The cold disc of a stethoscope on his breast opened his eyes.
The world had grown white. Porter knew he could see-had the ability to focus if he desired-but he pinpointed all his energy on breathing…
From the other side came the doctor’s voice. “Let’s give him some SUCC to paralyze him.”
Was time passing, or was everything happening at once? He counted breaths, but lost track after eight.
Porter had to cough once more, but felt the need to sit up. His arms and legs wouldn’t budge. Could he even feel them? What had they said? Paralyze?
Why would anyone paralyze a patient in an emergency room!?!
Behind closed eyes, Porter saw the man who called himself Smith. The man who’d shot him…because Smith needed Porter-isn’t that what Smith had said before the flash?!
Did Smith stand in the room now, watching Porter suffer. Would he watch Porter die?
“He’s having more trouble breathing.”
“He’ll need to be intibated.”
“Mr. Porter,” said the doctor.
Porter didn’t want to have to move again. He realized he couldn’t. He knew he was immobilized and it was Smith’s fault and the doctors would realize he was dying and he’d perish right there on the gurney in another minute.
“A tube is going to be placed down through your mouth and into your airway. We are hooking you up to a breathing machine…to release the pressure you feel.”
They moved things on his face; Porter wasn’t sure what number of plastic and rubber contraptions clung to his head.
But he felt the rubber tube pass down his throat. He still couldn’t move, but saw the tears building in his upturned eyes. How horrible this was. How unreal and terrible. Porter wished they would just finish him off so he “No need to worry, Mr. Porter,” said the doctor.
How could she tell what he felt? Was he rigged to some emotion meter or something? He was dying!
“Your belly is looking soft. The x-rays look good.” Her voice fluctuated as if she busily worked with other devices and was talking to herself. “Your blood pressure is good… Your oxygen is getting better.”
But Porter’s throat hurt. It was the tube-he didn’t want to imagine it, there in his throat. So uncomfortable…unnatural. They had to take it out. Porter wanted to reach up and remove it himself. He wanted to tell them to…but how could he speak?!
He was moving again. Upstairs and down a hall. Into a room. Someone told him something, but all he heard was “Intensive Care unit.”
Intensive. What a frightful word.
He listened one last time to the person speaking. He wanted to throw up, but concentrated on her voice. “You’ve been shot in the left upper abdomen, and you’ve had a severe asthmatic attack. The tube that is helping you breathe will probably come out in less than a day…”
The gray clogging his vision turned steadily to white. In seconds, it all disappeared.
On the outskirts of Yaizu, Japan, there were few houses interspersed between wide tracks of wet rice fields. Porter walked along the edge of one of the patties beside a straight road as he looked at the sky.
The thunder heads had turned away. They danced and waved their mountainous forms in the otherwise blue air. They transformed into orange masses as he stared at them. No telling when they’d return to shower again.
Porter smelled the passing rain and the sweetness of the fields as he tightened the grip on the strap attached to the bag over his right shoulder. He eyed layers of soaring and dipping hills to the South. Mountains leapt up in the North. Touching the ground, a brilliant sun, red as hot coals, blazing trails of light to the East, West, and straight up, reminded Porter of the origin of the Japanese flag. The beams turned everything in the world to gold: the acreage full of glistening water, the skinny road, the distant housetops.
The scent of faraway forests, mirror lakes, and pink blossoms from forgotten lands caressed the missionary in the warm wind.
Porter turned around as he walked. “ Hayaku! ”
Stan Clusser in a white shirt with short sleeves continued wearily with a smile. He lifted a hand to indicate he was still coming. A fast breeze caught the tip of the Elder’s blue and burgundy tie, tossing it over his shoulder. He pulled it back into place and grinned. The color of his teeth matched his shirt, contrasting his dark skin like the keys and body of a grand piano.
Porter stopped and stared at the sun, fire lighting his face as he breathed in the wet air. His chest heaved and burned. Goose-bumps grew over his naked forearms. “Have you ever seen anything like this, Elder?”
Stan touched his arm with cold fingertips. “You’ll be fine, Porter.”
May 2
8:25 a.m. PST
When his eyes opened again, Porter’s vision wasn’t any better.
Immediately a buzzer came to life to the right of his head.
Hard heels banged the floor as someone came to his side. “All right now, Mr. Porter,” said a woman’s voice, “I need you to take a deep breath.”
The sound didn’t dissipate. Porter only wanted to rest. His throat ached. He took a little breath.
“Deeper, Mr. Porter,” said the woman, whose face was unclear. “One, two, three-deeeeep breath!”
Porter sucked air hard…his lungs wouldn’t operate for some reason, and he really wanted to go back to sleep.
The squealing went away.
Porter thought something and made himself say it with shivering lips. “W-w-what…h-happened.”
Was that his voice?
“You were shot twice in the stomach. Do you remember getting shot?”
Porter didn’t say anything. He was suddenly too cold to speak.
The buzzer went off again.
“Take another breath.”
Porter took a breath, but knew it was shallow. The sound didn’t stop.
“Come on Mr. Porter, we need to get you breathing on your own again.”
He forced his chest to swell, feeling with his mind for the bullet wound. Nerves signaled to his brain a sensation of tightness and depth. He didn’t want to move anymore.
The sound ceased.
“This alarm is tracking your respiration,” she said, though for some reason he didn’t believe her; there was nothing on his face that he could feel. How could the machine know when he was breathing? “It will go off whenever you are not drinking enough oxygen.”
Porter closed his eyes as they grew wet.
“We didn’t know your medical history, and consequently used anesthesia that we now see you are allergic too. The planned extubation, the removal of the tube, was delayed, but you continued to improve. Your blood count remains good. No blood in your urine. We took the tube out of your bladder and removed the tube from your mouth and airway. You were kept another twenty-four hours for observation in the intensive care unit. You’ll be okay. But concentrate on your breathing. Take long breaths. Open your lungs. You’ve been on a machine and need to draw air on your own now. Do you understand.”
The alarm went off, screaming.
Porter heaved his chest, sucking as if it were the last time he’d taste oxygen. He couldn’t fill his lungs though he tried. He sank when the speaker sang silence.
“I don’t think anyone should see him,” she said, walking.
Porter replayed the words in his mind and realized the nurse wasn’t speaking to him just then.
There was another voice…a man in the room.
Picturing black turtlenecks and revolvers with silencers attached, Porter kept his eyes closed, hoping the world would go away.
“FBI?” she said. “I guess.”
FBI, Porter thought, right!
“Hey, hen na yatsu,” said the man in his ear. “You awake, Porter?”
Porter lifted his heavy eyelids and moved his head like a newborn’s, weaving in the direction he wanted to see. He made out the dark figure.
“They said you’ve taken a couple bullets. Hurts, doesn’t it.”
“Clusser?” said Porter, shivering out a sigh. He fluttered his eyelids, but couldn’t clear his vision. “I’m freezing.”