Suresh closed his eyes, held her wrists, but made no effort to pull away from her comfort. “I'm just trying to understand how others could be having the same dream. Always the message is the same. I must build a boat. An ark was the word. Something terrible is going to happen. It feels so true.”
Too many things came to her mind then, too many angry words needing to be wiped away before being spoken. Anger at herself. Her husband was terrified by images of the world being devoured in some god’s hungry mouth, and in her mind, she saw herself, walking along the hospital corridors, smiling at the doctors, giving direction with authority and confidence, the gray-haired director of emergency services Bernard Meyers finally acknowledging her existence, even to the point of pronouncing her name correctly for the first time. No room for the storm coming over the horizon. No time.
She'd suggested Suresh see a therapist. When he seemed to consider this, she imagined her husband locked away in an asylum, sprouting biblical nonsense while the looks from her co-workers turned to ice and pity. In her memory, the kitchen had begun to spin out of control.
Then Suresh said, “I think these are more than dreams. I have been chosen, like the other people we've heard about. I must not ignore it.”
And Neha had screamed, “Just shut up! You will ignore it if you love me! If you care for me at all you'll... just... shut up!” The slap was hard, though Suresh's head barely moved at the contact. She'd felt a tingle of fear and excitement, having never raised a hand to him before and not knowing how he would respond. A fear of reprisal, a desire for one.
When he simply walked from the kitchen, muttering his weakness in the hallway, it felt as if she'd lost part of him forever. As well, she saw clearly longer-term implications.
Maybe she was reading too much into everything, but the hours of running between patients as they stumbled or were wheeled into the emergency room, one crisis after another, it was all she could do to keep a finger on the pulse of her own career.
And her husband would eventually play his role. No talk of dreams. No flights of fancy. If she said she wanted, he would give. If she said no, he did not. Uncomplicated.
Until now.
Hopefully, tonight's small but significant violence would end the situation before it became too much. She couldn’t help feeling an added layer to these events, a darker twist in her beliefs. Something large and massive looming behind the storm clouds in her mind. It was too much to comprehend, so she did not try.
There was no God. No angels. No Krishna or Vishnu or Hunuman. They were old, stale characters. Children’s tales. No visions. No end-of-the-world. The universe simply was what it was. Judeo-Christians could have their constant doomsday views. She had her own life, and a few crackpots would not make her feel it was all for naught, especially her husband.
Neha sat in her chair, and thought about the derelict at Forest Grove, imagined him preaching in the halls, Suresh dancing behind him banging on a tambourine. She remembered the form she'd signed, just in case, in the man's folder. One slip of paper to tuck the Word of God away, lest Suresh happen upon him in the city one day and find an ally in his delusions.
Her finger swirled the ice, around and around.
She picked up the phone.
* * *
“Wake up, my friend.”
Jack opened his eyes. The angel Michael stood in the hospital room at the foot of the bed. The lights from the parking lot shone though the blinds, cutting his scarred features into parallel shades of light and dark.
“You!”
“Shhh.” Michael moved to the side of the bed and offered his hand. He whispered, “You have to leave now.”
Jack sat up and took the angel's hand. His body quivered with excitement and terror in this being's presence. “Why?” he whispered back, knowing his voice was too loud.
“Personally, Jack, I’ve started wondering that myself.” The angel wasn't smiling this time. “But it's not my call. Just get up and get dressed.”
Jack did. The pants were too big, but there was a belt and he cuffed the pant legs. The act of dressing was made difficult by the cast on his right wrist. More than once he had to stop as his arm twitched with blades of pain. Michael helped him finish. When he'd completely dressed, including shoes which felt almost new, he pulled something from the flannel shirt's pocket. It was a ten-dollar bill. He stuffed it back in and buttoned the pocket closed with his good hand.
“Let's go,” Michael said, “and don’t talk. We don’t want to scare the nurses.”
The bed across from him was empty. Jack paused, seeing the sheets tucked neatly over and under the vacant mattress. Had there been someone there? If so, they must have taken him away while he was sleeping. He tried to remember, could not. Michael touched his arm and led him forward.
Jack risked a glance at the bed beside his own. The kid was still propped upright, but he was asleep. His features were lost in shadow as he was turned away from the window, but Jack could see his mouth open, hear the barest traces of snoring. With his mouth open like that, the skinny kid seemed more like a skeleton. The bandage on his chest poked up from under the sheets. Dark stains on the gauze, as if the nurses had decided to keep their distance and let this one heal on his own.
They stepped into the bright, silent hospital corridor. The room’s door closed behind them. As they approached the nurses' station, Jack wondered what excuse Michael would offer for their departure.
He offered none. They walked past the desk, and the bleach-blonde nurse looked up for a moment then back down as if she'd never seen them. The doors to the elevators a dozen yards ahead opened.
Michael laid a firm hand on Jack's shoulder and guided him to one side, holding one finger to his lips as the stood against the wall and waited.
Two large men in white hospital scrubs pushed a gurney along the floor. Jack stared at the straps laid carefully atop it. These had some meaning but, like everything else in his life, that meaning was too vague to grasp.
His heart beat in fear. The men passed by. The hallway took on the feel of a prison, and he and the angel were trying to escape. Men and gurney stopped outside Jack’s room.
He understood now.
“Praise God,” he whispered.
One of the goons looked back, stared directly at him.
Michael's hand squeezed so hard Jack expected the bones of his shoulder to crack. The man in the hospital scrubs stared a moment longer, then moved with his partner into the room.
Michael moved quickly, guiding him through the double doors. Jack wondered if anyone saw them swing open and closed. They headed towards the window at the far end of the hall. A surge of elation tore through him with the prospect of flying away like Peter Pan.
They stopped at the elevator and the angel pressed the “down” button. Jack couldn't hide his disappointment. He sighed.
As Michael waited for the doors to open, he muttered, “You've got a problem with something?”
They stepped in. When the doors closed and the elevator dropped, Jack said, “How... how come we're taking the elevator? Why not just blink us to safety?”
Michael looked at him with a long-familiar expression of sympathy and restrained impatience. Jack got that look a lot. It hurt more, coming from this man. The angel finally said, “Because sometimes it just doesn’t work that way, Jack.”
“You don't like me, do you?”
Michael closed his eyes. “I'm an angel of God. I love everyone.”