Cover-up

Room 223

A new patient occupied room 223 today, one recovering from a brain operation that had gone horribly wrong the previous afternoon. After some seizures in intensive care, the patient made a remarkable recovery and had become stable enough to be moved to a private room. Unknown to the hospital staff, the patient had been awake since the previous evening with eyes remaining open despite the darkness. His eyes were turned up in their sockets and rarely blinked. He had not moved all night, not even a twitch. Except for a slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his diaphragm, the patient appeared dead.

Now, with morning having arrived and lights automatically switched on, the patient's face could be better seen. His eyes remained open but were blank and unexpressive with an uncanny look similar to that of a mannequin. Unfocused and glassy, his eyes absently gazed towards the ceiling. A drooping mouth spawned a rivulet of saliva flowing from its left corner, down the chin to where a constant overnight drip had created a sizable drool crater. No life-force animated the patient leaving him indistinguishable, to the casual observer, from a lampshade, table, or any other inanimate object.

Five minutes after the lights came on, something changed. In the quiet stillness of the room, something moved. Now animated, the patient reacted for the first time in more than twelve hours. His head abruptly turned to the side so his eyes could focus on an ordinary housefly as the fly explored a small area of the ceiling. His face appeared to be in deep concentration with furrowed eyebrows and narrowed pupils, as an arrhythmic twitch developed in his right eyelid. Whenever the fly paused for more than a few seconds, the patient's face relaxed, and his head turned upward with eyes drifting back mid-ceiling and losing focus. With each new movement of the fly, however, his head turned back sharply to watch its activity with an intensity of focus unjustified for such a minor nuisance.

The fly, sensing death in the air, released its perch on the ceiling to begin an erratic, serpentine descent toward the patient whose eyes tracked its every move. Once the fly touched down on his forehead, the patient again lost focus with his face relaxing and eyes returning to the ceiling. The fly rubbed its forelegs together as if in great anticipation of what lay before it. With many fits and starts, it made a haphazard journey across the patient's forehead, traveling down the glabella, across the right cornea, where it paused to lap the wetness with its proboscis. The fly next crossed the right cheekbone, and momentarily stopped at the mouth's edge. Finding the patient's drooping mouth, the fly entered the darkness opposite the rivulet. It crawled slowly, exploring the roof of the mouth until it reached the adenoids. Unsteadied by putrid exhalations, the fly crawled back to and out the exit where it next ascended the patient's philtrum where, after struggled through a tangle of nose hairs, breached the left nostril. Once inside and well beyond the reach of a finger and cushioned on a soft bed of mucus, the fly settled for a time, one would assume to lay eggs.

...

Sam had found it difficult to sleep and woke much earlier than usual. He worried that someone might discover what he had done, that he had violated hospital policy by operating on a patient while feeling ill. He was especially concerned that the death of his patient might arouse suspicion. Undoubtedly his patient was dead by now. At best, his patient would be in a coma for a few days before dying. Pacing his living room, Sam rehearsed in his mind how to respond if anyone confronted him. He decided the correct way to play this would be to blame everything on his new assistant whom he had been mentoring recently.

Recalling the operation of the previous day, he remembered taking precautions by reminding peers and administrators of the high risk involved with the procedure, which made a positive result unlikely. He told them a lie, but he created a situation where he would look good regardless of the outcome. The truth was boring. Since the tumor was benign, the patient's aberrant behavior was likely caused by the extra pressure placed on the surrounding brain tissue. The tumor could have been easily removed to return the patient to a normal life with a full lifespan. Although a simple operation, Sam had portrayed it to his colleges as dangerous, complicated, and a long-shot, but worth the risk when one considered the alternative. He fully expected to be successful and, if not, it was a hopeless case anyway as he had portrayed it. The patient's death should not be a surprise to anyone. They would still be impressed that he had tried despite the difficulty.

Sam arrived at work feeling apprehensive and fearing the worst. He abbreviated his morning routine, then headed for the lounge area. Holding his breath and forcing his fake smile, Sam opened the door to the Administrator Lounge and was caught off guard by the applause he received when he stepped inside. He stood stunned and unable to speak. His patient, he discovered, was reported to be alive and in reasonably good health. His co-workers congratulated him on a well-done operation. How could his patient possibly be alive and in good health? Although confused, Sam immersed himself in the accolades of his co-workers, telling stories of great feats of surgical prowess he employed during the operation to save the young man's life. Sam loved the praise.

Later that morning, Sam apprehensively entered his patient's room to find an exceedingly alert patient who, on first sight, appeared healthy and in control. The moment Sam entered the room, the patient had turned to look at Sam and followed his every movement with a focused and inquiring countenance. "This isn't possible," Sam thought. He cautiously approached the young man to get a closer look and noticed that the patient never took his eyes off of him. Unnerving is what it was. The intensity of the patient's eyes unsettled Sam, who found himself uncomfortable and fidgety.

"Young man. How are you feeling today?" Sam asked. Although the patient watched Sam's lips as he talked, he gave no response. Sam took out his penlight and bent over to get a closer look at his patient's pupils. Right as Sam got his light in position, something startled him, causing him to drop his scanner and stumbled backward with a barely contained scream. "Oh my god!" Sam thought. "Was that a fly that flew out of his nose?" Fearing what else might crawl out of his patient, Sam picked up his penlight and hastily returned it to his breast pocket with trembling fingers and a racing pulse.

The patient glared at him now. And his eye? His right eye twitched. He hadn't noticed that before, but it twitched now. The look was not inquisitive at all; it was that haunting wide-eyed crazy look that people get right before they snap. This patient was a time-bomb of horrors waiting to explode. Sam had to get him out of here; get him out of the hospital as quickly as possible. As Sam backed toward the door to leave, he saw how the eye watched him; followed him; accused him. That eye. It knew what he had done and judged him.

Sam left room 223 in a hurry, filled out the necessary paperwork for the patient's immediate discharge, and continued his regular rounds. He found, however, that he could not focus on his work. Images of that eye, that twitching eye haunted him; distracted him; sent chills up his spine whenever he thought of it. Sam made up an excuse to leave work early. On his way out of the building, he did a double-take when he saw the Intern. There she was, in the far corner of the lobby, staring at him, expressionless, and eating a white-powdered donut. Sam quickened his pace.

Sam drove home to put distance between him and his patient with that cursed eye, and the Intern. With distance, his anxiety dissipated. When Sam arrived home, he relaxed and comforted himself with light Jazz music and a glass of Merlot. Later that evening, as Sam prepared for bed, he went through his usual evening routine. While brushing his teeth, a movement in his bathroom mirror caught his attention. "Probably just my imagination," Sam thought. When he leaned closer to the mirror to be sure, that's when he observed it for the first time. His right eye — his right eye had a slight twitch.