Fall Out Girl

Four months later, I was running my first trial runs on humans. We had three coma patients, all of which were in comas for at least three months and showed almost no signs of recovery. Other than the comas, there was nothing wrong with any of them. I had gotten permission from two of the patient’s families, and the other was a regular John Doe. Since I was pregnant and not allowed to perform surgery, I had my colleague, Dr. Harvey, implant a small chip inside each of their brains to track the progress of the enzymes that I was pumping into them at regular intervals two days ago. It would be at least three days before anything would show up; however, I put a team of nurses on duty to mark any changes in their neural activity. All I could do now was sit and wait.

“Dr. Stump, come quick. It’s the John Doe subject.” One of the lab technicians sputtered out. I quickly jumped up (a feat in itself seeing as how I’m eight months pregnant) and hobbled down the hall as fast as I could after the bumbling lab technician.

I was relieved to see that John Doe was awake and looking around. “Everyone, out!” I commanded to the scurrying nurses. They quickly left the room and I stood by the foot of the bed. “Nod if you can understand me.”

He nodded.

“Good.” I moved up to his bed side. “Can you tell me who you are?”

“John. John Doe.” He said calmly.

“No, I mean your real name. John Doe is what we call men that do not have any identification on them.”

“My name is John Doe. I have a wife and son in Boston. I went to LA on a business trip and now I am speaking to you in this hospital room, that is all I remember,” he said through a clenched jaw. “Can you please tell me how I wound up here?”

“You were involved in an automobile accident five months ago. Do you feel any pain or discomfort? Have you noticed any odd things in the few minutes that you have been conscious?”

“Other than annoying staff, nothing. Why?”

“Mr. Doe, you are involved in an experiment on activating a certain enzyme in the brain to re-grow neurons and neural connections. If everything is going fine and you do not feel any side effects, then you will go into surgery tomorrow to remove the microchip that tracks your neural activity.” I stated calmly before walking to the door.

“I didn’t give you consent. Who signed the release forms? You do realize I can sue for this.”

I looked back at him. “Mr. Doe, your neural activity was almost non-existent when we picked you for the experiment. And I’m immune to being sued- the state governed your participation.”

The other two subjects were less hostile. They, too, remembered everything before their respective accidents. It was amazing. None of the subjects acted as if they were in a coma. It was just as if they were asleep for a night. It was extremely remarkable.

I sped home as soon as my shift ended (they had me working 9-5 now because of the baby). Squealing, I didn’t give Brian enough time to brace himself as I launched on top of him.

“Sweetie, the baby. I don’t want you to squish the baby!”

I sat up quickly on him. I was basically straddling him on the couch. “You’ll never believe what just happened today!”

“One of your students got a correct answer?”

I swatted him. “Now, Bri, that’s a little mean. I mean, sure they’re really close to idiocy, but-”

“Emmy, I was kidding.”

I swatted him again. “No, all three of my subjects woke up! The enzyme worked!!!” I squealed.

“That’s great, Honey!” He replied, leaning up and kissing me affectionately. “What does this mean?”

“That as soon as I publish my findings, I’ll be famous and we’ll be rich and I’ll finally show my bastard of a father up!”

“No, I mean, what does this mean for us? For our son?” He gently placed a hand on my stomach.

“Honey, I’m going to wait a few months after he’s born to publish my findings…”

“And when you go on tour to show off your findings at every convention possible? The news shows, too. What will our son and I be doing?”

“Brian, please don’t make this difficult. If you decide to come with me, then we can take our baby. And if you rather stay here, I’m sure your mom is more than willing to watch him while you’re at work…”

Brian slid out from underneath me and walked out onto the back porch.

“Brian?” I asked softly, hesitatingly placing my hand on his shoulder.

“Emmy, I love you, but I don’t know if I would like being strung around while you go travel.”

I reached up and started to massage his shoulders. “It’s not going to be for another six months minimum. And I’m not going to make you do anything that you don’t want to do, you know that.” I said softly.

He turned around and grabbed my hips. “Yes, I know that.”

“It’s my dream, Bri. It’s my dream to be published in scientific magazines from discovering a breakthrough in medicine.”

“I know that, too. But, how long is this dream going to take? How long is it going to take before you’ve finally proven to your father that he was wrong about you?”

“Bri-”

“I have dreams of my own, too, you know? I want to have my own law firm. I want to raise a houseful of kids and watch them raise their own when they’re grown.”

“And that dream is going to come true-”

“Emmy, we’re not getting any younger-”

“Why are you making this difficult? I finally make some progress at work and now you’re looking too far into it, like you always do! Let me be happy.”

His hand went to my cheek, where he rubbed his thumb over it softly.

“Happiness isn’t supposed to be this difficult.” I said softly.

“Yes it is. Life, Happiness….Love, they’re all difficult. If you don’t struggle through something, then how can you take pride in it? How can you know what happiness is if you haven’t gone through loss or suffering? Don’t worry, Honey, everything will work out.”

“Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives? One step forward and two steps back?”

“That’s not how it is. Now, go and rest up. I think we have given him enough excitement for today.”

I rested my head on the dip in his shoulder. His other hand wound around my back and rubbed it soothingly.

“It will get better, you’ll see. We just need to grit our teeth and pull through. We’ll make it, Darling, I know we will.”