The Chronology Protection Case

Part 9

I awoke fighting sheets ... of water. No, these were too white. Maybe hospital sheets. Yeah, white hospital sheets. They smelled like that too.

I opened my eyes. Hospital rooms were hell -- I knew better than most the truth of that -- but this was just a hospital room. I was sure of that. I was alive.

And I remembered everything. With a spasm that both energized and frightened me, I realized that I recalled everything I'd been thinking about the universe and its protective clutch... But I was still alive. So maybe my reasoning was not completely right...

"Dr. D'Amato," a female voice, soft but very much in command, said to me. "Good to see you awake."

"Good to be awake, Nurse, ah, Johnson," I squinted at her name tag, then her face. "Uhm, what's my situation? How long have I been here?"

She looked at the chart next to my bed. "Just a day and a half," she said. "They fished you out of the Sound. You were suffering from shock. Here," she gave me a cup of water. "Now that you're awake, you can take these orally."

She gave me three pills, and turned off the intravenous that I'd just realized was attached to me. She disconnected the tubing from my vein.

I held the pills in my hand. I thought about the universe again. I envisioned it, rightly or wrongly, as a personal antagonist now. Let's say I was right about the reach of its chronology protection after all? Let's say it had spared me in the water, because I was on the verge of willing myself to forget? Let's say it had allowed me to get medicine and nutrition intravenously, while I was unconscious, because while I was unconscious I posed no threat? But let's say now that I was awake, and remembered, it would--

"Dr. D'Amato. Are you falling back asleep on me?" She smiled. "Come on now, be a good boy and take your pills."

They burned in my palm. Maybe they were poison. Maybe something I had a lethal allergy to. Like Lauren. "No," I said. "I'm ok, now, really. I don't need them." I put the pills on the table, and swung my legs out of bed.

"I don't believe this," Johnson said. "It's true -- you doctors make the worst God-awful patients. You just stay put now -- hear me?" She gave me a look of exasperation and stalked out the door, likely to get the resident on duty, or, who knew, security.

I looked around for my clothes. They were on a chair, a dried out crumpled mess. They stank of oil and saltwater. At least my wallet was still inside my jacket pocket, money damp but intact. Good to see there was still some honesty left in this town.

I dressed quickly and opened the door. The corridor was clear. Goddamn it, I could leave if I wanted to to. I was a patient not a prisoner.

At least insofar as the hospital was concerned. As for the larger realm of being, I couldn't say any more.

***