T.A.H.I.T.I

I had never seen death up close and personal before. Not that I remembered anyway, I’m sure when my mother died I was at the wake but maybe I was too young to remember what she looked like dead. It wasn’t like in the movies, they didn’t look alive or ethereal. They looked empty and cold, especially under the garrish light of the medical lamp overhead. The body had been donated to medical science by dad’s organization, at least that’s what I was guessing. Dad was funded by some kind of government group called SHIELD and in turn for funding his medical procedures Dad was kind of the oncall physical therapist and surgeon. When one of their people got injured on the job, they were sent to us to recuperate. Dad and Deacon handled most of the medical treatments I was more there for the psychological and emotional backing. I was in school to become a psychiatrist so it was good that SHIELD let me at their pros for practice in dealing with some major stuff. We didn’t get a lot of people coming through, the last one was about a year ago name Coulson. He was in a coma from what I was told and when he arrived he had just woken up- he had been shot and needed to relearn everything from how to write his name to walking.

But this one wasn’t coming back. His lifeless body lay cold and motionless under the light making him seem paler and the blood staining his blue jogger darker. It looked fresh but he looked to have been dead awhile. I reached out to brush my fingers against his cheek and shivered at the cold chill racing down my spine, quickly causing me to recoil with a soft gasp. He was riddled with holes; deep holes that seemed to cut straight through. Someone had shot him over a dozen times and it seemed like every shot hit their mark; every hole in a major artery or organ from what I could tell. Someone had wanted him dead very badly, but why? He looked so young lying on that table. So vulnerable. He was someone’s son maybe even a brother or uncle. He was someone’s baby and now he was going to be cut up and for what? Science? What was it my father so furiously chased that would convince a family to give up this boy?

I studied the man’s face and thought I saw him twitch. My body began to tense, my muscles coiling like springs as I leaned in closer to see if it was a muscle spasm or if- by some Godly miracle- this boy was still alive. Closer and closer and I thought I heard the sound of air through weak lungs, pulled in sharply but shallowly, slowly and deeply so I turned my head to the man’s lips and strained my ears to listen- closing my eyes to focus all my senses on the body beneath me-

“Bo!” I screamed and whirled around so quickly my oxygen tank clattered to the floor almost landing on my foot had I not jumped out of the way, practically dancing in fright as every coiled muscle sprang free from the jolt. I gasped and gulped down a deep breath, hand over my beating heart as I leaned forward slightly trying to calm my now rattled nerves. My Dad stood in the doorway of his lab with an armful of files and glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking perplexed and concerned. “I told you never to come down here, what are you doing?”

“I was just-” what? I was just what? Listening to a dead body for signs of the afterlife or evidence that my dad was making the T Virus ready to go global and unleash the walking dead on the planet in vengeance for his slain wife and ailing daughter soon to be stricken with the end all illness known as death? No there had been a reason I had gone down to the lab but it was gone now, the scare and the body all too much for sensibilities. I knelt down to grab the handle of my oxygen tank and hoisted it back to its wheels as Dad set his files down and walked over to begin shooing me towards the elevator. “Dad what about-”

“Don’t worry about anything, Bo, just go on upstairs and do your homework. We’ll play Mario Kart when I come up okay?”

“Dad what are going to do with that boy?” I asked as he spun me around to face him in the elevator. Dad paused in hitting the button for the main floor, studying me with wide blue eyes. I had never questioned him about work before. He had never asked me what our guests talked about when we were in session and I never asked what he did in the lab. It’s just how it was but there was something tugging at my heart, gnawing at it more like, and I didn’t like the idea of my dad rooting around that young man’s body for spare parts. “What are you looking for?”

“Bo,” he sighed and smacked a hand up when the doors went to close between us. He dropped his head and ran a hand through his uncombed brown hair while I waited. “What I’m doing will change the world- for the better, it’s just- it’s not perfect but it’s close. We’re so close to being able to fix everything we just need a little more time,” he explained vaguely and I pursed my lips but conceded with a faint smile.

“Take care of him okay? Someone loves him you know,” I said and Dad smiled lovingly at me as he leaned forward using his hands on the frame of the elevator to suspend him while he kissed the top of my head and then rolled back out of the elevator onto the flats of his feet. “Mario Kart if ten,” I told him holding up my hands to show him he had exactly ten minutes. He blew me a kiss dramatically and batted his lashes as the doors closed and I hit the button for the main floor. All the while my brain still locked on that body just feet beneath me in a living tomb.