Cosmo pounded the punching bag twenty-five times with his right before switching to his left. Backing up a step, he counted twenty-five high kicks with each foot and then started the whole cycle over again for the fifth time.
Usually during the fourth rotation he reached a level of clear-headedness that benefitted his studies and relationships—fit body, sharp mind. Today he simply felt tired. Before he could finish the fifth cycle, a coughing fit seized him.
He leaned on the punching bag and labored to catch his breath. A shooting pain in his lower back intensified with each cough. Maybe he’d been pushing himself too hard with final exams only a week away. Somehow, exams felt empty and important at the same time.
He closed his eyes through another bout of coughing.
Everything his classmates strove for felt empty. Their degrees weren’t going to land them the cushy government jobs they dreamed of. Cosmo remained convinced of the private sector’s promise. No certificate of graduation was needed to be your own boss.
But he had started university, and that meant he would finish. He would finish strong so no one would doubt his ability. Finally, he managed to draw a full breath without coughing.
He opened his eyes. Someone had spattered blood on the punching bag and carelessly failed to clean it up. Grimacing, he stretched his back and trotted toward the hamper full of gym rags. When he reached for one, he realized his hands were covered with blood as well.
He wiped his chin and came away with more. Then the coughing started in earnest. By the time Cosmo staggered through the gym door, he’d soaked the gym rag with bright, red blood, and his back was forcing him to limp.
At first, the rickshaw driver baulked at giving Cosmo a ride. It wasn’t every day a man soaked in sweat and coughing up blood solicited one’s services. Growling through his teeth, Cosmo asked to be taken to the same private hospital that had stitched him up the previous year.
Rather than test Cosmo’s resilience, the driver relented.
The hospital wasn’t far. Cosmo tumbled from the cycle rickshaw before it skidded to a stop. Forgetting to pay, he picked himself up and limped through the front doors.
On seeing the amount of blood dripping from the rag pressed to Cosmo’s face, the attendant admitted him immediately. Minutes later, Cosmo was lying on a doctor’s table with a fresh towel.
Without saying much, and asking nothing, the doctor smeared an ointment in and around Cosmo’s nose. After a half hour, the coughing and bleeding slowed to intermittent fits.
Using a wheelchair, a nurse escorted Cosmo to a room shared by three other patients. Cosmo wanted to ask how much it would cost him to even sit down in such a room. But the staff had ignored his previous questions, so he held his tongue.
A few hours later, the doctor showed up with a clipboard and a pen and a bunch of questions. “Are you active?”
“Do you smoke or chew betel nuts?”
“What were you doing when the coughing began?”
The questions continued like this for several minutes with the doctor scrolling illegible notes before asking another. Looking up from his clipboard, the doctor asked a final question. This time he spoke more as a human than a machine of medical diagnosis. “Have you experienced any violent trauma in your past?”
Cosmo’s breath caught in his throat. He swallowed. “Yes.” He was pretty sure his scars revealed that much.
The doctor continued. “On a scale of one to ten, ten being quite life threatening—”
“Ten.” Cosmo didn’t wait for the doctor to finish.
The doctor nodded. “I see.” He set his clipboard aside and rested his hands in his lap. “I can’t be certain before seeing the results of an x-ray. I’d like to take a CT scan and run an MRI. But I believe it quite likely that your internal bleeding is the result of a previous injury. Your workout today only exacerbated a problem that has probably been building over the course of several months.”
“Will it heal?”
“That depends on the injury. It hasn’t healed on its own thus far.” The doctor straightened. “An MRI and a CT scan will tell me much more, but they are expensive. Are you familiar with—”
“Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Computed Tomography. Yes, I understand the technology.”
The doctor raised a brow.
“I’m a bio-chemistry student.”
“Ah. Good for you. Then you’ll understand that the scans will give me the ability to identify the exact nature of the bleeding and your back pain in order to determine a treatment.”
Cosmo nodded. “I’ve got some money, but not much.” He hadn’t been fighting as often this year, and he didn’t have much money laid aside for emergencies like this. He’d always assumed he could simply show up and fight when he needed more.
“I’ll schedule the tests while the nurse gets you the paperwork.” The doctor nodded toward the door. “Nurse.”
“Yes, doctor.” The nurse dutifully wheeled Cosmo out of the room in the wheelchair they had confined him to.
As she pushed him slowly down the hall, Cosmo watched the random pattern on the linoleum floor pass beneath. Cascading and broken flashes of the violent episode that nearly killed him rippled across his thoughts.
How had the doctor put it? Life threatening violent trauma—a fancy way of saying he had almost died. Lurking beneath Cosmo’s fragmented mental state, a fear rose in his gut—his past was returning to finish the job.