The Gift

Morning comes and Jason wakes me up. “up and at’em zombie girl. You’re scheduled second this morning so I’ll save breakfast for you. Bread and water, maybe some soupy gruel for the prisoner.” He laughs evilly. “In the meantime my little Easter egg, Anna dyed your hair, now I get to dye your whole body,” he says holding up a large syringe.

I groan. “Comedy first thing in the morning, great,” I tell him. “I’d rather get electro-shock therapy.”

Jason grabs the leads from the heart monitor and says, “That can be arranged my dear,” in a fake Austrian accent. “Gimme.”

I pull my shirt sleeve up to allow him access to my line.

He uncaps it, cleans it with an alcohol pad and injects the dye into me, then recaps the line.

I pull my sleeve back down and Jason says, “Up. Up. Your ride will be here in like five minutes. You make them wait and I hear they sell you into slavery.”

I roll out of bed, almost literally, barely catching myself. Sitting up, I put my slippers on before starting my morning ritual. Put stop, brush the grill, and fluff the hair. I decide I’m not too young to make a good impression so I smear on some deodorant and spray on some body spray.

Knowing the scanning rooms (all of them) are cold, I grab my beanie and pull it over my head.

All that done, I sit down and close my eyes while I wait for transportation to come get me. I just manage to nod off when I knock at my door wakes me.

“Hello?” the man says looking into the room.

Really? A lone girl in pj’s sitting in a room alone – expecting someone else? I sigh and waggle my fingers at him. “Right here,” I say. Maybe I need to try and eat more, I think. It shouldn’t be that easy to overlook me.

The man pushes the wheelchair into the room. “All set?” he asks.

No, I must visit the Queen first or she’ll never forgive me. “Yep,” I say instead. Now I know these late night jaunts are to get to me.

I get in the chair and the man adjusts the legs to make it comfortable for me and we head off.

Stopping at the nurses’ station, the man grabs my chart and sets it in my lap and we continue to the elevator where the down button is then pushed. It is still early so traffic is light and we only wait a few minutes for the elevator.

The doors open and a couple part as I get pushed in I feel like Moses parting the Red Sea, except I can do it to groups of people.

The man taking me pushes the button for Lower Level 2 and we go down. It stops at the ground floor to let the parting sea off, then continues to LL2 where all the big, fancy electrical equipment is: PET scanner, CAT scanner, Nuclear medicine lab, Angio lab, things like that.

I call them the million dollar machines. I haven’t asked but I’m pretty sure I’m low-balling their values.

Following the maze like passages, we come to a door that is open and marked PET Labs.

I’m pushed through the open door and am now in the waiting room for the PET scanner. There are several chairs along one wall, followed by a table holding several outdated magazines. Room has been left for wheelchairs and gurneys along the wall closer to the interior door that leads to the scanner itself.

“You should be next. Maybe five minutes or so,” the man pushing me tells me. “You’ve got your chart. They will call when you’re done and someone will be back for you.”

I wanted to tell him I’ve done this before but I’m trying to be nice so instead I say, “Gottcha.”

He turns and leaves and I close my eyes to rest while I wait, listening to the hum of machinery in the next room.

The wait was just long enough for me to doze off again. Hearing a door open rouses me from my light slumber and I open my eyes just in time to look into the pale, blue eyes that were passing me in a wheelchair.

I hear an older voice behind me say, “I see our next guinea pig is here. We might be able to figure out if this thing really works in time. See you later.”

“Bye,” the boy says.

Wait. I know that voice.

The man standing behind me starts to push me towards the now open inner door and I twist around to look at the boy. As I look back, he raises his hand and waves.

I want to yell stop or jump up and go back but I’m frozen with indecision until it’s too late and the door is closed between us.

Ben…

“What was he doing here?” I ask the man.

“The same as you I imagine, but you know I can’t discuss it. Why don’t you ask him?”

How, I wonder frowning. “Will we be done before he leaves?” I ask hopefully.

“Oh, I doubt that. You’ve done this before; you know how long it takes. I imagine someone will be here to get him long before that.”

I sigh. Drat.

“I’m Trevor Payton, the tech here. I’ll be doing your scan today. You know the drill. No metal, right?”

“No, no metal,” I reply, sad.

“Need the bathroom before we start? Remember, 45 minutes or so.”

I shake my head no, again. “Good. Give me a minute to get setup and we’ll get started,” he says walking around a wall with a big window in it.

I move over to the bare white metal platform he called a bed. Actually it wasn’t metal. I wasn’t sure what it was made of. Some kind of plastic stuff I guess.

Sitting here, I contemplate sneaking to the door to tell Ben to wait for me but I don’t get a chance to act on it before Trevor was back.

“Okay, all set.” He pulls my slippers off as I pull my beanie off. He stands to take it and pauses. “My… that’s unique. And your toes match. You a metal, punk or pop fan?” he asks.

I shrug and say, “Pop I guess. My nails too,” I add holding up my hands.

“Well, it’s very becoming on you,” he says and smiles.

“Thank you,” I mumble embarrassed.

He has me scoot towards the opening some, then puts my feet up onto the table Putting his hand behind my head he says, “Lay back.”

I lower my body as he supports my head until I feel the small pad under my head and the foamy neck brace holding my neck. My head starts to tingle like static electricity or…

Crap! What the… heck. I think it’s my gift. Now I can’t give – no – someone can TAKE my gift by touching me.

Trevor removes his hand from under my head and I sink into the stiff foam. “Did you feel that?” I ask him.

“Humm? Feel what hon?”

“It was like a little static electricity from our hand to my head.”

“No but let me know if anything feels different in the scan. Just in case there’s a short or something. Yell out and I’ll hit the emergency stop button.”

He folds a small towel and puts it under my heels so they aren’t against the cold table and then asks, “Ready?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. Remember, stay as still as possible.” He walks to the other side of the window and starts the table moving me in, until I’m enclosed in the big white tube. It’s about six feel long and about eight inches thick. It looks like a thick metal cylinder that sits in a cradle and is mostly all white. A long white donut sitting there waiting to be picked up by the giant. All that’s missing is a big cup of coffee to dunk it in.

“Starting,” Trevor says over the microphone.

There was a mechanical whine and the hum of electricity as the machine starts up. Next came the clicking. It sounds like the noise made when you click one of those click lighters. The ones that create a spark by electricity, not flint. Except this one was like giving a hyperactive kid one. Click-click-click-click-click.

What the scanner was doing was shooting electrons into my body, watching them bounce around and off, creating pictures of my inner bits. It was looking specifically for those bits that sucked up the chemical dye that Jason put in me earlier.

If I had more glowing spots this time around, it meant the cancer had spread. Less means some of it died off. No change, well, that wasn’t any better. That just means that all the chemo and radiation, along with the sickness and hair loss I suffered was for nothing.

I’d sigh, but that would require a deep breath, which I’m not supposed to do, or it could mess up the images. I listen to the clicks and whirrs of the scanner moving down my body.