Healing Pain

Chapter 1

The Crow sat on the balcony again. Beady black eyes watching me. Black feathers sleek and shiny. He looked healthy, alive, capable. I hated him. He peered in at me expectantly. Our evening date dragging out. I knew why he was here, what he really wanted, but while my eyelids blinked, he'd leave the gems of my eyes alone.

Bree had warned me that's what the ravens loved most in the world. Eyes. The window to the soul. They'd peck them out to help your soul escape, then escort you to the afterworld. That's what my best friend called heaven and hell, the afterworld. She said it was all the same. The fall of angels was a man made fiction.

The glass door was open, the air conditioning in our end of the hospital was off again. The heat had been sweltering this summer and the hospital, to ensure they didn't lose power from surgery or the high dependency units, shut the air down in the low dependency units. Like the geriatric and rehabilitation Ward I'd been stuck in for weeks now.

I used my free hand to remove the lid off the pathetic excuse for food they kept trying to feed me and tossed a piece of the meat out onto the balcony. The Crow considered the offering, considered me again. "Go on. I'm bed ridden. I can't hurt you," I grumbled. The Crow jumped down, collected the meat and flew off.

With a sigh, I used the fork to push the rest of what constituted for food around the plate and put the lid back on it. No wonder I'd never been short of work in this place. I'd die too if I ate this slop for a week. I stretched to reach my phone on the side table and pressed in Bree's number.

Her profile picture jumped up on the screen waiting for me to press call. Her raven locks framing her narrow face, dark glass eyes shining out, a small smile upon her thin lips. She had Spanish ancestory but came from the west coast of Ireland. It confused everyone when they started talking to her, and guys really liked to talk to her.

"I'm about to scrub in," Bree answered. No polite greeting. I'm busy, your annoying, be grateful I took the call at all. I'd called her out on it once. She told me I should be grateful. She only answered people she liked, and she only answered when working for those that were important to her.

"I'm going to order pizza if you want to come by after for left overs," I replied. Bree liked quick facts. No pussy footing around. Tell her what you want, when you want it, leave out the politeness. It was wasted on her. The devil had a better bedside manner than Bree.

"If you order Pizza I will break your fingers so you can't use your phone again," she threatened. "You're lying around in bed all day. You need to eat healthy."

"Well, I'm not going to get that here. Steal me a wheel chair and I'll roll across the road to the cafe and get a salad."

"How are you going to push the chair with one arm?"

"I'll take the line out."

"Breaking those fingers one by one," Bree warned. I smirked. She was so serious.

"It's not helping anyway. I'm hurting no matter how much of this poison they pump into me. I think the line is blocked."

"Bullshit! I put that line in. My lines never block. When was the last time you pressed the button?" Bree queried. I looked at the button folded over the top of the machine where I'd put it. I didn't want the morphine. I'd turned the infuser off the moment the nurse left the room so my head could stay clear and I could feel the effects.

"I can't believe you, Poss," Bree scolded. "You turned it off again didn't you. You need to rest to heal. You can't rest properly when you are in agony."

I heard foot falls in the hall. "Argh, someone's coming. Do you want pizza or not?"

"I'll send you something," Bree grumbled. She hung up. I put my phone aside as the door opened to my room.