He pounded the button and turned to look at the man in mint green. “What happened…”He was gone.Charlie ran into the hall, but no one was out there. “Nurse!”Twenty seconds later the nurse with the snake tattoo arrived, followed in another thirty seconds by a resuscitation team with a crash cart.There was nothing they could do.
2A FINE EDGE
There’s a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality—there’s mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin.So Charlie was barely even aware of his own shrieks in Rachel’s hospital room, of being sedated, of the filmy electric hysteria that netted everything he did for that first day. After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie’s eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony.“It’s called a cerebral thromboembolism,” the doctor had said. “A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It’s very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she’d have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed.”Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, “The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back.”They showed him the security tapes—the nurse, the doctor, the hospital’s administrators and lawyers—they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel’s room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn’t even find the CD.Sleep
2A FINE EDGE
There’s a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality—there’s mercy in a sharp blade. Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin.So Charlie was barely even aware of his own shrieks in Rachel’s hospital room, of being sedated, of the filmy electric hysteria that netted everything he did for that first day. After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie’s eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony.“It’s called a cerebral thromboembolism,” the doctor had said. “A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It’s very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she’d have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed.”Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, “The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back.”They showed him the security tapes—the nurse, the doctor, the hospital’s administrators and lawyers—they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel’s room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn’t even find the CD.Sleep
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