John's Harvest

by Brian Barber

John’s Harvest.

The bleeping noise was beginning to get on his nerves; he couldn’t work out where he was or what the noise was.

He decided to check out his surroundings and soon realised that he was lying on a bed and held in some form of restraint. He could feel wires and tubes connected to both his arms and felt a dull nagging pain in his side.

The most frightening thing was a machine that was connected to his throat which appeared to be controlling his breathing. He tried to call out but the machine made it impossible.

He lay back and racked his brains for some clues as to how he had ended up in this dark room which seemed to be some kind of hospital ward.

He remembered going on a pub crawl with other Fresher’s and drinking far more than he was used to, resulting in him throwing up in a pubs toilet. He vaguely remembered someone helping him get out of the pub and trying to catch up with the other Fresher’s.

Things started to get very sketchy at this point, there was a loud crashing sound and he felt himself falling.

He could remember a voice asking if he was ok and where did it hurt? It started to fade when he recalled a shout of Clear and tremendous pain in his chest.

It must have been a major accident of some kind which had resulted in him being in this ward.

He decided to see if he could move at all, he soon found he couldn’t move his arms or his legs, he tried to move his body and then his head but nothing worked, no matter how hard he tried nothing would move.

How the hell was he going to communicate with the doctors when they came?

Of course, he thought. He could blink and use a code to talk, that made him feel much better to realise that he would be able to communicate with his eyes and find out what had happened.

Where were the staff? It seemed ages since he had come round and he had not heard any sounds of people moving about outside his room.

He knew he was not deaf because that infernal machine kept beeping away.

Suddenly he heard the door open and for a second he glimpsed a man in a white coat passing his bed, he blinked as fast as he could to show he was conscious but the room was dark and the man sat down next to him.

There was a rustling of paper and he was sure he could smell cheese and pickle; the guy had come in here to eat his meal .

He could see that the orderly was outside his peripheral vision and could not see his eyes. Maybe just maybe when he gets up he’ll look at my face he thought.

The orderly finished eating took a long swig from a bottle and belched.

He sat for a few more minutes and started to clear his things away and moved towards the door without a glance at John’s frantic efforts to attract his attention.

He stopped in the doorway and without looking back said “Well cheers mate, this will be the last time I have lunch with you, good luck with the doctors” And he slowly closed the door.

What the hell did he mean the last time he was going to have lunch with him? How many times had he had lunch with him? How long had he been in this place?

He started to panic but fought it back as he needed a clear head to try and work out what the hell was going on.

He remembered an accident and so he must have been in a coma for some time, not sure how long though.

He was conscious and his mind seemed to be functioning ok, his body was a different matter, he seemed to be paralysed a quadriplegic in fact. Ok with modern technology a quadriplegic can live a pretty good life.

He heard voices and they came into his room. He blinked as fast as he could praying that they would look at his face.

“Oh dear there appears to be a nervous reaction with his eyelids” said one of the doctors”

For Gods sake I’m trying to talk to you, please watch my eyelids, he slowed down and tried to blink like Morse Code, Please watch my eyes he tried to scream but nothing happened.

“We had better stop that, we really don’t want to upset the parents.”

“Yes it was pretty difficult to get them to agree to switch off John’s life support without them thinking he may still be in there.”

I am in here please help me I don’t want to die.

“You switch off and by the time the parents are in here he will be well on his way to wherever and thank you John we shall be able to harvest both your kidneys, both your cornea, your liver, your heart and lungs.”

Don’t do it please don’t .

There was silence in the room as the machines stopped and John’s life began to ebb away.

He saw his parents enter the room and as they both held his hand they started to fade away.