[Context: read the previous part or start from the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]
Gerald awoke with a headache amidst unfamiliar sheets in a small white room. I guess I’m in the hospital, he thought.
There was someone else in the room, sitting in a chair, typing crisply on a desktop computer. She was wearing scrubs. A nurse? He was not a regular at the hospital, but she somehow looked familiar. That super-long red hair…
Gerald sat up in his bed and addressed her unsteadily.
“Uh, hello.” She jumped with surprise, then turned to face him. “I might just be high on medication, but … Do I know you?”
Her startled expression softened. “Uh, yes. Yes you do! I took your Animal Physiology class a few years ago. It’s nice to see you again, Professor Cutler. Despite the circumstances.”
“The circumstances,” Gerald repeated hazily. “What are the circumstances?”
She approached his bed. “What do you remember?” she asked softly.
He closed his eyes. “I was reluctantly playing basketball,” he began. “I was trying to keep up with a student, and mostly failing. I jumped up for a rebound, and then I was falling, about to land on my head…. That’s the last thing I remember.”
He opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror across the room. His face looked terrible — puffy and red. His hair seemed really long. He reached up to feel his head. Yes, he was shaggy, all right. He also felt a giant scar above and around his left ear.
“How long have I been unconscious, anyway?”
She looked at him, serious and sympathetic. “About nine weeks.”
“NINE WEEKS?!?! Is it … is it NOVEMBER?!?!”
“It’s the Monday before Thanksgiving,” she clarified.
“Thanksgiving!”
“Look, Professor… er… Mister… uh… Gerald… I’m really, really glad to see you awake and alert. For a while we weren’t sure that you’d make it. Intracranial bleeding is often fatal. As you once taught me, I believe,” she added.
“The doctor will be making their rounds later this morning and can talk about your recovery from here,” she continued. “For now, you’re in stable condition, so you’re welcome to eat, or to rest some more. Or, if you’d like, I could summon a chaplain, if you’d like to start processing this, you know, from a spiritual perspective…”
“A chaplain. No thanks. Actually, wait.” He wasn’t in the mood for, say, a Catholic priest, but weren’t hospital chaplains more like therapists in robes? Maybe that wasn’t not such a bad idea after all. “OK. Bring me a chaplain. Send me your finest chaplain.”
“They’re all excellent, but Reverend Almond is on duty tonight.”
“Fine. As long as he’s not nuts.” He grimaced at his pun.
“She,” she corrected gently. “I’ll page her right away.”
Gerald flopped back down on his bed. He knew he should be grateful to be alive, but he mostly felt pissed off. His hard-won sabbatical was nearly over, and he had literally slept through most of it.
[Update: the story continues with part 5.]
Thanks to Chris Damman for his feedback on this part.
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