Josia's Tale

On a deserted stretch in the mountains, Josiah lay flat on the ground, his face above a hole he’d just dug, and, staring into the hole, he screamed. Echoes bounced from the banks then died, and all was still. “I leave my guilt here,” he said. “It is done.”


Josiah had learned the trick from an Indian, oh, three, maybe four years ago. You dig a hole and fill it with shouting and tears, hate and sorrow. Then you cover the burdens with earth and walk away. Josiah acknowledged no God, neither his own people’s God nor the Great Spirit of the red man, but he understood the need to travel with a light pack and a light heart.



He dug the hole longer and deeper. Along with his conscience, Josiah had a man’s body to bury. The dead man was a prospector, old and whiskery, with clothing stained and smelling of spit, blood and tobacco. He’d left his claim to seek shelter in town before the first blizzard. A loner. He would not be missed. Josiah picked up the old man’s body. Light, whisper-thin, it hung like a sack stuffed with straw in Josiah’s large arms.



Just the evening before, they’d walked side by side in silence, and they’d pitched camp and built a fire before nightfall. Neither had spoken until Josiah pulled out a well-worn greasy hip flask and took a slow, warming swig.



“What you got in there?” the old man had asked. His head down towards the ground, he sneaked sideways glances at the flask.



“Whiskey… You thirsty?”



“A mite. Just to warm the chill from my bones.”



What’s it worth to you?”



For a moment the old man was silent, eyes shifting back and forth. He spit on the ground and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. Then he fumbled inside his shirt and pulled out a stained leather pouch. After an anxious look over his shoulder, he took out a crinkled square of paper and folded into it a small pinch of yellow dust. “I got gold,” he said.



They sat by the fire passing the flask back and forth, staring at the fire. “Wish I’d set to prospecting instead of trapping,” Josiah said. He fingered the dirty piece of paper containing the gold and wondered exactly how much it was worth. “I’d dig up enough gold to set me living soft, then spend the rest of my days with fancy clothes and fancy women.”



The prospector yawned. “It don’t work that way. Gold’s funny. It’s pretty and it’s yours, and it shines and warms you, then it grows at you ‘till it owns you and it’s God.”



They kicked dirt on the fire, and while they slept, the stained pouch never stopped dancing behind Josiah’s closed lids.



For Josiah, the next morning was only disjointed sensations: the feel of his pistol, death-cold like the November air and the sharp thunderclap sound as it discharged; then the tingling odor of gunpowder, and the old man crumpling to the ground. These were the thoughts he was leaving behind in the hole. Josiah had killed foxes, bears, snakes, wolverines – all kinds of animals – for food and pelts, but he’d never killed a man before. He hadn't expect it to be any different.



Now, Josiah searched the body and pulled out the leather pouch. It lay heavy in his hand. Inside, were coins, and nuggets, and a fist full of dust and flakes – much more than Josiah had expected.



“Ashes to ashes; dust to dust,” he muttered. Josiah lay the old man’s body into the newly-dug grave. Its face grinned up at him as he began to fill the hole with dirt.



While he worked, Josiah jingled the pouch. He thought about Priscilla and the feel of her arm, so soft in his strong hands, and how she’d pulled away from him. “Pa’s waiting. I have to hurry home.” It seemed she was always hurrying away for something. These memories made him angry, but they were the thoughts savor, to hang on to. They were not feelings to leave behind in an earthen hole. He jingled the bag again wondering how many nuggets it would take to buy Priscilla’s body, and how many more to win her affection.



Like most women, Priscilla had shunned Josiah, and he kept trying to figure out why. He didn’t have a pretty-boy milky face. Years of sun, wind, and disappointment – all that time scraping through the Sierras trapping skins – had tanned his face leather-hard. He wasn’t rich either; women always wanted a man with money and land. He should have married long ago. But now he had gold! Now they’d come to him like trout to a hooked worm.



Josiah whistled, throwing the last clods of frost-hard dirt over the hole. Then he covered the mound with rocks, enough rocks to keep the dead silent. He turned his back to the grave and walked away.



As the first flakes of snow fell, Josiah shivered, pulling his jacket close around himself. He jammed a beaver-skin cap down tighter over his head. Too bad his horse and the old man’s mule had bolted, shying from the gunshot, but it wasn’t more than a few miles into town, and the main body of the storm was still several hours away. It would be a half-hour at most from the mountain down to the flats, and maybe another hour to the warmth of town. He jingled his pouch as he walked. Inside of it was gold enough for women, horses, hotel rooms, and hot baths – as many as he wanted.



The wind picked up, nudging hard at his back, and grumbling, crushing sounds broke through the trees behind him. Josiah turned, his hand on the butt of his pistol. Rocks and boulders, knocked loose by the gathering storm, were tumbling down the mountain’s steeper slopes. What about the rocks on the old man’s grave? Had any of them been knocked loose? Josiah looked up, squinting into the wind.



That’s stupid. Those rocks ain’t budging none. Anyway, that business with the hole was crazy, just superstition. It didn’t mean nothing. He stared up the mountain trying to find the spot where he’d dug the grave.



With an angry howl, the wind shifted, bringing with it more snow, and Josiah set his face against it, working his way towards the town. But then, in a copse to his right, Josiah saw movement – maybe the old dun mare, his only friend, or maybe just his mind tricking his eyes. Josiah turned towards the trees and listened. Hoof beats, he thought, peering through the branches and falling snow.



“Here Jezebel,” he whistled softly. “Come here old girl.” But there was no answering nicker. Josiah watched and followed, straining for a glimpse of his horse. He finally saw it, not the mare, but a four-pointed stag seeking lower ground and shelter from the oncoming storm.



Beast from Hell,” he muttered. He pulled his pistol out and fired at the stag. It reared, eyes wide with fright, then bolted zigzagging through brush and snow. Josiah turned to follow, a stubborn rage dogging his steps. He continued the chase well after the last trace of the animal had disappeared in white confusion.



In defeat, Josiah pushed against the wind once more, heading downhill. Snow fell in large wet clumps now, and the wind whistled furiously, stinging his face. The sky turned from white to gray. Josiah quickened his steps down the mountain. The storm had come faster than he’d reckoned. He’d have to be careful.



Ice was settling on Josiah’s face, no longer melting. Josiah paused to wipe the crystals from his beard and mustache. Deep in thought, he rubbed his hands across his face as he scanned the territory ahead for pathways and landmarks, mechanically circling his eyes, nose and mouth. The habitual motion comforted him.



The wind whistled and Josiah felt as though someone were behind him. He almost sensed breathing, but it was probably just the wind. He whipped around suddenly but saw nothing. Just nerves, he thought. Just nerves. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not alone, and then he knew why. Tobacco! Ever so faintly, he smelled tobacco. Like the morning after the evening in a whorehouse, the smell was everywhere and nowhere. He turned around shouting into the trees. “Who’s there? Show yourself.” There was no answering shout. Saplings bent; branches waved in eerie patters of light and dark. He peered through the falling snow searching for a different kind of movement.



The wind shrieked. It was hard to find the path now in the deepening snow. And still the odor of tobacco haunted him. “Where are you? What do you want?” Josiah trudged on, wary like stalked prey. He spun on his heels, peering into the murky gloom, perspiring in spite of the biting wind. It had to be just mind tricks. He’d left the old man with his tobacco stink behind him up the hill. He pulled out his pistol and fired four shots – one in each direction. The wind and snow muffled the sound.



He stared at the pistol; then he stared at his hands. Of course! He’d gotten the tobacco smell on his hands when he’d buried the body. That’s all it was. Mind tricks, like he’d known all along. The swirling white snow, the howl of the wind – they could do that to a man. But that was all it was - just mind tricks. He pulled needles off a nearby sapling and rolled them around in his hands, then rubbed the needles on his clothes and his face. “Go away old man,” he shouted into the wind. “Rest in Hell where you belong. You’re dead and I’m not, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”



An hour later, he‘d made his way down to the flats. The town was a shimmering mound, all but hidden by the falling snow. He looked carefully, got his bearings and began walking towards it.



White snow burned his eyes. The wind whistled steadily, “Siah, siah, siah, siah,” nibbling around the edges of his mind like a rat. Josiah pushed his cap down low around his ears to muffle the sound.



The wind shifted; the afternoon sky grew dark. Josiah took care to keep walking straight, as the town and the mountains were now invisible in the swirling snow. A sharp crashing noise broke behind him. Just the wind, thought Josiah. All the same, he turned towards the sound in reflex.



“Don’t spook now,” he told himself. “You left all that buried in a hole.”



“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, siah, siah.” Just the wind playing tricks.



Snow swirled, dirty gray-white like the old prospector’s beard. He searched the horizon for a sign of the settlement, but there was only biting wind, now blowing in circles and sheet after sheet of snow. Without a landmark for bearings, he could only pray his way back to the village, but prayer stuck dry in his throat like rocks in a summer’s gulch. Josiah made his best guess at the direction of the town and bent his face into the wind toward the hope of warmth.



“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, slayer, siah, siah.” And the wind blew, whistling an elegy clear through to his soul.



A wolf howled in the distance. Another answered. “Atone, atone.”



The white stung his eyes and the wind hissed steadily. “Siah, siah, siah, Josiah siah, siah repent.” The words rasped in his head. His heart and gut twisted like old, gnarled tree roots. His face turned hard. His mouth set, grimaced. He saw the old man’s face, an apparition in the icy air. “Your fault, you ghoul, you dog! You let me see your gold. No man is such a fool. You planned to take my life all along, my life and my soul, you demon.”



“Siah, siah, repent, repent, siah.”



“You were old, old man. Your life was nothing more than dust, tobacco, gold and whiskey. It was a kindness to kill you. The fox whose head I twisted in pity was more worthy of life than you.”



“Siah, siah, what have you done, Josiah?”



The white glare half-blinded him. After-images appeared riding on the snow – visions of the old prospector, head bent low with the weight of toil and loneliness. He reached his hand forward. The apparition seemed so real. Josiah felt an urge to put his hand on the prospector’s shoulder. “Old man, fellow traveler, our burdens are much the same. You’ve poured your life into a sack of gold, and I’ve taken it all, your gold, your life, and every chance you had left to you.” As Josiah knelt in the snow, his tears froze on his cheeks.



The buzzing in his head quieted. The wind died, and a sliver of moon shone low on the horizon against a coal-black sky. Lights! Josiah saw them waving at him, dancing a ways to the right of the path he’d been walking. He corrected his bearings and his feet marched in strong, purposeful steps through the silent snow.



“Siah, siah, siah,” sand the wind to him, a lullaby, a chant, a mantra. “Siah, siah, siah, leave the gold, Josiah, siah, siah.” But this couldn’t be real. Just his mind. “Siah, siah, leave the gold. It isn’t your to keep.”



“It owns you, and it’s God.” That’s what the old prospector had said about gold. Give up the gold? When he was so close to town? “My head’s gone crazy. That’s all. It’s just that the wind and the cold, they’re making me crazy.” He fingered the pouch under his jacket. He pulled it out to look at …



“Siah, siah. Leave the gold. Empty the pouch. Throw it out, nugget by nugget, flake by flake. Throw each piece strong, with your back and shoulders hard behind the throw. Then fling the dust as far as you can, and turn the pouch inside out, and rub it clean in the s now.”



Josiah stared at the lights of town and knew he could walk the distance. It was no more than half a mile away. He put the pouch back under his shirt, and his muscles twisted with pain because of the load he carried.







In the following spring before the snow had completely melted, two ranchers found him – at least they found his body. He was holding an empty leather pouch, turned inside out and rubbed clean. “He sure do look peaceful,” said one. “Hell, I ain’t never seen him smile like that when was alive.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXIX

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXIX pgs. 257-258

He drove slowly until he came to the end of the road. Then he swung the car around. Damn! He must have passed her on the road. But why hadn’t she yelled? Maybe she didn’t recognize him in the dark. Or, maybe she was playing games too. So he u-turned the car and backtracked one more time looking for Vivian. This time he called to her in the darkness. “Game’s over. Where the hell are you?” Then “Damn it, Vivian, tell me where you are so we can go home and get this friggin’ evening over with.” He honked the horn. “Fine, if that’s what you want, I can just leave you here. Go ahead and spend the night in this muck. See if I care. Someone’s sure to find you tomorrow and you can get a ride home in a tuna truck or something.” And, finally, “Hey, Vivian… okay, I’m sorry…Where are you?”


She had to hear him. The small stretch of road just wasn’t that long. Why didn’t she answer? It wasn’t like Vivian to hold a grudge – to play games, to make Alex stew. No, that was his style, not hers. Besides, he held all the cards. He had the car, with its warmth, a stereo, and transportation home, while she was crouching somewhere in the bushes. So why didn’t she answer?

It took a while for Alex to admit the possibility that Vivian couldn’t answer him. That she had hit her head or had fallen into water. But it seemed so unlikely. No one ever passed out from a bump on the head, except in the movies. He dug through the car’s glove compartment, and then through the trunk looking for a flashlight, but there wasn’t one. So he set the headlights on high beam and pointed them at the stretch of bushes ahead. Then he climbed out of the car and began examining the road bit by bit. There had to be a simple explanation. Surely Vivian was okay. She hadn’t fallen that hard.

But this was Chappaquiddick. And the bridge was already home to one ghost. And Alex sensed evil in the air around him. He was cold and scared, as scared as when he’d been an eleven-year-old boy running away from home, and realizing that he didn’t have the resources he needed to run away.

Disheartened, Alex sat down on a rock. Puddin’ Creek all over again, he thought. Back then he had run away from a whipping. How simple that would have been compared to this! His wife was missing; he was responsible, and he was very drunk, and he had very unforgiving partners. They would forgive him for driving drunk, or for losing or hurting or even killing his wife. But they would never forgive him for getting caught. Suddenly he shivered violently, chilled by the misty air and the thought of his partners.

And just as on that night long ago, he was sitting by swampy water with darkness, caused more by evil than by the night. He could see himself holding that book of spells. “Remordia,” he said aloud.

The solution was obvious. He’d go home. Tomorrow he’d call the sheriff. The alcohol would be out of his body by then. If she were alive, no harm no foul. If she were dead, he’d be distraught. “It’s all my fault. We had a fight, and she jumped out of the car.” Alex began practicing his story. “I started to follow her but it was dark, and she was running. She’d had a lot to drink, and she was stumbling about something terrible. ‘Keep away from me,’ she said. And she was taking awful chances running full tilt through the brush. I was afraid that if I kept chasing her she’d fall and hurt herself.” No−better yet – “she told me ‘if you don’t leave right now I’ll drown myself.’ She kept screaming ‘I’ll drown myself. I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t!’ She kept shouting it over and over. So I told her ‘Okay, have it your way. I’m leaving. You don’t have to run anymore.’ I said to her, ‘Call me tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up.’ I thought she’d be okay. There was a house just a few hundred feet down the road from where I left her. She was acting so weird and it scared me and I just wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

He saw it all. It was simple, really. He’d never be blamed. Maybe he’d answer a few difficult questions, but there’d be nothing more than that.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXVII pgs. 248-249


She questioned the wisdom of bringing Johanna home with her. What if Johanna awoke and became violent! Or suppose a neighbor came by and saw her, and called the police! But Maria couldn’t think of any safer place to leave Johanna, and so, with much misgiving, she drove home thankful that night had fallen, and that she’d probably be able to get her into the house without attracting any attention.


Maria’s home was a converted army barrack, which she shared with her father, mother, and two younger brothers. Her father hauled debris and did what odd jobs he could find. Her mother cleaned houses and baby-sat. They had all made sacrifices to send Maria to nursing school in the hope that she would make good - would raise herself and her family out of poverty. Well, thought Maria, that dream is over. And, she cried bitterly for losing the American dream, and for shaming and disappointing her parents. And she cried because she was so frightened of what could happen next.

Ordinarily she shouted a greeting to her parents when she entered the house. This time, Maria entered silently. And she laid Johanna on her own bed, limp and unresponsive, but with a slightly stronger breath and pulse.

What have I done, Maria asked herself staring at Johanna’s limp body. What, in God’s name am I doing now? Maria had never bent rules before. She’d never questioned superiors. And now - and now she’d flagrantly disobeyed orders and ignored the ones in authority. She felt trapped as if walls of water were about to drown her.

Someone else had done this, someone reckless, foolish, someone in Maria’s body who was not Maria, and now she, Maria, was left to deal with the consequences. For Maria was sure that sooner or later she would be caught, and maybe jailed as a traitor. And what if Johanna were to die in her apartment? This was more than she could deal with.

Maria bent over Johanna’s body checking her pulse one more time. It seemed the only thing she was capable of doing. Why had she done it? Johanna was in all likelihood a terrorist, a cruel and dangerous person, and an enemy of the United States of America. And she, Maria, had let her loose to prey on innocents, to wreck havoc.

Maria shuddered thinking about the country she had just betrayed. She remembered swearing her allegiance to the United States. She thought about everything that this country had given her – an education, an opportunity for her family to have a comfortable life, a life that she couldn’t have aspired to in the Philippines. She remembered how large and brilliant the flag had seemed the day she pledged her loyalty to the United States of America. And now, now she’d thrown it all away. And for what?

Gently she passed her hands over the welts and bruises on Johanna’s body. A few places were still infected. Some scars ran deep – great ropes of reddish, thickened skin knotted over her stomach and the insides of her arms and legs – the sensitive, tender parts of her body. And Maria understood - the country to which she pledged her loyalty would not allow this to happen. The United States that she loved, that she had promised to defend, was a country that did not condone torture. Whatever Johanna did, she was not entitled to such treatment. And whoever did this, whoever condoned this, was an enemy of the United States.

Maria startled as her mother entered her room. She wiped at her tears. Her mother tipped her face quizzically. “What happened?”

“She has been hurt. Maybe killed. I didn’t know what to do.” Maria’s mother left the room. Quietly she came back with a small bottle of antiseptic. And she kissed her daughter.

“I have been…fired,” said Maria.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVII

Maria kept walking towards the institute until the two orderlies were out of sight, then turned back towards the shed at a brisk trot. The sun hung low on the horizon, and the sky burst into pink and orange and red flames. As she jogged down the path, thankful that her uniform included sensible nurses’ shoes, she thought about all the things she had seen at the institute. Something was very wrong. Certainly their methods differed from what she had been taught in nursing school. Even criminals were treated with more dignity than Johanna had been.


And why, if Johanna were Muslim, did she talk about God and not Allah? That didn’t make sense. Of course she could have been hiding her religion, but, as drugged as she was, she couldn’t have kept up the pretext of Christianity for long.

Maria was scared. She didn’t know everything.

And who had called the orderlies? Maria was the only one who could have known that Johanna had died.

The door to the building was padlocked. She examined the lock and checked the door for gaps or weak spots. She examined the windows. Maria was reluctant to break the glass, but she finally managed to pry one of the windows open, squeeze herself inside, and get the light turned on. Fearfully, she opened the door to the metal closet. A blast of cold made her shiver. Slabs of beef and pork hung in a row speared on thick hooks. So it was a meat locker.

Maria knelt next to the box on the dirty floor of the shack. It was mostly an act of respect - a wish to commend Johanna’s soul to God, with some final act of reverence.



The jostling motion nudged Johanna, continuing the dream:

Inside the burning room, Johanna sat, stubborn, unforgiving – with both her body and the doctor’s twisted in pain. And the hose lay just outside the door.

“You let me down, Lord. You abandoned me. You asked me to hang the sign, then set me down in the middle of hell on earth and I called you, and you did not answer.”

“I was there.”

“But I didn’t see. I didn’t know. And I was scared and hurting and I called you and asked you to help me, and you didn’t. And I never did anything to deserve all the pain.”

“Johanna.”

“And now you want me to forgive.”

“Johanna!”

Reluctantly she rose and quenched the flames with water, water that laughed as a children running through lawn sprinklers in August. And, through the splashing water, she saw the doctor’s face, shining golden, all but hidden by black, oily smoke. Before, all she’d seen was the smoke. But now, shining through all that, Johanna caught a glimpse of what she’d never seen before – the soul – pure essence – the part of him that God loved. Like the part of her that God had loved and had forgiven all those years ago.

And through the same smoke she saw the rest of them, the nameless faces who had sacrificed her country and her freedom for their greed.

The smoke was there. Corruption, lies, murder. All there. But, shining through it all, God’s divine spark and the souls that God so loved. Amazed and humbled, Johanna found that she could love them too.



Maria looked at the coffin. It seemed such a pathetic end. “Dear God in Heaven.” Shivering, Maria sat down on the floor of the meat locker and made the sign of the cross. “I offer prayers for the soul of Johanna Jacobson. Grant her an entrance into your land of light and life. Please, Lord, I don’t know what she’s done or how she came to be here, but she’s suffered so much. May she find your love and your peace at the end of it all. Then, Maria was weeping, strangely caring about this person whom she barely knew, whom she’d never seen except in a deeply drugged state. And she opened the box to hold Johanna’s hand one last time.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVII




Maria couldn’t stop praying – as if the thoughts in her head had a will of their own. She finished her chores as quickly as possible, then ran back to Johanna’s room to peek in through the doorway to see how she was doing. Maria didn’t dare actually walk in – in case Dr. Heckleweit was there. She’d been told to stay away. Disobeying orders, thought Maria. Guilt came easily to her. She slowed to a walk and softly pushed at Johanna’s door. Maria practiced what she’d say to the doctor. “I’m so sorry, Doctor. I think I might have left an earring in here.” She wasn’t good at telling effective fibs. But Dr. Heckleweit was no longer in the room. Maria looked at Johanna’s monitor. So little movement! Only a few shallow blips to show that any life remained. Why wasn’t someone here? Where was the doctor? He said he was going to stay with Johanna. Terrified, she reached for the button to call Code Blue – a patient in crisis, but she held back. She wasn’t supposed to be in the room.

Just then, two men in smocks opened the door startling Maria. She wheeled around. The larger man spoke. “We understood that the patient in this room has passed.” And they entered with a stretcher to take the remains.

“But…” Maria wasn’t sure what to do. “But she’s not dead.”

The man grabbed Johanna’s wrist and felt for a pulse. “Close enough for government work,” he said, and he elbowed Maria out of the way and unhooked the I. V. drip and monitors.

Maria felt so very small and inadequate. “Into your hands, oh Lord, I commend her spirit,” she said, then made the sign of the cross over Johanna. She watched the men roll Johanna’s body onto a stretcher. “What will you do with her,” Maria asked softly.

“According to Dr. Heckleweit, she doesn’t have any family so the institute will dispose of the body. There’s a small crematorium about thirty miles away from here.” He nodded towards his partner. “We’ll take the body as far as our morgue. As soon as someone has to drive into town, they’ll take the body the rest of the way.”

“May I come with you?” She asked. “Johanna was my first patient here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m Stanley. My partner here is Vince.”

They wheeled Johanna’s body into a waiting van, and drove about a mile down an overgrown path to a metal Quonset hut about thirty feet in length. The men had to pull hard to get the door to open, and, when it did, the creaking groan made Maria jump. Inside, dust, spider webs, and mouse droppings littered the floor. Maria’s eyes adjusted slowly. The only light came from two tiny windows on the right wall. Here and there a Styrofoam cup or a candy wrapper gave evidence that humans had also used the shed. Then she blinked as Vince flipped a switch to turn on a naked light bulb that dangled in the center of the shed.

Great Expectations Chapter XXXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Chapter XXXVI pg. 237



Doctor Heckleweit checked Johanna’s pulse. Twenty-five beats per minute. He’d hoped that it would drop faster. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Johanna’s room when she actually died. A few minutes later, he checked it again. Twenty-three. Then twenty. He entered Maria’s code into the monitoring equipment, increased the speed of the drip, and disconnected the audible alarm. Then he left the room, planning to wait another few minutes before calling the orderlies to remove the body. Johanna could do nothing but dream.


Underneath the suffocating blanket of mud, Johanna flailed her arms around. She drew a breath, inhaling slime. Her throat choked. She tried to cough, and her lungs just shut down. Her hand, thrashing in panic, bore down on a hard object. She felt something claw-like - and then a slender curved shape, like a string of beads. And then she felt fire all through her arm as the scorpion bore down on her fingers with the tip of his tail. She was dying. Johanna knew that. Her last act would be one of kindness. She reached for him, and holding his stinger pinched between her hands, she thrust upward toward air and life. I wonder if he made it, she thought, and then there was only blackness.

 

Great Expectations Chapter XXVI

To read from the beginning, click the photos on the right.


Vivian heard the shouting from the other room and pretended to be asleep. Lately Alex’s behavior frightened her. He hardly slept at all. And when he did nod off, he always woke up screaming or shaking in terror.


She’d tried talking to him, but Alex wouldn’t tell her any of this. She just chalked it up to the weight of leadership, and figured it was the sacrifice that Alex made to keep his country free.

 

Chapter XXXVI



Dr. Heckleweit had increased Johanna’s medication. Her pulse was weak, her breathing almost non-existent. But inside of her motionless body, Johanna’s dreams were vivid, full of the life that her body lacked. “We’ll save them all, me and my Daddy. We’ll save the all.” The dream came back from childhood.

“Here I am, your servant, she said in her dream. What should I do?” Her mind stilled, waiting for an answer. She had so few options, so little opportunity to serve. She was like someone in a nursing home, like someone confined to a wheelchair with nothing to do but pray morning and night. “Okay, so I’ll pray,” Johanna said in her dream.

When Maria walked in Johanna was scarcely breathing. Alarmed by Johanna’s weak vital signs, Maria popped a capsule of smelling salts under her nose. Johanna reacted with a faint sputter.

With Johanna mumbling, Maria put in a call to Dr. Heckleweit. “She almost died,” said Maria. The dosage is too high.”

“I told you when I hired you, never question your orders. She looks placid enough while she’s medicated, but Johanna’s a serious danger to our country. Her conversations with me leave no doubt that, given the opportunity, she’d blow us all up for fun. And she’s an accomplished con artist. Don’t let her fool you.”

“But her vitals are so low! She’s barely conscious. Can you at least look in on her?”

“Fine.” Dr. Heckleweit dropped his voice to a reassuring murmur. “Keep monitoring her vitals and I’ll take a look at her before I leave tonight.”

Johanna felt like she was under water. Nothing made sense. She shivered with cold, and with the sensation of something sinister and slimy crawling along her back. “Please, God, help me. Come back to me. Don’t leave me.” She thrashed and muttered. Most of the words were unintelligible, but Maria could make out “God,” and “leave.” So Maria did the only thing she could think of. “Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on your servant Johanna. Protect her, and save her soul. This I ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” It felt unsettling praying for a Muslim. But if Johanna were indeed a Muslim, why did she call on God and not Allah?

Two hours later, Johanna dropped into an uneasy sleep. “God … mercy,” she mumbled. With some misgiving, Maria took a final check of Johanna’s pulse and breathing, and left to catch up on her other duties.



Dr. Heckleweit pulled Johanna’s chart, and wherever his hand-written directions had said two milligrams he inserted a decimal point in front of the two. When he was certain that he’d made every change – caught every two – he walked down the hallway into Johanna’s room and checked her vitals. Instantly, he punched the button summoning Johanna’s nurse.

“Maria, what’s going on here? How much sedative have you administered to this patient?”

“”Two milligrams,” she answered.

“Read the orders. Does that look like two milligrams?”

“Maria’s heart stopped then and there. “Two tenths of a milligram, Doctor.” She looked up confused. For certain there had been no decimal there before. She’d checked the orders a dozen times, making sure she had it right, puzzled because the dose was so high. But there it was. “I’d read it as two milligrams,” she said, not even considering the possibility of questioning a doctor’s orders. The mistake had to be hers, although logic told her that she couldn’t have read and reread the orders as often and as carefully as she had and still gotten them wrong. “I thought it seemed high.”

“Start a new IV with saline, and… here give me that.” He grabbed the chart out of Maria’s hands and began scribbling a long list of medications, then scratched through it. “Never mind, just give her saline and glucose tonight. I’ll stay with her a while until her vitals grow stronger. And Maria…”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“If she dies you’ll be brought up on charges. Consider yourself extremely lucky that I caught this when I did.”