SYNCHRONICITY (Dream Walker) 🖋

David - 2

Alison was awakened by the telephone. She opened her eyes and reached for the phone. "Hello."

"Ali, it's Marge."

"Oh hi Ma," she mumbled. "What's up?"

"I need you here. Right now."

"Okay, where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital. Where else would I be!"

Alison sat up, now, wide-awake. "Oh shit! What's wrong?"

"The doctors. They're recommending..."

"Oh my god. Give me twenty minutes...Don't let them do anything!"

"They can't. They need your signature."

Tears immediately came to her eyes as she shook her head. "Noooo..."

"I know honey. Please get here as soon as you can. They said they wouldn't do anything without your consent."

"What do you think, Ma? Be honest, please?"

Silence followed for what seemed like an eternity. "I think it's time," she replied finally.

Marge heard her daughter in law weep quietly into the telephone.

"Ali? Come on now, you knew this day would come," she said as gently as she could manage.

"No I didn't! I wanted him to..."

"Just suddenly wake up? Open his eyes and ask for eggs and bacon?"

Something like that, she thought to herself. Alison sniveled into the phone. "No," she replied finally.

"Do you want me to send John to get you? He's here...said he'd come."

She shook her head. "No. I can do it. I'll be there."

All manner of her dreams of her memories of when she was a young woman of eighteen were gone and she was forced back to reality. She snorted when she realized that she had dreamed about Bastian Matus, the English boy she fell for; she hadn't thought about him for a very long time...he left her brokenhearted when he abruptly left for England. No note, no phone call, no goodbye...he had bedded her and was gone the next day.

She had never felt so used in her life.

But now, she had to do the most difficult thing she had ever had to do...sign the legal paperwork to unplug her husband from the machines that had been keeping him alive. The rest would be up to him.

She arrived at the hospital a half hour later, disheveled and broken. She sat by her husband's bedside and stared at him.

"I'm really pissed off at you, you know."

David could hear her...He wanted to sit up and argue with her. He hated arguing with his wife, but he viewed it as a necessary evil...this time though, he thought it was warranted. He needed to be able to fight for his right to live...

He really wanted to huff at her and roll his eyes as he shook his head.

He knew that she wanted him to fight for his life. And he wanted to...he really wanted to.

She crawled onto the bed with him and listened to the perfect rhythm of his heartbeat. The air that was being pushed into and pulled out of his lungs...it was all too perfect, too synchronized...she felt like an avalanche of emotional punches were pummeling her and she realized that the amazing and dynamic man she knew as David McNaulty had left her long ago and had been reduced to a living corpse.

"I can't do this without you. I thought I could. But I can't. David, please...wake up," she whispered through her tears. Then, she shook his body. "Open your eyes! Damn it, OPEN YOUR EYES! PLEASE!"