“Roger! Roger! Please wake up! This is your last chance! ROGER!” John screams, trying to wake him for the last time. He touches Roger’s blue scrubs, feeling his hand. Cold, cold as death, as if to foreshadow what was to come. Cold, like death.
Roger tries to respond, to open his eyes, tries to make it known that he’s awake! Slowly the rhythmic beeping of the EKG calmed him, underneath the cold scrubs was his still beating heart, even though he couldn’t wake himself. He knew what was to come and was trying to fight it. Trying to tense up the hand that John was holding.
The doctor mournfully starts “I’m so sorry, he’s been asleep for the past 9 years, he can’t even breath on his own. You have to let him go. We should take him off the ventilator today. Are you ready?” He then sighs and informs John that their insurance will no longer cover them. He reaches over to the ventilator and gets ready to shut it off.
John sobs “Yes, I’m so sorry Roger, we have to let you go.”
“Yes, pull the plug.” He then rests his hand on Roger’s hand, still cold, like death. He was about to end his son’s life, his steady hospital visits had caused him to lose his job. His insurance was about to drop him.
The doctor slowly reaches over towards the ventilator.
Roger wakes up to the beeping of the EKG and a jolt of adrenaline rushes down his system. Oh no! Not again! He thinks and screams for the sixth time this week. “Oh, wait.” The alarm clock kept beeping like the EKG from his dream. John starts running up the stairs, he calls up “Roger! What happened?”
Roger breathes heavily, thankful for the air in his lungs, “Nothing, Dad, it was that dream again.” John enters the room and sits down at the foot of Roger’s bed. He sighs heavily and then recommends going to his therapist once again. Roger listens respectfully. I know, I know that he won’t be able to fix anything. He’ll prescribe ineffective drugs and before a week passes, I’ll be within my nightmare once again. Of course, he couldn’t say any of this out loud. “I don’t think he has the time to meet me this week Dad.”
“You are probably right Roger. I’m going to go back to work.” John steps out of the room and walks back downstairs. Roger listens to his dad’s footsteps thud slowly downstairs almost robotically. Roger is a young boy, about to turn 17 years old. He looks relatively handsome, but currently it seems like no one around him is able to see him. His teachers don’t really call on him too much. He and his best friend have slowly grown apart. Even his father is acting weird, the situation is quite… strange. He tried to go back to sleep, tossing and turning in his bed. What if the nightmare starts again? I can’t! I can’t! I have to get some help. He hadn’t slept well for as long as he could remember. The dream plagues his sleeping self, he knew that it must be nearing his birthday. The month before every birthday the dreams got worse and worse. Another year, another miserable death by sleep. Roger thought mournfully.
०००
Suddenly, he hears his name being screamed from above “ROGER!” Roger instinctively jumps out of his bed. A rock comes flying through his window and hits the bed, right where he was laying down.
“Roger?” John yells from downstairs.
Roger yells back “Nothing happened dad! It’s okay.”
It’s happening again. Roger thinks, a slew of memories hits him like a truck. He sits back down. Well, Roger thought, I guess it can’t get any worse.
०००
Roger gets up and goes downstairs to get some breakfast. He goes to the fridge and grabs a carton of orange juice, he pours it in a glass and sits down. The air in the room is cold, comparable to the scrubs in the hospital. He stands back up, suddenly shivering from the freezing atmosphere. Roger calls out “Dad, is the thermostat down?”
“No, it’s 76 degrees in the house, Roger” John calls back.
Roger goes over to the thermostat and sees it stuck at 37 degrees. He turns it up and starts heading back to his breakfast. Roger passes by his dad, who is sitting down on his chair, in front of the computer. As Roger passes by, he does a double take. He goes back to where his dad is sitting, the computer screen is black. John is staring into the black computer screen, his hands on the keyboard, typing away at nothing. His seriousness betraying the empty nothingness of the work he is not doing. John wasn’t joking. Roger shrugs and goes back to his breakfast. Weird, he thought. No weirder than anything else I guess.
०००
Roger put on a blue hoodie and light-green sweatpants and went outside. The outside world was cold. Logical, since it was winter. Like the hospital, Roger thought, as he started jogging. Roger tried his hardest to not think about the cold. He tried not to think about how he subconsciously chose a hoodie with the same color as his cold scrubs. He also tried to ignore the contractors working near his house because the constant noise of the jackhammer reminded him of the EKG’s consistent beating. Roger’s head erupted into flames, or, that’s what the migraine felt like as it ripped through his head. He was back; back to being strapped to the hospital bed; the EKG beeping; the doctor reaching for the ventilator that Roger’s system was kept alive on. Roger snapped back up and continued to jog as if nothing had happened.
०००
As he was jogging by the pond near his house, around the blind bend that he had jogged across for as long as he could remember, he heard the familiar scream from above. “ROGER!” Roger sidestepped quickly as a car swerved and fell right into the water. Roger sighed and continued jogging. What if, what if I just ignore it next time, what would happen? Roger argued back and forth with himself. Well obviously, I would die! Roger couldn’t argue with that logic, even though, in the past 9 years, he had this argument with himself consistently. Roger listened, there was no noise, there was a forest just beyond the pond, but there was no sound. No birds chirping, no low trills of animals, no brustling of the leaves. Everything was trapped in time, only he was in motion. The air was cold, like death. Roger jogged back home.
०००
John had set the table for lunch when Roger got back. Roger went inside John’s room and found him in front of the computer, it was still black, still nothing being typed. Roger inquired. “Dad, do you want to eat lunch with me?”
“Yes sure, Roger.” John answers without looking back, “Just let me finish this bit of work first.” Roger walked back to the table and sat down. He was quite tired. He put his head down and dozed off.
The EKG beeped softly, Roger was in his bed, cold, like death. The doctor reached over and started to turn off the ventilator. Roger’s eyes opened. He looked at the doctor. The ventilator turned off before Roger was aware of it. The EKG slowed. BEEP – BEEEEP – BEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-
Roger looked up, shocked. He was about to scream when he noticed the fork in his hands and the food in his mouth. He didn’t go to sleep. This is enough, enough. Without understanding what he was doing, he started smashing his head on the table. He suddenly noticed John sitting down at his seat, eating his food, without noticing. Cold, dead inside. The voice started screaming just as Roger’s consciousness started fading. Something was different. “ROGER, PLEASE WAKE UP! ROGER!” Seemingly, Roger’s last thoughts would be about how his voice wasn’t saying just his name. About how the voice wasn’t his own voice. It was his father’s. As he began to lose consciousness he realized that the beating of his heart wasn’t really the sound of thumping anymore. It was – BEEP – BEEP. Roger was horrified as he recognized the ventilator keeping him alive. This wasn’t a dream anymore, though. He could faintly hear the doctor. “We should turn off the ventilator today. Are you ready?”
Roger tries to respond, to open his eyes, tries to make it known that he’s awake! Something, anything, but to no avail. Slowly the rhythmic beeping of the EKG calmed him, underneath the cold scrubs was his still beating heart, even though he couldn’t wake himself. He knew what was to come and was trying to fight it. Trying to tense up the hand that John was holding. Trying, and failing.
John slowly clasped Roger’s hand and sobbed “Yes, I’m so sorry Roger, we have to let you go.” He motions to the doctor, “Yes, pull the plug.”
The last experience Roger had was of the fateful EKG slowly beeping and trailing off…