Fainting

Chapter 4 - Mark

The next afternoon as I'm cleaning up from lunch – we went to the Café for breakfast and went to the zoo afterwards until twelve – my phone rings.

"Hello?" I answer it.

"Hey, Mark. How's it going?" It's Doc Martin.

"Good. You?"

"All good here. Well, as good as you can get in a hospital."

"That's good." I can't keep the impatience from my voice and the doc hears it.

"Bad time?"

"Eh, kind of. But shoot."
"She's getting transferred in a few minutes."

I inwardly groan. "Argh. Alright, I'm coming. Be there in twenty."

"Thanks Mark, you're a trooper." He hangs up.

I sigh and place the last plate to dry. "Jen, I gotta go to the hospital!" I call back to her room.

"What, you sick or something?" She comes out, clearly concerned.

"No, I volunteer there. There's a diabetes patient who needs emotional support, which comes in the form of me and these," I say, holding up my many-pocketed sweater and jester hat. "I go preform magic tricks for her."

Jennifer's clearly relieved - and her eyes light up for some reason – and says bye as I leave.

It takes me fourteen minutes thirty-three seconds to get to the hospital, beating my previous record of fifteen minutes and five seconds. I run in and up two flights of stairs and go through the double doors.

"Hey, Dodge," I say to the doctor leaning against the nurses' desk.

She inclines her head. "Wassup, Mark? Alex should be here in five."

I nod and lean next to her. "Where's she going, there?" I ask, suggesting bed seventeen. It's right across from us.

Dodge shakes her head. "Nope. In there – oh, you'll like this – is Allison Parker: age twenty-two, has an electrolyte deficiency, and is single."

I groan. "Please don't try to set me up. Your goals are as bad as Jen's. She always has an ulterior motive, but this time I can't figure out what it is."
Her eyes light up. "Jennifer's in town?" I talk about my family often, and I've Face Timed her from work, so the doctors and nurses know her a little.
"Yup, she arrived yesterday sort of out of the blue. And I can't figure out why."
"Want me to try?"
Immediately I'm suspicious again because Dodge and my sister combined – even though they've never met – would be a bad combination. They're too similar. But I say sure anyway.

"Only condition is, you gotta go at least to say hi to Miss Parker."

I hesitate, weighing my desires and disinterests. I guess saying hi is a small price to pay to figure out what on earth my sister's doing. "Fine. I'll say hi. But after I go to Alex."
She smirks. "Good. Text me her number?"
I sigh. "Yeah, first lemme go to the bathroom."

When I come out, Dodge tells me that Alex just came past and was getting situated in bed eighteen. "Maven is here, and she said Steph is trying to come. And I believe you owe me a phone number."

"Sigh. Okay... just... sent it," I say, putting my phone away. "And remember, I'm going in after I go see Alex."

"Fine. But I'll be back soon to see that you do," she smiles again before walking away.

That woman is impossible.

Nurse Florence comes out of the room a couple of minutes later and heads into bed seventeen, where Allison Parker is. I wait a few seconds, then head in to see Alexandra Delis, type-1 diabetes patient. With diabetes, you're not in the hospital consistently, just when you have too much or too little sugar. A couple of days ago, Alex was admitted to the ICU – Intensive Care Unit – and now she's stable enough to move here, to the general ward. Which is where I come in: Alex, a nineteen-year-old girl, is mentally and emotionally unstable. Being in the hospital triggers something inside of her; being attached to wires even more so. The doctors are trying to figure out the trouble, why she has meltdowns, but fact is, she does, no matter why. So I perform tricks to cheer her up from whatever is bothering her.

When I began volunteering here three years ago – my second year of college – just visited all the patients I could. But a year ago, I started just seeing Alex – when she would arrive here, I would get called, like today. I was no longer just hanging out here all day visiting all of the patients; I still sometimes come and do that, but I decided I should get a real job, so I've been researching law schools in the area. And skiing and playing golf.

Anyway, enough with the chatter. In I go.

Knock, knock.

"Come in," Maven calls.

I come in. "Hey, Alex. Hello, Maven. How're you doing?" I ask as I shuffle a deck of cards.

"Good. I'm feeling better than I did yesterday and Wednesday," Alex tells me. "But still a bit dizzy. I haven't seen the do-Doctor Martin," she says, with a glance at her mother. Maven is a stickler for precise speaking and calling a doctor 'doc' will never do. "But the needles are painful."

"That's good. Well, not the needles. So let's distract you. I have here a cat, no, wait, where'd it go? Shoot." I begin turning my pockets inside out in a search. "Uh oh."

Alex raises her eyebrow. I look at her and try to look helpless. "What? I had Rogerina here with me just five minutes ago; she was going to help with the trick." Trying not to laugh, Alex points behind me. I turn and act relieved. "Oh, thank you," I say as I walk over to the door and pick up the stuffed cat where she fell. "I could never do this without you," I tell Rogerina as I stroke her.

Giving her to Alex, I hold out the deck. "Pick a card." She does, memorizes it, and places it back in the middle. I wave my hand over it with a flourish and bring it around my back. "Alright, you put your card in the middle, correct?" I clarify. She nods, and I take out a chunk of cards from the middle and flip through them.

"You messing with me or something?" I demand. Alex looks confused and takes the cards from me.

As she flips through them, she looks at me. "Where is it?" I smile and take the cards back.

Picking up the rest of the cards, I say, "It is, I believe, the fourth card from the top. Here you go." I hand her the deck. "Count." As she's counting, I readjust my hat for the next part.

"Three, four, ah!" she exclaims as she holds up the fourth card, her card, the seven of spades.

I pout. "It would have been cooler had you spelled out 'Alex' instead of counting with numbers."

I'm rewarded with a gape. "Was that on purpose?"

"Pretty big coincidence."

"What was the cat for?"

"Moral support." Reaching up to scratch an itch by my ear, I move my hat and a card falls out. I catch it, look at it, and fake a gasp. "Woah, look what I found!"
Alex rolls her eyes at my dramatics and takes the card. "The seven of clubs? No way. Did you just put it there?"

I shake my head. "Nope. I had it there the whole time."
"I don't believe you."
"I won't tell." I mime zipping my lips shut. Even at nineteen, she still hasn't figured out sleight of hand – which is the entire trick. But that benefits me; I'm only a magician from YouTube, so I'm not a very good one.

"A magician never reveals his tricks," I say, putting the deck away. Pulling out another one, I begin a new trick.