Final Ambition

FINAL AMBITION

“Wake up Mr James, it’s time for your sleeping pill,” said the pretty little blonde nurse called Tilly.

I opened my eyes slowly. I had been dreaming of being down the pub with the fellas downing a pint of Stella. The steady thump, thump of the darts hitting the board behind me resolved into the thump, thump of Mr Grayson’s ventilator. I realised that I was still in the intensive care unit, part of Carchester Infirmary and still dying of liver disease.

“You know, Tilly,” I said patiently. “If I am asleep then I don’t really need a pill.”

“You’ll be grateful to me when you are wide awake in the middle of the night,” Tilly replied petulantly and flounced out of the ward.

I was in the final stages of the disease and quite resigned to die. I was sixty eight and had had a good life with a great wife and family.

My wife Anne and I had been married for fifty one years and visited me religiously twice a day.

My daughters had been in to see me daily, with their husbands and their children, my grandchildren.

It was the children that got to me the most, their little faces often wet with tears. Their naïve questions like “Are you going to Heaven, Grandpa?” or “Will you be an angel, Grandpa?” Death at their stage of life is unimaginable, an impossibility, a mystery.

When the bell signalled the end of visiting and the family members, friends and acquaintances trooped out waving and mouthing ‘ See you soon’ to those they had visited. When bedside cabinets were festooned with fruit, lucozade and boxes of sweets. When the ward settled back to normality and cups of tea were handed out to those conscious, then I felt the regrettable loss and nostalgia. A lump would form in my throat and my eyes would get damp.

I knew that I had hugged all my family one by one and planted a kiss on the little ones’ cheeks, but the feeling of unfinished business still hung in the air. They had all attempted to look hopeful and cheerful as they left but I could see the worry and concern in their eyes. Would I survive the night? Would they ever see me alive again?

I lay back and picked up my book and found where I had left off reading. It was an adventure story but not one that really gripped your imagination. I read it but missed chunks out due to thinking of other things. Eventually the sleeping pill took effect and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I woke in the morning and after we had eaten our breakfast, the chaplain stopped round for a chat.

“How is everything with you Mr James?” he asked tentatively.

“Well, I am still dying Mr Richards,” I replied waspishly, reading his name off a badge on his lapel.

“Yes, I realise that, but have you made your peace with God?”

“God and I are very close friends, Mr Richards, He and I have always been on first name terms.”

“Good, good, and your wife and family, Mr Green, how are they taking it?”

“We all know the score and we have no allusions about the situation. Anne will be well looked after once I have gone, of that I am sure.”

“Death is not the end, Mr James.”

“Yes,” I replied a little too snappily. “I do know that.”

“Nobody knows, Mr James. We of God’s flock have faith.”

“Look Mr Richards, thank you for stopping by, but I am totally prepared for my demise.”

The chaplain looked down at me with a kind of pity and then he turned as if to go but paused momentarily.

“You know you stay conscious for about a minute after your heart stops beating, “ he said turning to face me again. “You can see and hear everything.”

“And this is something you know?” I asked, a bit put out by this ominous information.

“Common knowledge,” he grunted unkindly, happy to have shaken my positivity a bit. He smiled and walked out of the ward.

The rest of the day including the visit of my family passed in a kind of a haze. The chaplain had shocked me with his little bit of ‘scientific memorabilia’. Material more use to a game show contestant or trivial pursuit aficionado.

I had always imagined the end being peaceful, a blacking out, the tunnel of light and being reunited with family and friends. To be conscious as doctors and nurses try and revive you, or worse, give you open heart surgery! Horrors!

Nurse Tilly came into the ward later that day. She had my sleeping pill with her, but she could see I was upset and sat down next to my bed.

“Now Mr. James, you mustn’t worry, we all have to pass over – eventually,” she said in a gentle tone.

I said that I knew this but told her that Mr Richards had really fazed me out with his ‘Tale from the Crypt’ which I proceeded to tell her all about.

The long and the short of it was that after I had finished, an infuriated Tilly stormed down to the main office to find out where Mr Richards was and to give him a real dressing down for upsetting one of her patients.

It was a totally different Tilly who returned to the ICU twenty minutes later. She looked extremely puzzled.

“You are sure the chaplain’s name was Richards?” she asked.

“Well, he wore a name badge with Richards on it,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because, Mr James, the chaplain of this hospital is a Mr. Montgomery. No one has ever heard of a Mr Richards.”

The next few weeks saw deterioration in my condition until I could barely move. My muscles felt seized up and ached intolerably. I was given morphine routinely and my family and I knew the end was near.

One warm evening in August my dear wife Anne gave me a big hug and with tears running down her face whispered’ Goodbye my darling’ as she prepared to leave. My sweet family stood together by the doors of the ICU and waved. This was it I thought not the end but the beginning of a journey. I raised my hand with Anne’s help and returned their salute.

Later as I sat in my wheelchair which held me tighter than a lover I thought over my life and knew that I had enjoyed every bit of it.

“Come on Mr James,” said Tilly bustling into the ward. “You must come onto the balcony to see the marvellous sunset.”

The sun was a massive ball of red light which set the surrounding clouds alight with its radiance. Venus the evening star sat in the west shining like a diamond adding to the magnificence of the scene.

As we watched the sunset, Tilly asked if I had any regrets with my life and I thought again of my past years, but only one thing raised its niggling head.

“I always regret.” I began to mumble, but at that precise moment an alarm went off in the ward and Tilly after asking if I would be alright, ran off the balcony into the ward.

The evening wing soughed round the building and a few bats flitted through the darkening sky.

“Good evening Mr James,” came a mellifluous voice from behind me and Mr Richards stepped into view. “It is such a lovely evening, a perfect time to die.”

I struggled to move but my muscles had given up the ghost and all I could do was listen to what this creature had to say.

“The purpose of my visit earlier was to establish your theological standpoint with a view to possibly acquiring your soul. I know this must sound a bit archaic but well the battle between good and evil still goes on and we are always recruiting.

It felt to me as if time was standing still with bated breath as this intercourse took place between us, a mortal and a…….a devil?

“I now realise that you are a staunch Christian so I must barter for your soul to see at what price you will renege your firm stance. Will it be immortality, a dukedom in Hades or what……?” he paused and looked into my eyes.

I looked back and deep in his irises I could see the unquenchable fires of Hell burning endlessly. This was an impossible situation.

Mr Richards slowly raised his hand and I felt myself being lifted up. I hovered above my wheelchair and then swung round until I hung upright. Very slowly I drifted up until I was balancing on the parapet of the balcony. I could see people moving like ants below me.

“You mortals have an inborn fear of falling and I know that you must be terrified. But look at the world beneath you; it could be yours just for the asking. Relent and give me your soul. It is that easy.”

I turned and looked at the monster dressed as a priest, a parody of good attempting to denigrate all that I and my family stood for.

“No, it is not easy,” I muttered. “I want nothing to do with you, creature.”

“Oh well,” said Richards. “It was worth a try. Well at least I can hear you attempting to scream as you plummet to the pavement.”

I felt his telekinetic hold relax and I stood balancing above the void.

“Actually, I was just about to tell Nurse Tilly what the only regret of my life was and you have given it to me…..freely.”

Suddenly I felt my heart give one last surge and then stop. I knew that I was now running on fumes.

“What did I give you freely mortal?” screamed the minion of Hell.

I bent my knees and fell forward into the arms of the wind. It supported me, it bore me high in the air and it carried my final words of triumph to the failure, Richards.

“The chance to fly like a bird,” I cried as loud as my weakened voice could stand. “To fly like a bird.”

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