A MIRACULOUS JOURNEY WITH THOR AND HISSTORY — CHAPTER TEN

Toiled the tired clock creeping upon midnight at Clatterly Hospital. Visiting hours had long since terminated. In room eight of the neuro intensive care unit on the seventh floor, fallow lay a prostrate barren boy, his limp hands gripped by Stafford Klingshire and Virgil Theogen. Somber they sat aside him, a rift torn into their hearts. Neither could come to terms with the brusque reality thrust upon them nor fathom how much they loved Thor until whacked with the grim prospect of losing him. Both would have switched places with the strapping stripling of vast potential, unfulfilled dreams, unrealized goals, and a nascent destiny they distinguished he possessed. Death is inevitable but goes against the grain when the young tragically pass before the old. Untimely deaths cannot be assuaged, driving a senseless stake into those that remain bearing the loss.  

Well-established were the facts of the incapacitated kid’s case. Witnesses documented his collapse in the hospital cafeteria. Rushed to the emergency ward, tests by medical ministers conclusively verified the rare, massive stroke. Unsuccessful was the drug administered to dissolve the diagnosed clot lodged in the left hemisphere of his brain. The precise location of the clot rendered surgery impractical. Besides, the kid was comatose. The prognosis imparted no shred of hope.

Sitting distraught through the bleak night, the despondent duo became addicted to watching the monitors, which pretended Thor was fine. His heart rate had normalized with a robust beat, his blood pressure braced by heavy medication. Supplying his lungs with oxygen, a ventilator sustained his unwavering rhythmic breathing. Intravenous tubes provided his nourishment. In truth, he was tied to the world purely by life support equipment.

The coma could be imagined as a serene sopor, if the room was deserted before a physician pushed back Thor’s eyelids. Revealed reseda orbs lacked response to stimuli; vacuous pupils propped open failed to contract. Nor did his body react to the constant prodding or simple imperatives such as, Try to squeeze my hand. When his reflexes were tested, none were detected. Where was he? Was his an act of abeyance or desertion? Had he retreated to an unreachable crevice in his mind or vacated his body which appeared to be an empty shell absent his zesty persona?

At five in the morning, Dr. Moshamp rounded with his team, waking the venerable elders.

“May I speak with you in private, Theogen?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Klingshire should hear. He is as much the boy’s guardian as I am.”

“You’re the only legal guardian. The fiat I seek is yours.”

“What fiat?”

“We have to justify how our hospital resources are spent. You have to justify how your Institute resources are spent. Why prolong the obvious? We both know the right decision for him.”

“We do? I appreciate your sophistication in handling these delicate matters, to relegate his case to a statistic regarding financial resources, so that I could junk him in a dumpster without a backward glance of guilt.” 

“Put the onus on me. My reference to resources is broader than finances. Doctors make dispassionate judgments relying on objective medical findings. The boy’s gone, Theogen. It’s not a question of better care. We’ve done everything. He’s not suffering, but he’s not there. Act swiftly for his sake and do the right thing. If he could speak on his behalf, that would be his wish.” 

“You’re trained to be frank with your patients and their families, guiding them to make tough choices. You see things in black and white as a doctor should. I respect that aptitude, but this decision is not yours. I’m his aegis, his advocate, and I won’t put the onus on anyone but myself. As you made clear, I alone have the legal authority to fight this battle or end his existence, and my decision to take to the grave.”

“His existence is an illusion. No one will fault you for a decision with a sound basis.”

“I don’t have the finesse to pull the plug with a purported sound basis, and I don’t apologize for lack of that suave capacity.”

“Suave capacity? Where’s your rationale? He’s not your son, not a child of your blood. You can’t drain your resources on one orphan to no avail when you’re responsible for the support of an entire institution.”

“His friends will come to visit.”

“His friends? Children aren’t allowed in the ICU.”

“Then why is he here?”

“Of course, patients are exceptions.”

“Make more exceptions, Dr. Moshamp. You asked for a decision. That is mine.”

Theogen and Stafford simultaneously peered upward.

“What?” asked Dr. Moshamp.

“You didn’t hear it?”

“Hear what?”

Stafford interjected, “Nothing, but the phantasms of us relics up all night.”

Departing with his rounding team, Dr. Moshamp shrugged, “If you’re counting on a sign, perhaps no sign is a sign. Good day, gentlemen.” 

“You certainly defied him,” remarked Stafford.

“I did. Was I correct? I don’t know. I’m selfish, I guess. I have no hope, still I don’t want to let him go.”

“Neither do I. We’re both selfish.” 

“Pulling the plug is so… final. Ah, there it is again.”

“Yes. Faint, but distinct.”

“The rustle of wings, that’s what it sounds like to me.”

“Apt description. Can’t think of a better one.”

“Yet there’s nothing.”

“Nothing to behold with mortal eyes.”

“Perhaps we’re messaged to let him go, that he’ll be all right, that we shouldn’t fight.”

“Reminds me of a poem I heard when children are moribund.”

“The one about the angels? I haven’t heard that in ages. Can you recite it?”

“Haven’t a clue, but I’ll give it a shot. Hmm, how does it start?... Ah, yes. I remember.

“They hold out their hand so you may pray

The angels come to take them away.

How can they contest the lies you’re fed

When you’re led to believe what’s bred in your head?

Take their hand; they implore you to clasp it.

They’ll tell you the truth, but will you grasp it? 

Open your heart; they’re begging to reach you.

Give them your mind; they’re trying to teach you.

 Let them go; don’t you see they beseech you?”

 “Good memory you have. Stop being selfish, that’s the gist. Cease raising my fist. Is that what you want, Thor, to end this war I’m waging with the doctors and leave you in peace?”    

 “The older I grow, the less I realize I know. Doubt displaces certainty, that’s how it’s dished out to me.” 

“Youth fosters self-reliance, though aged I drum up a hefty defiance.”

“Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“I tell the children what I’m taught to say, but I’m not confident. It’s assuring to believe, but that could be a bourgeois mirage. How about you?”

“I don’t ponder the afterlife nor pander to theological rhetoric. I concentrate on the here and now, and the ugly present I perceive contradicts my morality, butts heads with my sanity. This fledgling restored my faith in goodness, that it truly exists in a human form. I never conceived my path would cross the personification of godliness. To clip a vernal bloom as he is badness. Can evil erase his essence? I disavow such dolorous canon.”

“You summed up what I couldn’t express to Dr. Moshamp. My board may harangue me as an irresponsible narcissist to negate medical advice by a renowned physician, but I will overcome philistine opposition. These circumstances are incongruous to my gut feeling about Thor, a bohemian puzzle missing momentous pieces.”