Upon graduating from the LPN program, and with the help of two of her tutors, Sharon was immediately offered a nursing position at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, ranked among the top three medical centers and hospitals in California. She jumped at the chance, and was assigned to the neurological ward, commonly known as the coma ward. And that was when everything went sour.
Only six days after she first started working on the ward, Sharon saw the arrival of a nine-year-old black girl named Joan Howard. Joan had been playing alone on the sidewalk right in front of her house when she was practically run over by an eighteen-year-old kid who, just for the fun of it, had decided to see how fast he could go on a bicycle. The bicycle collided with Joan with such force that she was projected forward and through the air several yards. She landed on the road, hitting her tiny head against the asphalt and fracturing her cranium in two places, causing her brain to hemorrhage. The kid on the bicycle was never caught.
‘A miracle,’ the head nurse at the coma ward had told Sharon on her first day on the job. ‘That’s pretty much the only thing that can make most of our patients wake up and get out of here, and trust me, you will probably see some miracles happen right in front of your eyes in this place. But they are very few and far between. What I’m trying to tell you is — don’t get attached, don’t be too human, don’t succumb to your emotions, because it will only hurt you and compromise your professionalism. Be objective. Most of the patients in this ward are half dead. That’s why they’re here.’
And a miracle had been exactly what Joan’s family and everyone else had hoped for. Nothing else could help. The doctors had done all they could do. But as the days started to melt into weeks, and the weeks into months, hope began to fade, except for Sharon, who wasn’t able to follow the head nurse’s advice and had fallen in love with the little girl. Maybe it had been because Joan reminded Sharon of her best childhood friend, who had been murdered when she was ten years old during a gang drive-by shooting, just east of MacArthur Park, where she used to live.
At first, Joan’s father, who was a single parent, would come in every day after he’d finished work and spend several hours by his daughter’s bed, holding her hand, reading her stories, singing her songs, and combing her hair, but soon hope abandoned him too. First he started spending less and less time with his daughter every day, then the visits became less frequent.
Sharon caught up with him one night as he was leaving, and with teary eyes begged him not to desert his daughter. Even without ever having seen one, she tried to explain to him that the sort of miracles that happened in that ward depended as much on the families not giving up on their loved ones as it did on divine intervention. Joan’s father looked like he had aged ten years in just a few months. He said nothing to Sharon. He simply stared at her with heavy, pain-stricken eyes for a whole minute before turning and walking away in silence.
He didn’t come back the next day.
And that was the night Joan passed.
Sharon had been unable to hide her distress after the little girl’s death, and that made her question her willingness to become a nurse. She decided to take some time off and rethink. During her break, her old school friend, Tom Hobbs, suggested that she looked into becoming an air stewardess. Sharon decided to give it a try. She told herself that she had nothing to lose.
That had been just over a year ago, and she hadn’t looked back since.
In her bedroom, Sharon opened another window, turned on the portable stereo system on her bedside table and switched to the radio. ‘Maps’ by Maroon 5 came on and she immediately began swinging her hips to the beat as she sang the words. It was one of her favorite songs. While doing so, she undressed and finished her bottle of beer. She thought about having a second one, but she didn’t handle mixing drinks very well. It usually gave her a horrible headache and a zombie-like hangover, and she was really looking forward to her bottle of wine.
Sharon grabbed a freshly washed towel from the cupboard in the corridor and walked into the bathroom. She got the shower running but didn’t get under it. Instead, she took a step back, faced the mirror above the washing basin and regarded herself for an instant — first her left profile, then the right one. After a few seconds of deliberation, she decided that she was relatively happy with her figure, though, in her mind, there was always room for improvement.
She finally stepped under the shower, leaned forward, placed her forehead against the white tiles and allowed the strong jet of lukewarm water to sluice over her head, shoulders and back. It felt like a dream. As soon as the water came in contact with her skin, her tense muscles began to relax.
Shower over, she wrapped herself in her towel and returned to the kitchen.
Sharon and Tom had quite a nice selection of wine, and tonight she felt like having something fruity and refreshing.
‘Perfect,’ she whispered to herself as she selected a bottle of New Zealand Gewurztraminer from the fridge, uncorked it and poured herself a glass. She had just returned the bottle to the fridge when her cellphone rang. She had left it on the kitchen counter. She closed the fridge door before reaching for her phone and checking the display screen. She didn’t recognize the number.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Sharon.’
The male voice didn’t sound familiar to her.
‘Umm... Hi. Sorry, but who’s this?’
‘Would you like to take a guess?’
Sharon frowned at the phone. She just wanted to relax and enjoy her wine. She was in no mood to play games with anyone.
‘No, I wouldn’t, actually. And if you don’t tell me who you are, this call is over.’
‘OK, how about if I tell you that I’m the one waiting at the end. Will that do?’
‘Waiting at the end? At the end of what?’
First the voice at the other end chuckled at the question. When it spoke again, the words came out slowly, and in a tone that could only be described as morbid.
‘Life, Sharon. I am the one waiting at the end of life, for I am death.’
Sharon didn’t scare easy, but there was something about this voice that sent a chill trickling down her spine.
‘You know what? That’s one horrible joke, whoever you are.’
‘Who said it was a joke?’
‘Fuck you, you sick freak. Don’t call me again.’ In a burst of anger, Sharon almost slammed her cellphone against the sideboard but she stopped herself just in time.
A few seconds later, it rang again — same number. Sharon just let it ring out.
A few more seconds after the ringing had stopped, a text message came through.
C’mon, answer your phone, Sharon. Don’t you want to play?
Sharon knew that she should just ignore it, but after such a long day her anger got the better of her. She quickly typed a reply.
Go fuck yourself, freakshow. Whoever you are, I’m blocking your number.
Ping.
Just moments after Sharon had replied, a new text message arrived.
You know what? Forget about the phone. Let me ask you something. Did you remember to lock your front door?
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
All of a sudden, the handle on her front door twisted three times in quick succession.
‘Jesus!’ Sharon jumped back, almost dropping her cellphone. Her frightened stare shot toward the door. ‘What the fuck?’
Thankfully, she had locked the door. Ping. A new message.
She looked down at her phone again. Only then did she realize that she was trembling.