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White.
Blink, blink.
White, white.
The white has little pockmarks, like the surface of the moon.
Blink again, and the spongy square tiles of the hospital ceiling come into focus. The hospital. I’m still here? What if I’m not? I’m afraid to look. Okay. Take this slowly. Slide eyes to the left. Window and a wall radiator. Eyes to the right. Visitor chairs. Mom and Dad. Sleeping.
Mom and Dad. Still here. All still here.
Thank you.
* * *
It’s night when I wake again. The first thing I notice is that there’s no tube in my throat anymore. It’s sore and dry, though. Like I’ve been eating gravel for two days straight.
“You awake?”
A new face appears above my head. I shriek, surprised by the sound of my own scratchy voice.
“Oh, sorry, dude. I thought you were awake.”
I close my eyes and silently will the hallucination to go away. When I open them again, his face is still next to mine.
“You okay, amigo?”
I try to talk but my throat is sore and dry. “Could you. Water. Please?”
“Oh. Sure. No problem, dude.”
In about three seconds, there’s a cup in my hand. I take a few sips and feel my throat balloon with each one. Better. “Thanks. Sorry if I scared you. It’s just … I thought I might have, um, died. Or something.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I was a little freaked out about it myself,” he says.
“You were here then?”
“Just wheeled in.”
I take a really good look at him. He’s got a cherubic face, all round cheeks and pug nose. Big, dark, almost-girl-pretty eyes guarded by eyebrows knit together in an expression of annoyance and suspicion. It’s all topped off by a huge mushroom cloud of kinky hair. Calhoun High. Fourth-floor bathroom.
“You’re the gamer,” I say.
“Four-time Captain Carnage champ. It’s Gonzo, if you don’t remember. Well, my full name is Paul Ignacio Gonzales, but everybody calls me Gonzo.”
“Cameron. Smith.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gonzo scrambles up onto his bed, which is like watching somebody’s kid brother try to do it. “So. You’re the guy with mad cow disease. Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
“Wow, wow, wow.” Pause. “That is some crazy shit, dude. How’d you get that?”
“Nobody really knows,” I say.
“Hey, no offense, but isn’t that fatal?”
Nobody’s come out and said it so directly. Gonzo’s just gone up a notch in my book. “Yeah. Supposed to be. They’ve got me on some experimental stuff.”
