The cuckoo

The Cuckoo Part 1

This story is dedicated to Harry.

A huge blinding light,and pain and noise everywhere.     I suddenly am, I am aware!  Endlessness engulfs me.   I'm frightened!   This is all of me!

"Ok team,  I'm so sorry!  
Call it!  Time of death is  3 am Sunday 29th sept.   Get that damn crash trolley away from him.  See you guys later.   OMG!   Wait!   Adrenalin.   Oxygen.   Now!   Get those paddles ready again.   What the fuck!!!!"

"Mr and Mrs Nichols please don't get your hopes up too much but in fact your son Harry is still with us.  He is very critically ill and his condition is precarious it is only right to tell you."

Excruciating pain.  I am scared.  Even feeling scared seems alien to me. Now light! and sounds, meaningless and amazing and new.   I can feel mass, as though there is a lot of me. I am confused.

"Wish me luck mum!"        " I do sweet,you don'.t have to ask me to."    Margaret is a quiet studious girl, nearly 20 now.  Finished college but because of dad dying so suddenly the planned transition to uni never happened, and May (from an early age she insisted that everyone called her May)  ended up needing to get a job.  For the last 13 months she has been working in the local Mcdonalds.  Then a helping hand from an old friend of her dads led her to this, her first day at the local hospital.

"Hi my name is Margaret Stiles. I was told to report to you this morning."     " Welcome to our little ship Margaret"   "Oh please call me May, everybody does and to be truthful I prefer it"     "Come through then May and just have a sit for a while and someone will be along in a few minutes"

 The door opens and a pleasant looking plump middle aged lady enters the room.  "You must be Margaret she says extending a hand and giving as strong a handshake as any man.   "I will be showing you the ropes here May.  We are are very small annex hospital and as you know we deal with minor injuries as a rule.  You know fractures, non complex breaks, X-rays and that kind of thing.  May i find myself in a rather odd predicament! we don't usually keep overnight patients if we can avoid it.  A young man has just been transferred here to us under unusual circumstances, he is going to be residing with us for some time I think.    It has disrupted us all somewhat, so i am going to assign you to help this young man and to assess what his needs are going to be.     Just basically watch him and if he tries to communicate do what you feel is best to help him and keep us informed of progress.  Try to encourage him to eat and drink and if you have any problems at all call someone.  It will be good experience for you as well as freeing us up.  Introduce yourself to him, his name is Harry and he is in room 10.   If you need me I am nurse Glendal"