Signal Interruption

Hospital rooms have a certain smell. They smell of paneling, wood, and disinfectants. Some wards smell like that soap they use for sponge baths. And every sheet is too large, the blanket too small and too thin, and the bed barely comfortable.

The sound of machines beeping and intercom voices sound like a casino. Too many chimes, too many beeps, too many people being called from one room to the other.

This room was no different.

Except everyone in the room was dead silent. A man and woman were sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the bed holding the hands of the young man in the middle of the room.

He should have been in college.

He should have been chasing girls.

He should have been living his life to the fullest.

Instead, he was here being monitored by every contraption the hospital could throw at him.

One showed his pulse and blood ox. One showed brain activity. One showed the machines monitoring the nutrition and fluids it was sending into his body. At his feet was a machine massaging his legs to avoid blood clots. Another at his head was inflating bladders to move his body from the left to the right side occasionally to keep his internal fluids from settling. A bag at the side of the bed was collecting fluids from inside him.

Occasionally a nurse would come to check on him. They took vitals and shook their head at the man who was strangely comatose. Science couldn't explain why. He wasn't brain-dead. Quite the contrary he was fully functional. It was as if the door to his brain that interacted with the outside world was shut.

His mother always imagined he could tell they were there but just couldn't respond. She held his hand and told him stories about what they had done that day previous.

She silently hoped he could hear these stories. That the sound of her voice would rouse him out of his slumber and bring him back to her.

His father felt unrestrained guilt that this husk in the bed was the son who only weeks earlier had been a vibrant, happy, caring young man. When he fell to the floor of his workshop all thoughts of their work stopped. His dad tore into the house screaming and reaching for his cell phone. They had dialed 911 furiously and frantically tried to get the dispatcher to understand what had happened.

Police had come to investigate the incident first. The code compliance came and verified the shed to see if the father had violated any codes before putting a padlock on the door. They lived out in an unincorporated but a transmitter station of his design had to be verified first before it could be allowed to operate unrestrained.

His job had put him on a Family Leave to deal with this and to let the drama die down. Whispers at work caused distractions and a few weeks of leave would let things settle before he returned.

To distract themselves they came up every, sometimes in shifts, sometimes together. This let them break the awkward silence at

home. His wife didn't want to blame him for this. There was no obvious sign that her husband had done anything malicious. She just couldn't get past that feeling that if only he had taken up something else as a hobby.

The father felt the grief of having his son there. If anything happened to him he would have been able to deal with that. At least his son would make sure his mother was cared for. He was sure of that in his heart.

They continued this routine until the doctors started to talk about hospice care. The problem was how to determine exactly how long their son needed. Was he going to wake up? Was allowing him to stay in this state the best option for him? Did they pull his support systems go and let his body do what nature intended when he ceased to function normally?

Fights broke out.

Then crying on each other's shoulders over the shared burden. The decision was passed on to become a problem for tomorrow more times than they could count.

It was coming on Christmas when that all changed. The father and mother were in their normal spaces. The father at the right hand, sandwiched against the window between the machines. The mother at the left hand, with room to either side where she couldn't see the door behind her. Only her son, husband, and the window outside and the birds flying by the 8th-story window of the room. Water vapor rose slowly in the cold air from machinery on the roof only a few stories below them.

In the middle of a story about his grandparents, the boy's machines started to create new patterns.

Something was happening but no one thought anything of it. They assumed it was just the parent's interaction stimulating the brain. It wasn't until the father felt something.

A slight tension in his hand as the son squeezed.

The father looked up into the face and saw the eyes of his son flutter slowly. The mother stopped midsentence. She immediately stood up and ran outside screaming for the nurse.

The father leaned over and moved the cannula up out of his son's face and started talking to him. "Come on wake up, I'm here. Open those eyes up. Can you hear me?'

The eyes opened for the first time in months. The young man moved his lips and croaked as his parched throat did something it hadn't done in months.

"Turn it off…." came the raspy reply.

"Those are just monitors son. It's okay you're in a hospital."

"Turn off… the computer…" The son tried to move, hindered by the equipment. Nurses and doctors were scrambling outside. The commotion was evidence of his mother's success in telling them what happened.

"Just hold on your not awake yet." His father put his hands on his son's chest and tried to hold him down.

"Save Marie…. Turn off the… Computer." The boy tried to get up from the bed and get to his father.

He was like a man possessed. "It can't stay… on… shut it... off"

The doctors came in and start taking vitals. They were running the monitors back and watching his body's activity. They slowly started to take over the room.

The father and mother were moved outside while the doctors and nurses started to check all of his motor functions and get him to calm down.

"Marie…. Computer, dad… do it." His son screamed from the room. Tears rolled down his face. The young man strained in bed to get enough air in his lungs to make sure his dad knew.

He struggled against the rails to get upright enough to yell at the door as loudly as his dehydrated lips could muster.

All the brain activity hadn't been for nothing. In his last few minutes, he remembered everything. Hundreds of lives together. Hundreds of times growing old with her. Hundreds of times watching his parents pass. Hundreds of different lives together. He remembered when they met as kids. He remembered it all. At least he was trying to remember it all. So much data, and so many memories. So much time had happened. His brain was taxed. He was desperately hanging on to her face.

As the parents walked down the hallway the young man finally lay in bed and cried. The last thing he could remember was her face as they lay together in a small bed. They stared at each other and passed small kisses between them. They had been trying for a child together again for the umpteenth time. It was when Marie went limp and for a minute he got a flash of something else. They were somewhere else, dark, and contained inside a device. Marie's closed eyes and expressionless face were his last memories as panic set in for him. In that brief moment as Marie was removed from his bed forcibly, his mind broke connection from hers and the entirety of their life flooded into his brain. He saw it all, like a feedback loop that was now set directly to him. He saw moments of her memories. He understood, for a split second, who she was and what had happened. And in terrified horror, he was afraid of what would happen to her if the connection remained.

He made the split-second decision to know that she lived if it meant he never saw her again. For the first real time, and the last time in hundreds of lives.

Real grief flooded him. He cried in bed while doctors and nurses poured over him. He knew in that moment he would never see her again.

The Doctors watched his brain waves. "He looks like a 90-year-old man. His patterns are slowed dramatically from yesterday." They watched him break down in tears. This wasn't abnormal. Whatever happened to him must be startling. He was at home and then woke up in the hospital. His parents asked to be removed. His confusion at the situation was attributed to his odd remarks and physical reactions. The doctors all looked at each other and stepped out of the room while the notes took over his care.

The nurses assumed it was joy or fear of being alone. His mother was crying too but those were joy. His father was trying to find meaning in his son's last words.

They were sent to a waiting room a floor down until their sons' physician could come and talk to them about what happened.

"Is he okay?" the mother asked when she saw the doctor walking into the room.

"Essentially yes.

He's alive, his brain activity has slowed dramatically. We assume it's because of something it was trying to do to heal. The brain is still not understood as well as we would like.

Over time we hope that his activity will resume its previous level. Any idea who Marie is?"

Both of the parents shook their heads. "Maybe a classmate? We are still confused. We'd love to talk to him when we can."

"That's not suggested for tonight. He's sleeping normally now. We are going to have nurses and doctors in the room with him round the clock for the next 48 hours. Please go home and rest tonight. Tomorrow return and we will bring you in in shifts to see him." The doctor stood up and put his hand out. That famous sign that the conversation was over.

Both parents wanted to object but they had listened to the doctors this far. The father put his hands on the mother's shoulders as she stood up. "We just want to see him as soon as it's possible."

"I understand, trust me we will get you in tomorrow. Let's make sure this is a real miracle and not something worse. I'd hate for you to be here and for him to slip back into a coma.

For now, everything looks promising.

Let us work on him and if anything changes in the night we will contact you first."

They nodded and shook the hand of the doctor, thanking him for the work and promising to return the next day during visiting hours.

When they got home the mother immediately went to her son's room and gathered clothes. She put them in the washer and started a fresh load.

She wanted her son to have clean clothes to come home to. She was distracting herself with housework instead of thinking of her son. She flitted from one chore to the next.

Washing sheets came next and checked the stock of the fridge. She made a list of all the things they hadn't bought lately and started making list to purchase tomorrow on the way home. She was being optimistic. She was planning on taking him home.

The father on the other hand was still haunted by the half-whispered half-screamed, panicked words of his son.

He opened the back door and walked out to the shed. The padlock was still attached to the door. The father looked at the lock and shrugged. He went into the garage and got out an electric impact and two sockets.

He walked back to the door and undid the three screws that held the latch in its place. Removing the lock was a violation of code enforcement but nothing said anything about just removing the hinge part.

The father slid it down and out of the way. He opened the door and stepped inside. He flipped on the light and looked around.

Papers were spread everywhere. The machines were all turned off. The only thing running was the PC in the back of the room.

His father looked over at the screen and the small remote attached to it.

The screen of the monitor was still showing statistics of the 8 processors. Everything had slowed to a steady yet dramatic pace. The remote had a white screen with a new logo.

The Mar-1e was still displayed on the remote.

"Marie." His father said finally understanding. "it was all a dream for him."

The father looked at the remote. Displayed was "Connection established. Upload completed. Reconnect? Y/N"

The father shook his head.

"Hell no," before hitting the N and enter button on the remote. The logo stayed the same. "Connection in standby – Signal stable. Transfer, IDLE. Enter to re-establish the connection. Coordinates 1332.5:2425:225AU"

The father stood there and then slowly turned off the monitor and put the remote down.

This mystery was something to save for after his son came home. For now, he was glad he was here.

He shut the door behind him and left the hinge hanging. "Honey, I figured out who Marie is…" he yelled as he walked towards the open screen door.

He saw his wife peek around the door. "Really?"

"Yeah, he's going to be alright. Just something he saw before he passed out. It was a dream he had while he was out."

She smiled and relaxed.

"Well, that means he remembers who he is.

Thank god. Let's get ready for him to come home."

"Honey I doubt he will leave tomorrow." He said as he walked in and slid the door shut.

"It's a new day honey.

Tomorrow is a gift."