Oh Sister Morphine turn my nightmares into dreams….
A brother and sister sit on either side of a hospital bed on a Sunday morning in mid March in the first decade of the 21st century.
Outside the sun shines brightly. Yellow and white narcissi sway gently in the warm breeze that blows over the flowerbeds surrounding the neat lawns and benches filled with patients in dressing gowns, pyjamas and coats smoking illicit cigarettes or merely escaping from the suffocating heat and airless atmosphere of the endless wards and corridors of this massive 21st century hospital in the Northeast of England where Spring has come early and nobody has yet told the boiler thermostats to turn the heating down.
In the bed lies a shaven headed man with wires and tubes coming out of him that connect him to a number of drips and electronic devices. Above his bed is a monitor with a number of wavy lines travelling across its display. There are occasional blips and bleeping noises coming from the other pieces of equipment he’s attached to.
He is in his early 60s.
His mouth is open with a corrugated plastic tube coming out of it and thinner ones extend from both his nostrils.
His face is pale and his breathing erratic.
At the end of the bed a doctor and a nurse are in conversation occasionally referring to the patient’s notes and glancing at the visitors by his bed.
The ward is dark and apart from the sound of breathing from the other men sleeping and murmuring in their dreams it is comparatively still in the early morning darkness lit only by the dim light over the man’s bed.
“….like falling from a great height into deep water stained red with my blood and the surgeon’s face in his green mask did they do the surgery yet is the heart mended is the heart a lonely hunter is the morphine just kicking me out into orbit and can’t remember how long the anaesthetist said it would take me to come round or maybe I’m dead and what can I see from here or hear or see and hear taste touch Peta’s hand on my arm and her tears on her face as we said goodbye…..”
“So the chances are he’ll make a full recovery. Though of course there could be complications but we need to give it a couple of days and then….”
The doctor looks at the nurse.
“So he will be OK”
The sister speaks.
“ I mean…you’d tell us if there were problems or if something had gone wrong”
“No wonder he couldn’t walk or breathe properly” the sister had said to her brother when the doctor met them earlier in the corridor outside C Bay Ward 36 where their older brother lay in bed with an unexpected fever, his life hanging in the balance.
Dr Zahan had told them that the valve replacement had been successful but the operation had been a long and difficult one. It would seem that the scar tissue from the last surgery had stuck bits of his heart to his ribcage and the old piece of pigskin that they’d replaced his own aortic valve with 11 years previously had gone rock hard. Since the operation their brother had acquired a rather nasty blood infection which they were, of course, treating with antibiotics, anti-inflamatories, pain killers and more.
“As I said earlier it’s really going to take a few days before he begins to recover. The next 24 hours are crucial. If he gets through them…..”
The doctor leaves his sentenced unfinished. Hands the clip board to the nurse.
“Of course we’ll keep you up to date with his progress, but if I were you I’d go home and get some sleep.We’ll call you if anything changes. Rose can answer any other questions you may have before you leave. You know…… I’m sure he’ll be fine”
He walks between the beds shakes both of them quickly by the hand and strides out of the ward.
“…..did that really happen with Peta and how long ago at least thirty no even forty years now when I was young and swinging high between the prickly pear trees and lime stone baked landscape of Malta with that azure blue sea coca cola signs and Cilla in her swimming costume shit this hurts nurse some more morphine please can’t hear me can’t speak no duck no bottle and all the tired young teenagers in the Mediterranean sunshine hello hello is there anybody out there….”
Rose, the young Phillipino nurse, watches Dr Zahan leave then turns and puts her hand on the sister’s arm.
“Your brother’s really been through it the last couple of weeks. He was very weak by the time we got him into surgery yesterday in spite of the blood transfusion. Dr Zahan is right you know, you both look exhausted and some sleep will help but if there’s anything I can tell you ….?”
They look at each other and simultaneously shake their heads.
The sister speaks.
“Thank you Rose, you’ve been very kind. We’ll go now but please phone us if there is any change either way”
The nurse nods and watches them leave.
They turn one last time to look at their brother cocooned in his bed between life and death.
Rose switches off the side light and leaves the ward, closing the door behind her. The slow deep hum of the machines that are keeping him alive fill the room
“…..it was so hot and I was playing brilliant doubles with mum and nick and patti palmer and nurse I need some more morphine what does a boy have to do to get service round here yes lip service patti palmer’s lips on mine our bodies all hot and sweating after 2 hours of tennis in the afternoon sun and god she was so horny but did I imagine it 1967 seems like only moments passing pissing blood nurse oh nurse nursie nursie nicey nicey …..like falling into warm water…I’m hot, burning up in the afternoon sun just another body baking on the beach…..love letters to my sweethearts”
Cut to close up of his face with eyes closed.
Slow pan out to include bed, room, machines then pan up & out through ceiling to long shot as pan widens to include hospital & grounds.
Pan out further to show cityscape of Newcastle spread out below & up into clouds.
Dissolve through clouds to white.