SOPHIE'S PATH

SOPHIE'S PATH CHAPTER TWO

  Needs.

 "...needing immediate attention," the angel voice said. "I'm so sorry if I cause you any more pain,  Mr. Carter."  Her voice brought him back to the present. "I have to clean the glass out of your eyes."

 I'm not dying. 

Hospital. I'm in a hospital. 

She was wiping his mouth with a warm, wet cloth.   With light dabs, she sponged at his nose and he realized that the musty smell he'd thought was the drainage tunnel had been the scent of his own blood. He heard, but did not see,  the plinking sound of bits of glass as she plucked them away from his face and put them in a hard plastic container.

 She leaned her face close to his and he smelled mint mouthwash and a floral perfume. 

"Mr. Carter? I know you've been through a trial. The police said they had to use the Jaws of Life to get you and the woman out of the front seat." 

Jaws of Life... Was he alive now?   He thought he was dead. 

Floating in the stars. No.   He had to be alive because he felt excruciating pain.  

  "Aleah," he said, but her name came out like a choke and was indecipherable even to him.

 "Mr. Carter, I'm so sorry if I'm hurting you.  Am I hurting you?" 

The angel's words somersaulted over each other and didn't make a lot of sense, and then Jack realized it wasn't the angel,  it was the fact that his brain was working on slow track.  But he didn't mind letting her voice wash over him. It took away his fears.

 Impossible as it was, he clung to hope.  

  "I know it's difficult to talk.  Just go slow,  Mr.Carter. Try to say your name. Can you do that for me?" she urged.

 He wanted to please her. He didn't know why,  but he thought there might be some kind of judgment about all this.

 He lifted his tongue. "J-Jack."

 "Wonderful," she breathed. "Marvelous." 

She smoothed the cloth over his right eye and continued to wash it before moving on to his left. "It's looking good. You'll probably need some stitches over your eyebrow and along your hairline. Can you open this eye for me?" 

The struggle was like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a mountain. His eyelid barely lifted and what little he could see swam in front of him like a school of silverfish on one of his snorkel dives in the Caribbean. "I'm—not blind?"  

  "No." She chuckled softly. "The blood and glass had matted them shut.   I'm almost done with the other eye.   I'm glad to see that no glass hurt this  one." 

She continued cleaning his left eye then rinsed the cloth. She used what appeared to be a long pair of tweezers to remove a tiny flake of glass from his upper lash. "You have long lashes.  Good thing.  They helped to capture this little rascal." 

She wore medical gloves, but he could feel her warmth as she traced her fingertip over the top of his left eyelid.   "I think you should go ahead and open this eye for me now." 

Jack couldn't believe the enormity of his task.  If he opened his eye and didn't see, what would he do? How would he cope? Would he have to have surgery?  What if there was no cure?  

  "You'll be just fine,"  she assured him,  touching his forearm and holding his hand in hers. "I'm right here."

 She offered him more comfort and more confidence than he'd thought possible. He realized he was deeply afraid.  He finally managed to get his eye open, and as he looked at her he realized that in some sacred part of him,  he'd hoped this was heaven, and that she might be an angel. Yet his slow and beleaguered consciousness affirmed that he was  alive.