Prelude
"Sir? Sir? You can't stand here, please move so the doctors can take care of him. Sir!"
Joshua Kingsbury blinked and suddenly the world turned on again. Shouts echoed down tile and plaster hallways, making themselves louder than they really were.
"Nurse, prep the Defibrillator! Tilt his head back, clear an airway!"
He watched as men and women dressed in scrubs whipped out a plastic sheet, one of the more useful new age devices. There was a circle of one-way fabric, much like a doctor's mask. It was made to prevent any form of transmittable disease. HIV, hepatitis, herpes and any other manner of undesirable illness... like this flu. This crazy flu...
They were fitting the piece over Alex's mouth, leaning forward, breathing into him, leaning back and massaging his heart through CPR.
Live, live, common live, you ******** a*****e. LIVE!Josh was left slightly mollified and slightly disgruntled, a twinge of guilt added to it as afterthought. How could he? How could that b*****d have the audacity to just collapse and die like that? Weren't they going to go in some great way? A car crash, a train wreck, an explosion for their grand finale. Go out with a BANG, you know? Maybe save a few lives nobly and make that big sacrifice, be a HERO, you know? Ever since they had met when they were twelve they had planned it that way.
But Alex Guillum had gone out with little more than a whimper. One moment he'd been standing there, looking like s**t, complaining about how he was bored and tired and how he probably didn't even need the damn check-up anyway and the next his eyes had rolled up into his head and he'd collapsed forward onto his knees, slumping forward onto his face from there.
Jerk."Sir! Please get out of the way." The nurse that had been tugging at his shirt sleeve before now forcefully grabbed Josh's arm and pulled him to the side as a man and woman barreled past them pushing a cart with a Defibrillator machine. They went about getting out this clear, gooey jell, rubbing the plates together as the doctor who had been performing CPR deftly ripped Alex's shirt off.
"Sir, sir, what's your name, please, sir?" She was obviously trying to comfort him, guiding him backward further away.
"Josh Kingsbury."
"Do you know that man, Mr. Kingsbury?"
"Yeah... he's my best mate."
"Alright, clear!"
Ka-THMP"One, two, three, four..."
"-ame, Mr. Kingsbury?"
"...six, seven..."
"Doctor, someones flatl-"
"Clear!"
Ka-THMP"Mr. Kingsbury?"
Too much movement, too much sound. Josh finally turned away from everything, to the nurse, looking down at the little woman who in turn looked sympathetically up at him. Josh reached up and pressed his palm against his right eye, closing the other. "Alex... Alex Guillum. Is he.."
The nurse didn't respond, instead turning toward the small knot of people. The sounds had suddenly stopped almost as soon as they had begun and the hallway echoed now with only the idle sounds of the footsteps of people who had no clue. The man leaned over Alex sighed, handing the defibrillator pads up to the nurse that stood nearby. "I... I'm calling it..." Next to Josh he looked the most heartbroken person in the room. "Time of death... 2:30pm, November 16th, 2051."
The people dispersed slowly, back to their business, back to their jobs. A few stayed behind to help move the body, but not before the little nurse who had tried to comfort Alex made her way to the doctor, exchanging soft words with him. He gave a tired nod, dark hair falling in front of his eyes as he looked over toward Josh, motioning him forward. He put his hands in his lab pockets quietly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kingsbury... we can give you five minutes with him but then we've got to move him, alright?" With a very light pat to Josh's shoulder the doctor stepped back to give him some room.
The young male stood still, shadow crossing over the body of his best mate, Alex Guillum. Slowly he knelt by the other, sighing, reaching out to touch but falling short, something inside of him squirming at the thought of touching dead flesh. "I guess... maybe it was a big bang, huh..?" Josh felt his throat tightening, eyes burning. He clenched his jaw tightly and swallowed hard. No tears in front of his friend, he was a man. "With all.. the people around you, fussing over you. Damnit, you a*****e."
All too soon a hand was lightly touching between his shoulders and he looked up into the weary doctor's face, understanding. He silently stood up and watched as two men grunted to lift Alex onto the stretcher. They covered him unceremoniously with a white sheet, wheeled him down the hall, into an elevator... and then.... and then he...
He was really gone...
The doctor and nurse left him alone, disappearing, leaving Josh to stand quietly in that echoing hallway, with his thoughts and memories, fighting down that urge of helplessness, hopelessness. Eventually he moved, went home, went to bed and slept the rest of the day away.
~
