"BORROWED TIME". (4.1)

BY: MAURICIO ESCOBAR

4.1 

No guts, no glory…

-       Hey, you –he heard. It was a whisper.

And then, there was silence.

No guts, no glory, brother…

And then a gunshot.

-       Hey, you, the newbie –said the voice again.

Martin opened his eyes slowly.

-       I know you can hear me!

He had been dreaming, but the voice was real. The atmosphere was nauseating, heavy and lazy. It took him more than an instant to come into his senses.

No guts, no glory, lil’ brother…

The sound of waves in the ocean… A bright sun…

He shook his head.

The rush of the events he had witnessed made their appearance quickly and as a first impulse he thought of jumping off and run away, almost as the man chased down by the policemen; but he promptly realized that his will was decimated and diminished. He tried to move his limbs but his bones felt weighty as bricks. The objects around seem to glow, a clear indication of some sort of drug or a tranquilizer taking effect. He remembered the sting in his neck and closed his eyes again.

No guts…

Where was he now?

He looked around. His eyes spotted strange monitors which let go monotonic beeps and outlined strange sharpie signals along with cascades of indecipherable numbers on their sophisticated screens. He couldn’t make out what they where.

The atmosphere felt charged and, soon enough, the heavy smell of disinfectant reached him. As his eyesight became sharper, he recognized he was still lying on a stretcher now parked in a sort of cubicle and if he was in a hospital or not, he easily deducted it was some sort of medical facility. Perhaps, there had been a rescue after all, but he didn’t remember a thing. Although the memory of the escaping man and the masked policemen and the medics were perfectly clear and even the spectral figure of the floating astronaut and the airplane were sharp, the imagery of past events seemed fuzzy and nebulous. He remembered he was onboard… but why was he there in the first place? He remembered he was going somewhere. Where was he heading? He remembered… The suitcase… It was important, but… what was in it? A conscious effort couldn’t return anything more than white noise and confusing thoughts.

…Lil’ brother…

-       Hey, man!

The voice returned; he noticed, came from his right. He couldn’t lift his head to corroborate it, but he figured quickly that the cubicle was not all the room there was; apparently it was contained in a larger, bigger room and the cubicles were adjacent one another. Perhaps, more patients were in those cubicles and one of them was the voice.

-       Hey! You! Where are you from, man? –inquired the voice.

Martin couldn’t move his lips. His throat was painfully dry. He started to anxiously thirst for a glass of water.

-       Can you tell? Do you remember where are you from?

Martin fought to stay conscious and started to distrust what he was hearing. Where was he from? What kind of question was that?, he thought. Perhaps it was a foreign passenger of the airplane.

-       Hey! Hey, guy, you still with me there? –said the echo. –Uh, it’s the drugs. I know. You can’t talk, right? Their drugs are not too good, you know. I played numb and they bought it.

There was a brief silence just broken by the beeps and electronic moans. Martin coughed.

-       Oh, that’s a yes? OK, got ya. OK, so you can’t tell me where you are coming from… -said the voice doubtfully. -What about the president?

Martin frowned, now more conscious of the strangeness of the question.

-       What happened? –he murmured, but his voice was barely louder than the orchestra of gizmos.

-       The president… -continued the voice. –Uh… OK, uh… Just cough when you want me to stop. Was it Bush? Was it Bush, Jr.? Clinton? Was it…, uh, what was his name…? I knew him… Obama?

He tried to lift his head but his eyesight immediately started to spin. He put it back down.

Martin coughed.

-       Really? So you’re from after September 11, aren’t you?

-       What…? –Martin cleared his throat. –What happened? –but still his voice was too faint.

-       Is it true he is african-american? I would’ve loved to see that. I’m african-american myself. How’s the world? Is it too different?

However, Martin still couldn’t answer.

-       They say I have a few hours before they put me back –said the man.

Put back… where?

The flashback of the fugitive flared in Martin’s head briefly. He remembered him yelling it. He didn’t want to be put back.

Put back… where?

-       Help! –Martin finally could yell, audibly enough.

The voice didn’t reply immediately.

-       Be cool, bro. Save your strength. You have to be strong –it advised.

Martin tried to sit up, but still the world revolved violently around him. The drugs were still in his system.

-       Please, help me.

-       Calm down.

-       What… What is… this place? Where… am… I? –he stammered out between coughs.

-       You have to be strong –the voice replied, but it sounded more like a consolation.

Martin frowned.

-       What?

-       Please…

-       What?

-       You have to be strong, bro –said the voice, this time almost inaudibly.

-       What…?

There was a tense silence right after.

-       You’re going to die.

TO BE CONTINUED...