Desperation
I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt weak, groggy, and unable to move. I was having difficulty focusing on any one thought. I felt as though I were just waking up from a chemical induced sleep, so heavy and thick was the fog that had descended on my mind. With a huge effort, I forced my eyes to open. They opened slowly, the lids fluttering, fighting to remain closed. Finally I managed to keep them open, the world appearing through a sleep-obscured blur, slowly becoming more focused as I took in my surroundings.
I looked around. I suddenly realised I was not at home. I was not in my bed. I was in what looked like some sort of basement with wood-panelled walls and a tiled floor. There was an empty wooden chair directly in front of me, facing where I sat, in the centre of the room. I attempted to stand, but found I could not move my arms.
My first thought was Oh God, I’m paralysed! But when I looked down, I saw something that terrified me even more. I was tied to a chair. My arms and legs were securely fastened to the frame of a simple wooden dining chair. The duct tape ran around my forearms and the arms of the chair, fastening them together so tight that I had to keep flexing my fingers to ensure the circulation of blood continued. The same was true of my shins, the tape keeping me from being able to move my feet so much as an inch. I struggled, I groaned, I tried to break free of my bonds, but they were far too secure. I was a captive.
Suddenly, I heard movement. The sound of a sharp intake of breath and the rustling of clothes. Terrified into stillness, my eyes darted back and forth across the areas of the room I could see.
Aside from the empty chair in front of me, I could see nothing. However, when I twisted my neck as far around as I could, I saw that behind me was a sort of makeshift living area in the corner of the room. There was a ratty old couch facing a TV. Beside that was a mini-refrigerator, humming quietly. On the couch, however, sat another man.
He had his head down, his back to me, breathing heavily. His breathing sounded as though he was on the verge of crying, but was struggling to compose himself. His shoulders were hunched and occasionally shook with a compressed sob. Another captive? How long had he been here? Perhaps he knew something about where we were.
“Hey,” I whispered. “Hey!”
He didn’t respond. In fact, he looked as though the sound of my voice had evoked more forceful sobs. He fought hard to control himself; I watched as he grabbed at his head and clutched handfuls of hair.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, feeling the stupidity of asking this question to someone who was so obviously not okay. “Are you a hostage here? What’s going on?”
Finally, the man seemed to gain some control. He raised his head and his shoulders stopped shaking. He looked like a man who had simply resigned himself to the worst. I had seen this many times at work. Patients and their families who I had told there was no hope, that they or the one they loved would be dead soon and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from happening. This is how the man held himself. Like someone who knew death was coming.
“No,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “No, I’m not a hostage. Only you are.”
My blood ran cold. My fears confirmed.
The man stood up from the couch. I could see him clearly now. He had jet black hair, untamed, as though he had just woken from a restless sleep. His clothes were basic, red T-shirt and jeans, and he had a dark stubble, several days’ worth of five-o’clock shadows.
And he held a gun.
If I was scared before, I was petrified now. The sight of that pistol in his hand as he walked around the couch toward me, it was the most terrifying moment of my life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, all I could do was watch as this man moved closer and closer, holding the gun that he surely intended to end my life with.
However, as I watched his approach, he tucked the gun into the belt of his jeans. He moved behind me, out of my line of sight. I could hear the sound of metal clinking against metal, like the sound of cutlery being dropped into a kitchen drawer. Then I could hear wheels turning against the tiled floor.
Movement to my right, and the man reappeared, pushing a small trolley laden with gleaming objects. I had seen both the trolley and these objects before, almost every day at the hospital. More specifically, while in surgery. There were forceps, gauze, clamps, suction tips, retractors, and mechanical cutters. The item on the trolley closest to me, however, was what caught my full attention. It was a scalpel, glinting in the light of the room.
Normally these tools represented the chance of saving a life to me. Now, however, the lack of certain, normally vital, tools robbed me of this delusion. There were no sealing devices. No surgical staplers, no sutures, nothing. If this man intended on cutting me open, he did not intend on putting me back together.
My hands began to shake. I could feel cold sweat forming on my brow. The man walked around the surgical trolley and stood behind the chair opposite me, grasping the back of it with his hands, so tightly I could see his knuckles turn white.
“What are you going to do?” I whispered, staring up at him. At the sound of my voice, he averted his gaze, staring down at his hands. He suddenly seemed surprised to see them clutching the chair so tightly. He released his hold and flexed his fingers, taking a deep breath. Then he took the gun from his belt.
I started to struggle, but the man simply moved around the empty chair and sat down, cradling the gun in both hands, staring down at it as though it were a complicated puzzle.
“Please,” he said to me. “Please, calm down.”
He spoke so quietly and with such reservation I almost didn’t hear him. He was still not looking at me, staring down at his gun. I stopped struggling; knowing all along it was pointless anyway, so tightly was I bound. I stared at this man, trying not to let my hands tremble, feeling my heart beating ferociously against the inside of my chest. It seemed as though my heart knew that the shell it resided in was doomed and was trying to burst its way out to escape on its own.
The man spoke again, finally looking up into my eyes. He spoke haltingly, as thought struggling to find the right words.
“I don’t… want… to hurt you.”
“Then let me go.” The words had escaped my mouth before I even had time to think them. I was pleading, sounding weak, this I knew. But given the situation, I think I had the right to be so.
The man shook his head. “I can’t. I need you.”
This came as a surprise. “What? How do you need me?”
The man took a deep breath, suddenly unable to look at me again. He looked as though he was about to start crying again. He raised a hand and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and index. He couldn’t have been any older than thirty-five, but he was so weary and deflated that he looked like he was over fifty.
“My sister,” he began, “is in the hospital. The same hospital you work at. In fact, she’s one of your patients. Penelope Wright?”
He was waiting for a response. In all honesty, I had heard this name before, but I couldn’t put a face to the name or recall what I was treating her for. I was worried that admitting such little recognition of this man’s sister would only anger him and put me even further in danger. So all I responded with was, “Yes.”
The man narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t remember her, do you? I’m pretty good at knowing when people aren’t being honest with me, Doctor.”
“Please,” I begged. “I have so many patients. I… I remember her name, I do, but… maybe if you give me some more details.”
The man sighed. “Details…” he repeated, as if the word tasted foul on his tongue. “It’s her heart. It… It’s not working the way it should. It’s dying, and it’s taking her with it. She was scheduled for surgery a few weeks ago, but it never happened. There was… some sort of…” Suddenly his face contorted with rage and he clenched the gun tightly in his hand. “Some sort of mix-up.”
He spat the word ‘mix-up’ out as though it might poison him, his lips curling and his voice getting louder in boiling fury. If I could have taken a step back from him, I would have.
I remembered his sister. I had been furious about the mix-up myself. I was the surgeon assigned to operate on her, but later found that I had instead operated on a completely different woman. One who also needed the heart, but the error meant that someone who needed it more was now going to die. I suspected the reason I was here was because this man knew I was the surgeon and blamed me for the error. If that was true, I was as good as dead.
“They told us that some clerical error had occurred,” the man continued, “and the heart she was supposed to receive, to replace her failing one, it had gone to the next person down on the transplant list. Now… Now there’s no telling how long it will be before another heart becomes available. It’s already been so long, she doesn’t have much time. The doctors, they say a couple of weeks, tops.”
Suddenly, he was crying. Tears ran down his face and into his stubble, the violent sobs rocking his shoulders once more.
“She’s so brave, doctor. Never let it show how disappointed she was. Just said to me, these things happen. I’ll get the next one. She never gives up. Penny… My sister… She said a miracle would come. That everything would be fine. Well…”
He managed to compose himself, wiping away his tears and steadying his breathing, sitting up a bit straighter in the chair.
“I don’t believe in miracles, doctor. I’ve been a police officer for over ten years and I have seen with my own eyes that there are no miracles. Innocent people die every day for no reason at all. And you’re the same. You must have seen so many people die, people who were too young. Too good, too pure, men, women, children, teachers, blood donors, all the people who made the world good, you must have seen them all die before they got to truly make a difference. How does that make you feel, doctor? How do you feel when you watch someone so pure and good and kind slowly fade out of existence? Tell me, please.”
He waited for an answer. I stared at him, not knowing what to say. Of course, it is tragic to watch someone die, especially someone young or someone who always did good for others. I have definitely seen my share of tragedy. But what exactly was this man asking of me? Did he want to convince me to help his sister? It seemed strange. What could I do if there was no heart to give? He was still waiting for an answer, so I took a deep breath and answered as best I could.
“You’re right. There are no miracles. Too many people die too soon. But that’s the world we live in. Bad things do happen to good people. It can’t be explained, but there it is. The best we can do when it happens is try to learn by the examples set from those we loved. From those who inspired us. To take their lessons and pass them along to others, so that maybe the world can still become a better place. But there are no miracles. If you want the world to change, you have to change it yourself.”
The man stared at me for a few moments. Then he gave me a wry smile. “Exactly. There won’t be any miracle for Penny. So I have to do something for her myself.”
Suddenly, with a horror that gripped my throat and chilled my spine, I realised what he was planning. Why I was here. Why he was crying and why there were surgical tools. He wanted my heart! He was going to cut out my heart and deliver it to the doctors at the hospital to transplant into his sister.
The man in front of me stood up and walked out of my line of sight. He wasn’t gone long. He came back a moment later, carrying an ice box. He sat it down on the floor beside me and lifted the lid. Inside was an empty plastic bag sitting on top of a stack of ice.
The man sat down in front of me again.
“My sister needs a heart, doctor,” he said, pleading. “I need you to understand this. She needs a heart and she needs it straight away. Tonight.”
“Wait, please!” I begged.
“You seem like a good man, that’s why I chose you.”
“Please, you don’t-”
“I do. I do have to. If I don’t do this, my sister will die. She’s too good for that, she needs to live; she needs to make a difference. I have no doubts or regrets in this decision, but I need you to understand and agree.”
“What? Agree?” I was shocked. He wanted me to allow this? “Are you crazy? Of course I don’t agree! Let me go!”
The man shook his head. “I would have preferred it if you agreed, but this is happening. No matter what you say, you have to do this for me. For Penny.”
He sat the gun down on the surgical trolley and picked up the scalpel. He turned to face me, rising to his feet, leaning closer, the blade of the scalpel glinting in the light.
“Wait, NO!” I screamed.
He wasn’t even going to shoot me first! I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the incision. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard I could and turned my head away. I heard the blade slice. Two quick cuts and I knew it had started, though I couldn’t feel anything yet. I must have gone into shock. Then I heard two more cuts and still felt nothing. Strange.
I slowly opened my eyes and was met with a strange sight. The man was placing the scalpel back on the trolley and picking up his gun. He then sat down again and faced me, watching me, patiently waiting for me to regain my composure. I looked down at myself. There was no incision, no blood, no pain. The tape that had bound me, it was severed. My arms and legs were loose from their bindings. This man had freed me. But why? I looked at him, confused.
“Are…” I began, stumbling over my words. Barely daring to hope. “Are you letting me go?”
“Shortly,” he replied. “But you have to do one thing for me first.”
I waited for him to continue. He no longer looked like he was going to cry, but that resignation had returned. The determined lack of hope.
“Cut out my heart,” he said. This was the last thing I expected. “I’m a match, so my heart is the best hope she’ll ever have to pull through. Cut out my heart and deliver it to Penny. Do it now, take it straight to the hospital and save her life. I can’t live without her, she’s all I have left. But she is stronger than I am. She can go on without me. Just… Please tell her how much I love her and to not be sad for me. This is what I want. For her.”
And with that, before I had the chance to say a single word, he lifted the gun and placed it under his chin.
The sound of the gunshot echoed around the room deafeningly. My mouth dropped open as I watched the man slump in the chair, his eyes wide and staring, instantly void of life. But still, they stared at me. Waiting for me to do as asked.
I didn’t move. I sat there, stunned, frozen, gaping at what had just happened before me. I could not believe it. I kept waiting for the man to sit up and begin talking again. But he was gone.
You didn’t need to be a surgeon to see that. He threw his life away, so that he may save that of his sister’s. I suspected that had his sister died and he lived, he would have taken his own life anyway.
He did say that she was all he had left.
I rose from my chair without realising I had made the decision to do so. I took a step forward and reached out to the man’s face. I gently placed my fingers on his eyelids and closed them. I think I did this so he wouldn’t have to watch. I gently took him under the arms and slowly lowered him to the floor. I then approached the surgical trolley and moved it closer to the body. I took a pair of gloves from the trolley and pulled them on over my hands. I then picked up the scalpel.
No point in allowing two lives to be wasted tonight. This man died so that Penelope Wright might live. I will not allow another death to be so pointless as the countless many before. Not when I finally have the power to fashion the desirable outcome from the tragedy that had already occurred.
I positioned myself over the body and set to work.
Penelope Wright will live. And I will deliver her miracle.
