Imperfect Imortality

Every inch of me was numb, especially my mind. I wasn’t sleeping anymore, but I wasn’t awake. It felt nice, not having to move, to care, to think, I imagine this is what death feels like. Maybe this is what it felt like for Gerard, and maybe if I wait long enough I could experience it properly and see him again. That would be nice…I’d love to see him again…and with that my consciousness began to drift.

I was brought back by someone shaking my body firmly, well at least it felt like I was being shaken. Then slowly the shaking turned into a sharp jabbing sensation, and then as my body regained it’s sense of feeling I could feel it properly. A sharp jolt, right in the very centre of my chest, and it hurt, it hurt quite a lot actually; but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to make my body do anything about it, my limbs just wouldn’t respond. I could hear voices shifting around me, they sounded almost frantic, urgent. I could hear someone calling my name, almost shouting it in my ear. Then the jolting stopped, and with it so did the shouting. Now the pain and noise was gone I felt ready to try to wake up, I opened my eyes slowly, and I was met with a white blinding light above me. I could also feel a hand on mine, and then a voice came,
“It’s okay Son, you’re going to be all right” and with that I closed my eyes again. But this time I was asleep, not just drifting...

---

I eventually regained half consciousness some time later, and lay still in what felt like a bed; I was simply put, to weak to wake up fully but I knew I would have to later. With that I let sleep take me again, sleep was the only promising option I had and it felt good.

I faded out of my empty dreamland again sometime later; once again I was not fully awake but more awake than last time. I could take in more of my surroundings now; around me I could hear the faint beeping of a machine and a soft scuffling of people moving around somewhere nearby. My sense of smell retuned as well, I could smell a strong disinfectant smell around me, it burnt the inside of my nose slightly, but I could cope. Strong light burnt through my eyelids; but still I was not fully awake, and I had no need to sleep anymore. I guess I would just have to wait for my body to regain its full ability.

By now I already had a pretty good idea of where I was, if I put it all together it was simply too obvious, if I was conscious I’m sure I would’ve laughed. I mean I’ve been extremely accident prone my entire life and never once have I ended up in this sort of situation, ah well a first time for everything I guess, and hopefully last. I didn’t really like this whole hospital business.

I lay there for a while pondering over my past actions. My thoughts turned to my family and to Mikey; did they know I was here? A pang of guilt rumbled inside me, how could I be so stupid? They must’ve been so worried about me. I thought of Mikey again; what if he’d thought that I’d disappeared like Gerard? What if he thought I was trying to leave him too? I was brought back from my moment of despair as I felt a hot breath on my cheek. My body tensed - well it would have if I had been in control of it – I hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. The warm sensation on my face moved slowly up towards my ear and stopped; I could feel another person’s presence beside me and yet I couldn’t do anything about it. And suddenly a smooth yet dark voice began to speak, one which I felt I should recognise but couldn’t,
“C’mon Frankie darling wake up. We can’t have you sleeping forever now can we. Heh, because where would be the fun in that?” The voice angered me in a way I cannot describe, it felt as if it were taunting me, yet lying to me, and I hated the feeling of being lied to. My anger built up inside me with an urge to thrash out at the voice and destroy its source.
“Aww is Frankie getting angry? Aww boo-fucking-hoo, well unfortunately I can’t stand here and chat with you all day, because your family has just arrived to come see what a failure their son is. I’ll be off then, Toodles.” With that my body burst into motion and I sat up in my bed and scanned the room, the blinding light stunning me for a moment, before I realised…there was no one there.

Tears poured down my cheeks and my head fell back on my pillow, that voice was right I was a failure and everyone knew it. I sobbed and tried to choke back my tears but it didn’t work. Suddenly behind me I heard the door creak open and I spun round ready to confront whoever was coming though it. My mother stared at me blankly,
“Frankie darling what’s wrong?” She looked alarmed, and as she came towards me fresh tears spouted from my eyes and I cradled her into a loose hug. It felt good to know I was wanted…

---

I was kept in for another 3 days after that, the doctors wanted to monitor my progress to make sure I didn’t have another heart failure. It turns out after spending all that time led in the rain I’d caught hypothermia, which had caused my heart to stop. The doctors said it was a miracle I survived actually, seeing as how far my body temperature had dropped. That was me, staring death in the face, always ready to bounce back Frankie Iero…yea of course…

The voice didn’t come back, I was glad for that, well at least I thought I was glad, even though I was intrigued to who’s voice it was, but I guess that’d have to wait. That evening mum helped me pack my stuff and wheeled me down to the car in a wheelchair, not that I really needed it, I was just a bit unsteady on my feet at the moment; mum seemed so content with helping me, and I loved her for it, she really deserved a better son. God knows how Mikey and the others would confront me about this; I couldn’t even begin to imagine the questions they would ask.

The drive home was silent but not awkward, it felt comfortable, especially to be in such a familiar setting. But there was something playing on my mind, something that I hadn’t thought about up until now,
“Mum?” She glanced at me before looking back to the road,
“Yes dear what is it?”
“I was wondering, who found me and took me to the hospital? Because I heard the doctors say I wasn’t brought in an ambulance.” She looked perplexed by the question, and as the car halted at the traffic lights she turned to face me,
“Well-“ she began an I noticed she looked very uneasy, “-that’s the thing really, the hospital staff weren’t really sure about who bought you in. The receptionist said you just appeared on the waiting benches out of no where, with a small note tied round your neck.” I looked at her and frowned.
“A note? What did it say?” the car pulled away again as the lights turned green, and with her right hand mum began to fumble around in the glove compartment, until she pulled out a small square of paper and handed it to me.
“There.” That was all she said, I tried to read her expression, but I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. I looked back to the note, and there on the font scrawled in exceptionally neat writing was one sentence and one sentence only,

”No matter what, keep this boy ALIVE.”