The Reincarnation

At 9:30 on Friday night, David awoke. His first awareness of his body was that it was sweating. Despite the sweat, his body felt like cold clay. The sheets clung to his atrophied frame like a splayed body bag. He was more than disoriented. He felt as if he were floating a few inches above his body and couldn’t get himself down that last final margin. A symphony echoed in his head that he was sure he had never heard before. For some reason he thought the composition was by someone named David Michaels.

Becoming conscious of his body and looking around himself, he realized that he was lying in a bed. He was in a room that looked like it was in a hospital. The only opening in the room was a door. The room was dark, but light shone in through a small glass window in the door. Crisscrossing wires were embedded in the window’s square glass. The room was white, sanitary, antiseptic.

Machines surrounded his bed, poised about his body, quietly monitoring his life, or so David reasoned. Yet none of the machines were attached to his body in any way. Purposely speeding up his breathing and noting the change in the rhythm of the machines, he confirmed his hypothesis that they were monitoring him from afar.

Next to the machines alongside his bed were bags filled with clear liquids. From this stack of bags, a tube snaked its way down to a thirsty vein in his forearm. The needle attached to the end of this tube protruded from his flesh and was covered with a small piece of white gauze held in place with white tape. There was an angry but healing wound around his navel.

Along one wall of the room was a couch. On it was a man in a white laboratory coat. He was lying down, his head propped up by a small white pillow. He was sleeping. David thought he recognized him, then wasn’t sure. Although the man looked to be in his mid-fifties, only his gray hair and his countenance revealed this. He looked strong. He looked like a doctor. He looked like he was in charge. David found his voice.

“Doc,” he whispered hoarsely. It came out as a garbled whisper. Clearing his throat of what felt like tiny pieces of jagged, moss-covered gravel, he tried again, “Doc.”

A little louder this time, the sound managed to wrestle the doctor from his doze. He shook off his sleep with a shake of his head and gave a look of bemused astonishment in David’s direction. Walking over to David’s bed and turning sideways to ease himself by the machines, the doctor pulled a stethoscope out of a pocket in his lab coat.

“What the hell’s wrong with me?” David asked him.

“Well, clinically nothing,” the doctor answered, taking David’s pulse. “You’re in great shape for a fifty-year-old.” He was almost chuckling.

“Fifty?” David managed, not sure he wanted to be let in on the joke.

“Well, your body’s fifty, technically. Although you’ve been in a vitrified – ‘frozen’ – state for the past twenty-five years,” the doctor continued. “The good news is that I’ve cured the cancer that almost took you away from us in your youth.” The doctor returned the stethoscope to his lab coat pocket and took out a flashlight. He shined it into David’s eyes. “You see Dave...can I call you Dave?”

David nodded his head, more anxious for explanations than formalities. The light hurt his eyes but he didn’t pull away.

“You see Dave, twenty-five years ago you had a cancer that would have killed you. Would have, that is, if the Lab hadn’t offered – and you hadn’t accepted – to be a test patient here.” The doctor put the flashlight back in his pocket and sat on the bed, facing David.

The night nurse, overhearing the conversation, opened the door of the room, stunned.

“Turn on the lights.” The doctor sounded stern.

The fluorescent tubes, flicking on instantly, cast a white glow around the room, dissolving the shadows. The nurse gawked at David and started to walk into the room, but the doctor motioned for her to leave them alone. Dejectedly, she obeyed.

“And the cancer?” David was still bewildered, but his mind carried the conversation out of sheer habit, asking questions about things he didn’t yet understand. He noticed how pale his arms were now that the lights divulged them.

“A shot in the arm, Dave. We had that five years ago.” The doctor held David’s hand in his. The doctor’s hand was warm, making David realize how cold his own was.

“From the rainforest?” An original thought, something not mentioned by the doctor. David’s mind whirred, picking out memories and giving them a voice.

“No, Dave, from breast milk. Once we could get a clean supply, that is. There isn’t enough of the rainforest left to pick through...” The doctor was perplexed about how to go on. “A lot has changed, Dave. You’ve got to understand that. I’ll bring you up to speed once you can take...once your body and mind are working again. Once you’re healthy.”

“Well, what’s wrong with me now?” David asked, puzzled by what the doctor was telling him. His mind started to hum, kicking into a gear it remembered, but found rusty from disuse.

“Well, aside from the slight atrophying of your limbs – which isn’t bad at all compared to coma victims – you seem to be gaining back your bodily functions slower than I expected. And your mind, well, much slower than I expected. Not that I knew what to expect. You’re lucky to be alive. And look, you’re getting some color back in your cheeks already – and it looks like you’ll have to take up shaving again soon.”

The doctor touched David’s cheek and then his chin. As astonished as he was by his patient’s sudden recovery, he was more intrigued by his facial hair coming back. His patient’s hair was light brown, and his beard was coming in red, just like before he was vitrified. Why now, he thought, two weeks after his body recovered? It hadn’t grown at all while he was vitrified, but why would it start again only now? It was as if his waking up set it in motion. The doctor thought of Samson, getting his strength from his hair. He hoped his patient would too. He looked deeply at David, and then pulled his hand away.

David looked at his arms. Where, just moments before, the skin was lactescent, it now bloomed with color. He grimaced at the pain he felt, especially in his head. “Sorry, Doc, I think I’m down for the count.” He let his head drop to the pillow.

“Rest well, you’ve been through quite a lot.” The doctor tousled David’s hair before pulling the sheets back over him, and quietly left the room, snapping the lights off as he exited. David heard the snick of the door latch sliding into place before he passed out.

Consciousness was a tiring process for his brain. After decades of dormancy, the gelatinous orb in his skull was a little maladroit.

Yet, David did dream.