Sex, death and a snake in the grass: 19 linked short stories, fiction for the Internet. Read in narrative sequence using the left-hand menu or follow characters through the in-page links
15
This is what happened. The second time he went in, he knew it was all up with him. One day, he raised his head from the pillow and caught the nurse's eye. He nodded weakly at his locker where a scrap of paper was weighted down by an unopened bottle of orange juice. Afterwards he slept for a long time.
When he opened his eyes a grey-clad woman with a severe expression looked back at him.
This is what the woman saw. She saw that his beard and hair had grown. His skin was grey, like putty, and there were bruises all over his arms from the drip. She saw his chest rise and fall painfully and heard his slow and hesitant breathing. She thought she'd never seen anyone who looked more alone.
'Hello Jake,' said the woman, and dismay mixed with apprehension curled her lip and brittled her voice.
He smiled faintly and sucked on oxygen. Then he motioned her nearer and whispered croakily in her ear.
This is what he said: 'Read to me 'mum'.
She didn't understand him at first. But he carried on looking at her.
So she fumbled in her bag and brought out the small leather-bound Bible. And in a voice that trembled at first and only slowly grew stronger she began to read. She read something that he had always liked when he was a small boy.
This is what she read: Luke Chapter 15, 11-24.
After a while she stopped listening to what she was saying and started looking at him. Anger brightened her eyes. He wasn't even 40 years old, she thought mutinously. But she kept on reading, right to the end - which was a comfort to her.
And that was what he found he wanted, after everything else had gone.
