule's guard was up, but soon after the nurse left he fluffed the Patient's pillow, opened ,slightly, a  window to let some fresh air come in, and sat by the visitor's chair. He began talking to the Patient. "Her name is Lwandi. She's perfect isn't she?" He asked with a smile as he scrolled to another beautiful flattering picture. The spirit walks to the side of the bed opposite Pule, he smiled down at the image. She is very beautiful. The kind mom would be jealous of. He thought as he smiled at how happy Pule looked. He hadn't seen that look in so long.

Pule went on and talked about Lwandi, his friends, his challenges and wins and reminiscing on days whereby the Patient was still with them. Still with Pule.

"This Patient has a name you know?" He says to me the narrator.

"I think it's best I take over." He offers, and I obliged.

I'm Mike, the still but not lifeless body laying on the hospital bed, which is by the way quite hard and uncomfortable, belongs to me. Or belonged to me? I'm not sure who its current owner would be since I'm not in it anymore, I'm here, in this strange place between the living and the spirit realm. I've been stuck in this in-between space for the past month almost. Not sure if I'm dead or not. I can feel the sensation my body would let me feel when I was in it, but I can feel them as I am outside of it. So I suppose I'm not dead yet? But I can see the dead. Their spirits, I can see and talk to them and hear them. Some talk back ,some ignore me.

"I miss you, everyday." Pule says, as he holds my hand to his mouth to kiss it, I feel the warmth of his lips on me...as a spirit. A tear rolled down his cheek, he was always a bit more emotional than most guys I knew. That's what made him so different from everyone I knew. A good different, he never feared his emotions like the rest of us. Like me.

I look at the area he just kissed on myself, and look back at him. He got up and called for the nurse before he told me goodbye, and left the hospital room. I followed him until the receptionist counter, and watched the automatic doors open for him. The light spilled into the hospital receptionist/ waiting area with all its brightness and warmth, and I felt it. All of it. I wanted to follow him outside.

I decided against it and went back to my hospital room, where I will roam around until Pule comes back again tomorrow.