And God flipped the off switch - a short story

 

 

The sky is a charcoal smear spilling water from the heavens. I am sitting in the back seat of a taxi. It left the city hospital with me and my carer for the day, Devesh. He is a neat little man with a distinctive moustache. I think he’s pleased to be out of the ward too. My hospital records rest in a folder on his lap. He spends the journey quietly scrolling his phone after facetiming with his wife as we waited for the taxi to arrive. The taxi driver’s name is Anton Ivanov, he stares out from his laminated ID like a Bulgarian hitman. He doesn’t look the type to invite conversation. The car hugs the uneven roads out to my dentist. They are on standby, alerted by the cardiac team who are tending to me.

We glide past the fields near where I live. They glisten in the March sunshine from fifty nine days of rain. The car’s windscreen wipers fight the thick rivulets that blur and turn the hour long journey there into a murky ordeal. There are floods and potholes to navigate. 

I am grateful for the car’s powerful torque.

 

The reason I’m here, in this car, at this moment is that in order for the surgery to continue on my heart, a loose tooth has to come out. A back molar that has become a critical issue. I would run my tongue along it, marveling at how it clung onto my gums like a limpet.

That was before my heart attack. 

It's my first time out of the ward in over a fortnight. Six beds in the ward filled with men, too proud to call for an ambulance or imbued with the belief that two paracetamol would suffice for the increasing pains in the chest. Until as one said, ‘God flipped the off switch’. Six beds with broken men now all wired up to telemetry; our vitals displayed on flat screens, as indecipherable as Egyptian hieroglyphics. One patient constantly cries out in the dead of night. Getting up and dashing for the corridor. He keeps the nurses occupied.

Anton decelerates and flips the indicator. We have arrived at the dental practice. I am unsteady on my feet as I cross the parking lot. Devesh manages to juggle my records whilst supporting me by holding my arm, guiding me to the door. His grip is strong and assuring. I inwardly curse my dragging feet. Every step takes my breath away as I’m guided into the reception area. Sitting on the sofa, I glance around the room, pushing my tongue hard against the loose molar.

But there’s a snag. 

 

A rustle of paperwork and voices pitched low. Devesh goes outside into the carpark. Through the reception window I see him on his mobile. After a beat, he comes back in and gives me a smile. The receptionist’s phone begins to ring. More muted conversations. The dentist is reluctant to do the extraction. He intones to Devesh that it takes at least three months for any surgery post heart operation. But we insist. In order for me to have the operation, the tooth must come out. Today. 

 

I’m guided into the treatment room and helped into the chair. I notice how tall the dentist is. He is a locum, named Roman. His smock matches his ornate blue bandana. He asks me to sign a waiver. I do. Roman explains that regular anesthetic can’t be used so he has an experimental one he’s going to use.

 

I nod my assent.

 

‘Let’s get the thing out,’ I mumble through the cotton wool rolls that cushion my loose molar.

 

I feel the pin-prick needle in my gum and I pray my bladder and bowels don’t kick off.

Even wearing adult pull-ups offer little guarantees. 

 

I think of home, a stone's throw away. I imagine getting out of the chair and making a dash for it. Of running up the road and ringing the doorbell, surprising my family.

 

I’m home!  

 

The gum is numb now. I squint out through the protective glasses that turn the room to tangerine. With a deft flourish, the dentist removes the tooth and he and the nurse begin suturing the cavity. I see the needle and thread at the edge of my vision. They work in urgent silence.

 

I glance to the right and on the table lies my pulled molar. It sits bloodied and forlorn on a folded paper towel. I mourn its removal, my tongue will have to search my mouth for another loose rumination. 

 

It's over. The chair tilts forward and I rinse. My vision is an ocean of kaleidoscopic floaters.

Huge globules of blood swirl around the plug. I’m tempted to run my finger around to assist their messy departure. I rinse again until I spit out clear water.

 

Half my face is paralyzed, all I can do is mumble my thanks. Devesh comes in, he and the nurse help me out of the chair. I grip Devesh’s arm like a drowning man. 

We totter out to reception and I’m guided back to the sofa while he fills out more paperwork. I get a gra on for a coffee, but caffeine is off the agenda. Anything hot for the next few hours too. My mouth feels sterile. I absently run my tongue along the sutures, even though I’m not supposed to. They feel like scales on a reptile.

 

But it is a major hurdle cleared. Another step along the way to the finish line that will be the heart operation. Once that is done, I’ll be discharged. It's a little white light at the end of a long, long tunnel, starting in the ICU, cardiac wards and this dentist chair.

I am grateful for Devesh. He has been a quiet, unassuming rock. Polite but nervous he assisted me on our way out with handshakes and best wishes from the dental practice staff. 

Anton is still outside. The enormous black car is facing back towards the road. The distance to it seems unattainable; we have to dodge the pools of rainwater like two drunken dancers. Looking at the horizon we watch the thunderheads roll in from the Irish sea. Devesh wrangles me into the back seat. 

 

I struggle with the seat belt. Anton’s heavy lidded grey eyes glare out from the rear view mirror. As he guns the engine, Devesh rings ahead alerting the hospital we are on our way back. 

 

We glide out into afternoon traffic and I’m suddenly light-headed. Everything I look at seems to have an afterglow or vapour trail. I feel untethered from the Earth, held in place by the seat belt. 

 

The anesthetic is beginning to wear off. My tongue is dry and I can feel the stitches where the molar used to rattle along. 

 

I watch all the familiar sights flow by. A mile away is a beach, I fantasise walking along it until I run out of sand between my toes. I check my phone and send messages to my family, telling them everything went well. I want to roll the window down and stick my head out like a lolling dog, inhaling the air and tasting the rain. But my arm is unresponsive. I put it down to the tooth extraction. I feel almost like a prisoner on remand or released for the day on compassionate leave.

 

Anton breaks the silence by turning on the radio. It's a classic hits station. Hidden speakers drown out any possibility for conversation. I close my eyes and try to doze, cradled by the car’s suspension. 

 

Once we hit the motorway, Anton guides the car into the fast lane and floors the accelerator. Another pulse of rain, reducing visibility to watery brake lights ahead falls from the leaden sky. 

 

Anton ploughs on undeterred. It's not a taxi anymore but a guided missile with Katy Perry as the accompanying soundtrack. Having spent a week heavily sedated in an ICU unit I have no desire to wind up there again. And the odds right now are looking better than even.

Devesh points at the junction like a sailor spotting landfall. It's coming up fast. Anton flicks the indicator and swings across the lanes to the off ramp. I'm not sure about the power of prayer but I’m desperately trying to remember the words to Our Father. Devesh is, I suspect, praying to his deities too. By some miracle we decelerate to the turn off towards the hospital.

When we arrive Devesh has ensured a porter is waiting for us with a wheelchair. His name is Bill. He wears the porter uniform of red polo shirt and sports pork-chop sideburns that compliment his ruddy features. He has wheeled me several times around to X-Ray. 

We watch Anton hurl his taxi into the night. As I’m guided back to the Coronary Care Unit, I realise I’ve missed lunch and I ignore the growling sounds my stomach makes. My jaw feels like it's taken a direct hit from George Foreman. I feel utterly drained. My fellow patients ask how I got on as I’m rewired back into the telemetry by the nurses, I give a thumbs up. The canny tea lady brings me over a builder’s strength tea and a packet of digestives. Devesh shakes my hand, and I reach up and hug him. He hands the manila file and Anton’s invoice in at the nurses station.

 

I dip the biscuit into the cooling tea and munch ruefully on the other side of my mouth.

Since coming out of ICU, I hardly remember any dreams. But that night I dreamt of leaving the bed, getting dressed and calling Anton to bring me home.

I awake with my phone in my hand but it is dead.