It's no secret that I've been high a time or two in my life. Okay, make that more than a time or two. Make it--well, I can't begin to give an actual number. Anyhow, I used to call my best highs my 'out of body experiences.'
Those highs paled in comparison to what I was currently experiencing.
I was currently hovering with my ass an inch above a hard plastic chair watching wide-eyed as a team of doctors surrounded my body. Monitors were beeping like crazy.
I'll be the first to admit that I was terrified. I'd heard stories about things like this. I glanced around nervously. So far, there was no big ball of light. I was determined to run the other way at the first sight of anything remotely big, bright, and round.
"He's crashing!" someone shouted.
"No, no I'm not!" I called out. No one heard me. Someone grabbed a pair of those huge paddles and rubbed them together. My body jerked as they pressed them into my chest.
"It was the hobo's fault," I said weakly. "I didn't see him. My wipers were bad. If you let me back in my body I swear I'll buy new wipers."
"Again!"
I watched my body jerk again as the paddles pressed into my chest once more.
"C'mon," I muttered. This would have been the time when I would have felt like passing out had I been alive. I held up my hand. It was still flesh-toned.
My only consolation was that I didn't look like Casper yet.
"There...we've got a weak pulse."
"Yes!" I screamed. I jumped up. I didn't feel the normal pressure one would have while standing. At the moment, gravity didn't seem to exist for me.
"Did someone get in contact with his family?" one of the doctors asked. A nurse nodded.
"I went down his list of emergency contacts."
I closed my eyes and groaned. My list of emergency contacts hadn't been updated in years. I thought hard. I knew my mom wasn't even on the list. I had done a complete overhaul of my next of kin during one of our famous feuds. I knew Brian was on there...
And Kevin. I was pretty sure Kevin was my first contact. I remember thinking that it was a good idea to put the most responsible person I knew first and then work from there.
I was pretty sure Kevin didn't even have that number anymore. Would anyone come for me? was I going to die alone?
That was a depressing thought. Dying in general isn't a cause for warm fuzzies, but I always thought I'd be old and surrounded by my loved ones. Y'know, my hot and MUCH younger wife and perhaps a kid or two.
"I'm not ready," I said aloud. I walked towards my body. I slid between two nurses and stared down at myself. Desparation was kicking in. I let out a war cry and hopped up on the gurney.
I had hoped that I'd be able to reconnect myself. I'd wake up, have a good laugh with the doctors, and maybe call my date and at least get a nightcap. Instead, I found myself hovering above the gurney, far enough that I could still see my hazy outline separate from my stoic self.
"Daaaaamnit," I whined. I sat up. I was eye to boobs. A nurse was leaning down over my body. She held a penlight between her fingers.
My desire for girly flesh didn't trump my curiosity on what was happening with me. I got off the gurney and stood right beside the nurse.
"I think we're going to need a CAT and an MRI," the doctor said. The nurse shone the light into my eyes while the doctor studied them, no doubt to see if there was any reaction. The look on the doctor's face said it all.
It wasn't looking good for Nick Carter.
I found Brian standing at a counter, fighting with a short, stout woman with flaming red hair that stuck out like she was BoBo the Clown. She had on too-tight-for-her-busty-frame scrubs and her fat, short little fingers waved at Brian as she tried to talk on the phone. "I need to see him," Brian was begging, "I'm not blood but I'm as close as he's got and --"
"Rok," I called, coming up behind him, "What's going on?"
"See? He'll tell you!" Brian thumbed at me, "He's the number one emergency contact, he's the one we've been waiting for." The nurse literally turned away. "Bitch!" Brian growled, and he looked ready to lunge himself over the counter.
If I hadn't caught him, he probably would've.
I dragged Brian away from the desk. "What's going on?"
"The doctor needs you to sign papers before they can start the surgery. They said they've almost lost him a ton of times. He needs blood and some other ... I don't know, I'm freaking out, I comprehended about a millionth of the shit they said." Brian was really worked up, he didn't typically swear.
"Okay, well let's find his doctor and find out what's going on, what papers need to be signed and everything. C'mon." I started to lead the way back to the counter. "Bri?"
"Kev I gotta call his family," Brian said, his eyes wide. "His mom and sisters and everybody. They don't know yet."
I frowned. "Ugh. Fine then, wait here. I'll go find his doctor."
Bobo the Clown had hung up the phone when I got back over to the desk. "My name is Kevin Richardson," I said, "I'm here for Nick Carter."
The woman was all too happy to oblige me, which made me wonder what the hell Brian had done to make her so frigid acting towards him. I pictured Brian at his worst, when he nagged and begged and whined until he got his way and figured that was probably my answer.
Fifteen minutes later, I was signing a piece of paper giving the doctors the okay to do whatever it took to save Nick. One of the things on the sheet asked about end of life options. Resuscitate? it asked, with two boxes to choose from to check off: YES and NO.
I pictured Nick hooked up to life support, with tubes and wires and pumps and monitors and my stomach turned. Once they reached that point they weren't really there anyway, were they? Would Nick really want to be kept alive by a machine? I could still remember the agony my mother went through with my father back in 1990 with the whole life support drama... I didn't want to go through that shit with Nick...
I stared at the sheet. I wanted to check no... but I figured I better talk to Brian and see if Nick had ever specifically mentioned his requests about that before I made a choice. I left that one blank and signed the bottom of the page.
