All Stories, General Fiction

In the Blink of an Eye by David Henson

literallystories2014

“Mr. Jacobs?” someone says. Roger tries to answer but can’t talk, can’t move a finger. His eyes seem glued shut. “You try,” the voice says. 

“Honey, do you hear me?” Roger recognizes the voice of his wife, Carolyn.

“Roger, you’re in the hospital. You had an accident.” Roger has no idea what she’s talking about. “This man is Dr. Johnson.”

Roger swims in and out of consciousness for days, maybe weeks, his thoughts blurring like fish  in a crowded bowl. He gathers snippets of what Carolyn and Dr. Johnson say and weaves together that he has Locked-In Syndrome. Nurses nag him to move his eyes, but he still can’t open them. It turns out the big brother of LIS, Total Locked-In Syndrome, has assaulted him.

Roger finds that the bottoms of his feet are popular. “Does that tickle, Mr. Jacobs?” Yes, cut it out, he wants to scream. He wants to scream most of the time. 

One morning, or afternoon, or evening, he overhears Carolyn and Dr. Johnson. The doctor hopes to be head of Neurology by 40. Roger knows his wife wants to make partner by 35. Wouldn’t they make a sweet power couple? Guilt jabs him like a hypo, and not just for his jealousy. He must be draining energy from Carolyn as if he were a loose connection. That can’t be helping her at work. 

Dr. Johnson excuses himself, and a nurse asks Carolyn if she and Roger planned to have children. After he drags himself over the past tense, the thought of having children unleashes a string of memories: joining an out-of-town company for its parental leave policy, driving to work, texting his eyes off the road, and the tree.

#

Weeks lumber by. Thought games kill time and help Roger manage his panic when Carolyn’s not there. A murmur of voices becomes a murder of crows, a slaughter of minutes, a clutch of car transmissions, scurry of squirrels. That one might be real, he thinks. An anger of locked-in victims. He knows that one is. He comes up with nearly a hundred. A-ha, there’s another: an exaggeration of accomplishments.

Roger wanders in fantasies for hours, even when being poked and prodded. “And now, ladies and gentlemen…Roger Jacobs!” polite clapping A spotlight hits his right eye, then his left. You say my pupils are responding? he jokes to himself. They can’t be my pupils. I’m not a teacher. silence Is this microphone working? tap, tap Folks, I’m not the funniest standup comic, but I’m best ever lying down, right? thunderous applause.

One evening, he’s on high alert for Carolyn when…“Roger, it’s me.” She’s here! Carolyn, Carolyn, Carolyn. He tells himself that if he had a tail, he’d wag it. But he’s not a dog; he’s an honorary member of the Petrified Forest. Never mind that, Carolyn’s here!

Roger concentrates on the smoothness of his wife’s skin as she strokes his hand with her thumb. Today he’s killed it on stage, talked a poacher out of his elephant gun, and won a triathlon, but nothing beats this. His wife tells him about an insurance case she’s handling. Although the details are deadly dull, the sound of her voice is a concerto. Too soon, Roger feels her lips on his. Nine o’clock already? 

Roger knows when Carolyn is home, she’ll study legal briefs. She’ll stop to see him in the morning on her way to the office and again after work. She spends weekends with him. How long can she keep this up? he asks himself. How long should she?

#

I gotta get out, Roger thinks. Gotta get out. Let me out of here. Let me out, let me out, let me out. I gotta get out, let me out, let me out, let me out. “Oh, Mr. Jacobs, your pulse is racing. Let’s calm you down.” No, nurse, Roger screams in his mind. That stuff makes me sleep. Nurse, Carolyn’s coming. I don’t want to be asleep when Carolyn’s here. No, nurse, don’t. That … knocks…me…out…

…Where’s Carolyn? Roger wonders.

“I hope you enjoyed your visit with your wife, Mr. Jacobs. It’s nice she could stay a little longer.”

Let me out.

#

The nurse tells Roger it’s Saturday morning. Where’s Carolyn? he wonders. Is she OK? Has she had enough? It’s hard for him to calm himself when he can’t breathe deeply, pace the floor, or fidget. His nervous energy crackles in his eyes, and he feels them twitch under his lids. Then, at last, he hears Carolyn.

“Sorry I’m late, Roger. I saw Dr. Johnson in the hallway.” She squeezes his hand. He tries so hard to squeeze back, his eyes water. Carolyn dabs his cheek. “I wish you could tell me what’s going on in there.” She spreads open his right eye. When she lets go, he’s able keep it open, then close it. Then he opens both eyes and blinks.

Roger gets a look at Carolyn for the first time since his accident. He sees dark circles and bags under her eyes. She’s lost weight and appears exhausted. But at the sight of him blinking, she sings, picks up his hands and dances with his limp arms. 

Roger and Carolyn work out a simple system of communication. One blink for yes, two for no. Carolyn brings in a Ouija Board, and Roger spells out messages by blinking as she traces her fingers along the letters. His favorite word is “recovery.”

Dr. Johnson cautions the couple not to get ahead of themselves and orders another EEG. When they get the results, Carolyn wilts. Roger realizes that he needs a new favorite word. And it’s not “acceptance.”

#

Roger dreams that his wife, her long hair straggled and gray, climbs into the bed with him and pushes a breathing tube into a slit in her throat. 

The next morning when Carolyn arrives before work, she holds up the Ouija Board. “Talk?” 

Roger considers telling her about his dream, but instead blinks twice, no. 

A nurse reaches for the empty bag connected to his feeding tube. “Time for a refill, Mr. Jacobs.”

He blinks twice.

“Sorry?”

No.

The nurse looks at Carolyn. 

“What’s going on, Roger?” His wife picks up the Ouija Board.

He blinks twice.

The nurse presses the call button. 

“She has to replace your feeding bag,” Carolyn says. 

No.

Carolyn tries to speak, but her voice breaks. She blinks once, yes.

Roger blinks twice. 

Their eyes argue, but Roger is the more experienced blink-speaker. After a while, Dr. Johnson enters the room and huddles with Carolyn and the nurse. A murmur of voices. They approach him.

#

Roger spends several minutes being videoed blinking confirmation of declarations and attestations. At one point, he notices Dr. Johnson putting his arm around Carolyn.

Finally, it’s time. “Are you sure, Mr. Jacobs?” Doctor Johnson approaches Roger’s breathing machine. Carolyn’s face glides in from his periphery, and his wife squeezes his hand. With hope, Roger blinks once.

David Henson

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay – Male eyes closed.

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Published by literallystories2014

27 thoughts on “In the Blink of an Eye by David Henson”

  1. Mr. Henson – you are a master. This story is told with humour, tension, sadness and cleverness. I loved the slight Walter Mitty part with his imagined adventures. I also thought the blinking over the Ouija board was a very smart and moving way to have him communicate with Carolyn. Then the sucker punch ending saying to switch him off is brilliantly handled. Also, so many great lines, but I think my favourite few words in this one, simply for their brutality, are ‘and the tree.’

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  2. Such a sad story, and I felt every beat of it. The horror of LIS, or being trapped in your own body, described beautifully here.

    My Father in law lives with an acquired brain injury and I often wonder what’s going on in there.

    Thankfully Roger had a choice in the end.

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  3. Hi Dave,

    Another superb story.

    You can’t help but show your imagination and what is impressive about this story is that your imagination had to be thoughtful, realistic and respectful.

    I love the madness of some of your stories but this one shows the same level of skills handled a different way!!

    Brilliant!!

    All the very best my fine friend.

    Hugh

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    2. The book is good too, an anti-war volume that picked up popularity during the Viet Nam war, when it was made into a movie, written by Dalton Trumbo. It won “the most original book of the year award” in 1939. Trumbo was blackisted during the fifties, served a year in prison for “contempt of congress.”

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  5. Surely someone’s worst nightmare to be suffering from one of these diseases and injuries but the way that this was humanised was the magic. The ending was handled superbly well. Great stuff. – Thank you – Diane

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  6. David
    This is a complex and suspenseful narrative that describes a horrifying situation with humor and intensity. The main character’s lively stream of conscious presented in ultra-clear, rhythmic prose was very effective. It’s a fact that many people look forward to their own deaths, and maybe all of us will one day, depending on the circumstances and when our time comes. The way you presented this character accepting his own death like it was just walking through another door was also effective. There was sadness and a tragic feeling at the end of the story, as in Hemingway, but also the hope that comes with release, escape, and freedom, of being able to walk on, walk out, or walk away, as in Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman and the Transcendentalists. In “The Spooky Art,” Norman Mailer said that TONE is the most important thing in writing. The way this story combines a deadly serious with a very light-hearted tone is original. It has the feel of a classic short story by O. Henry. One of the themes seems to be that death is both as ordinary AND as extraordinary as the rest of life. Thanks!
    Dale

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      1. David
        Your story is a fine example of the “show, don’t tell” rule for creative and narrative writing. It invites a wide array of interpretations even as it remains extremely clear and lucid.
        For some reason, it also reminded me of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for death.” Having read thousands upon thousands of student rough drafts as a college creative writing teacher for a lot of years, I know that in many ways there are two kinds of stories about death. The first kind wants nothing to do with it, and the second kind is sentimental beyond belief. Since there can’t be a more important topic, a story like this that deals with death in a complex way is a welcome relief. Thanks again!
        Dale

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  8. David,
    The human mind is a glorious thing, until it isn’t. No word games inside his head could replace what Roger had lost. You took us so masterfully down his path toward acceptance to where it ends — with and in the blink of an eye. Masterful!
    Gerry

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  9. Wonderful story, David. The ebb and flow of despair and joy that Roger experienced was beautifully done. I’m not much of a crier, but the ending brought me close to tears. Roger and I became that close in a matter of a few minutes.
    Best to you
    Roy

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  12. This story had me absorbed from the start, because I knew someone who’d been in a coma for six months and he too worked out a communication method with his main visitor, his mother. Unlike Roger, he pulled out of it. I was moved by Roger’s thoughts of his wife and how he lives for her visits, then how he decides to release her by doing assisted death. There’s some dark humour here, how Roger copes. At the end, it says he blinks “with hope,” for he did make a choice and is going with that, but I think this is a definite horror story, it scared me!

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