Chapter One

It was the fall of 2013, and Peter Ricci was running out of reasons to live.

The stroke wasn’t too bad. The loneliness that followed was much worse, along with the incessant irritation that the underpaid nurses in the hospital provided. Peter was now dependent on others for the first time in his life. The nurses in the hospital cleaned his bedpan, made his sheets, and occasionally shaved his greasy fraying hair. They also took him on wheelchair rides around the hospital twice a week, where he would meet children that curiously stared at Peter until their parents chastised them for being rude. Without the nurses, he was confined in the four blank, alabaster walls of his hospital room. But Peter hated those nurses. They spoke to him in a patronizing tone, as if he was one of the senile patients in the hospital sector. But he wasn’t. He was still sharp enough to understand that he was being disrespected.

Nurses frequently entered his room to service him and asked him questions like, Do you need any more pillows? and Do you want any water? They were mostly stupid rhetorical questions that could figure out themselves. It didn’t matter if he answered them, either. The nurses couldn’t understand him. Every time he tried to speak, a distorted slurred noise in his mouth came out instead. The stroke caused him to have dysarthria, a speech disorder. His doctors assured him that his speech problems were only temporary, but Peter didn’t believe a word of that. They said the same about his inability to walk as well, and his feet hadn’t touched the ground for two years.

The room across from Peter’s was a shoddy break room for off-duty nurses, where they stashed things like booze and cigarettes that made the whole sector smell like death. A group of nurses were lounging there, howling with drunken laughter, paying no mind to the patients that they were disturbing. The painful wheezes from their tar-caked lungs kept him on edge. It was probably the one with the crooked nose laughing right now, or perhaps the round one who wouldn’t even follow his own advice on nutrition. Peter looked at his own stomach through the light hospital blanket and laughed. He could stick one of his frail fingers in his gut and touch his spine.

Peter had nothing to do. He could watch the television like the other senile patients in the hospital, but where was the enjoyment in that? All he wanted to do was walk. Besides, the television was blocked by a series of intricate tubes and wires that snaked in and out, constantly reminding Peter about how he was even alive right now.

Peter stared at the framed photos that rested atop a small auburn table. It was a picture of his ex-wife, Brenda, and his kids. He didn’t want it there. A close relative of his decided it would cheer him up, but it did the exact opposite. Pete couldn’t really protest either.

If only she could see me now. Cooped up in a little room and rotting away.

Of course, she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Neither did his kids that were in her custody. But it would be nice to just see her just once. Just once.

As the day darkened, Peter’s mood did too. The boredom of staying in the hospital was like a monotonous drum beating against his head every day. He noticed that he had recently started to absentmindedly fondle the container of Excedrin by his nightstand, like it was a dog. They were for the bed sores that Peter frequently experienced because the nurses kept forgetting to move him around in his bed, but Peter also took them for the headaches that he had.

His mind flashed back to his family. All the good times he had. All the swing rides and camping trips. All the times he supported his children and wife.

And how they repaid him by battling for custody in court.

What do you have to live for? You will never get better, and you will never leave this house. And if you do get better, what will you do next? Hide in your run-down tenement and drink Ciroc until you lose your grip on the world?

Just ten should do the trick, he thought. Pain relief required two, maybe three sometimes. But Pete didn’t want that.

The excedrin bottle was on the far end of the small nightstand today. One of the nurses had moved it when she fed it to him. Taking a deep breath, Peter strained himself with all the strength that he could summon to turn over in his bed. He didn’t usually take them by himself. The nurses always helped crush the pills down and put them in his feeding tube. But he couldn’t call a nurse over. They would stop him right in his tracks. Sweat beads started to steadily gather on his forehead now. Pete was getting dizzy from his headache.

Almost. There.

Pete reached out with his hand, desperately grasping for the excedrin, rejoicing a bit when he finally was within reach of the bottle. However, at the last second, in a burst of poor motor control, he knocked the bottle over, and it fell off the nightstand. Peter slid his arm back in defeat and cursed himself for being so weak. He could’ve ended it all today, and he missed his opportunity. Perhaps he would have more luck tomorrow, after he endured another hellish-

“Hello?” A nurse peeked into Pete’s room. “Sorry for dropping by. I heard something in this room. Is everything alright?”

“Yes.” Peter grimaced. “I seemed to have dropped my Excedrin. Can you please help me pick it up?”

The nurse frowned. “You shouldn’t take it by yourself, you know.”

“Go die,” Pete mumbled.

“What did you say?”
            “I said that I know. I just had a sore back and I didn’t want to disrupt any of you.”
            The nurse, clearly not comprehending what Peter said, glanced at him. She picked up the excedrin bottle and placed it on a table in the corner of the room, far away from Pete’s grasp.

“Okay then. Do you want me to help you take it now?”
            “No, thank you. The pain seems to be residing.”

The nurse took one last suspicious glance at Pete and finally turned and left his room.  “If you need anything, just press the service button by your night stand,” she called out.

The door gently shut, and when Pete finally heard her footsteps dim, he cried himself to sleep.

…………………

Peter woke up to find a strange man in his room sitting in a visitor’s chair. His hair was combed to the side, and he was wearing a pair of aviators that hid a pair of eyes that were clearly fixated upon Pete. His chin was partially concealed by a bundle of beige scarves that rested upon an expensive looking jacket. It seemed like he had been there for quite a while.

            There was a moment of awkward silence between the two. Peter just stared at the strange man in his room. He looked a bit familiar to Pete, and Pete started to wonder where he had seen him from. But before he could fully flesh that thought out, the man with the sunglasses spoke.

“Hello, Peter. I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Barry,” Sunglasses Man said. “You might think that we will have a conversation barrier because of your… condition,” he pointed his finger at Peter’s slacked jaw, “but I can assure you. I will understand everything you say.”

“Why should I speak with you?” Pete growled.

Barry readjusted himself in his chair, straightening his posture. Pete sat up higher as well, resting his throbbing back on a pillow.

“Good question, Peter.  Before I answer that, let me ask my own. Why did you try to commit suicide with excedrin last night?”

“How did yo-”

“Well, that was absolutely stupid. Excedrin would just have you puking out your intestines by the next day. It’s not really a practical way to kill yourself.”

“How did you know? I wasn’t even close to getting the excedrin.”

Barry smiled. “I have my ways, Pete.”

Peter was furious now.  “Get out.”
            “Not yet. But I will, soon.”  Barry leaned forward and took his aviators off. Pete could see his eyes now. They were yellow, like a cat’s eyes, full of a ferocity that Pete had not seen from him yet.  “How long have you been in here, Pete?”
            “About a year now.”

“Your health is deteriorating, Pete. You’re indulging from one vice to the next. You can’t keep living like this. You need somebody to talk to, Pete, and I think I fit that role quite well.”

Barry stood up. “We will meet again, Peter. I’m sure of it.”  And with that, he left the room, leaving barely a trace of his visit behind.

Pete shook his head, still dumbfounded by Barry’s sudden appearance.  Who was that and why did he visit me?

-George Qu