A Year Predictability Went Out the Window

A scary Halloween story:

He opened his eyes after five years in a coma, like something out of Stephen King. The hospital room around him was stark and empty, except for a nurse. She was starched and stern with a witch’s nose and a wicked smile, both of which she pressed close to his face when he asked: “Where am I?”

She told him.

“What year is it?” he asked.

She told him.

There was a television set suspended from the ceiling in one corner of the room. He focused gradually, making out the images on the screen. Men in white suits were running and jumping. Tens of thousands were watching them, waving what appeared to be white towels, or flags, or possibly handkerchiefs. It was a baseball game.

“What’s this?” he wondered.

“World Series,” she said.

He squinted now. Baseball. He remembered baseball. He was such a sports fan, all his life, from the day he was born to the day he lapsed into five long years of deepest sleep. Baseball. He loved baseball. What a time to awaken, during the World Series. The seventh game of the World Series, no less, or so the nurse said.

“Who’s playing?” he asked.

“Atlanta and Minnesota,” she said.

Her grin became--what? Playful? Evil? He couldn’t tell. But it was good that she was joking with him this way. It made him feel alert and alive again, having someone tease him like this, test his wits. Atlanta and Minnesota in the World Series. Very funny. She had a sharp sense of humor, this nurse. He tried to smile back at her, but his mouth muscles had atrophied. They hurt.

“Don’t,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t kid me,” he said. “I’m too weak to laugh.”

“I’m not kidding,” she said.

Her snaggled teeth grinned ear to ear. They gleamed at him in the otherwise darkened room. The blinds were shut. The only other light came from the flickering TV. Again, he craned his head, watched the dance of the white costumes on the emerald field, watched the waving of the white handkerchiefs from the throng. There was a close-up of a player, a pitcher, with a droopy mustache.

“Minnesota?” he asked.

“Minnesota,” she said. “If they win this game, it will be the second World Series they have won since you left us.”

He tried to make out the other team. Atlanta, she said. Surely she must be mistaken. The Dodgers, the Mets, maybe. St. Louis, Cincinnati. He knew he had been away a long time, sure. But his mind was clearer now. Atlanta in the seventh game of the World Series? Somebody must be fooling somebody. Him, apparently.

She told him the world had undergone many changes. The United States had been to war. The Berlin Wall had come tumbling down. The Soviet Union had crumbled apart. Yugoslavia had started a civil war. Elizabeth Taylor had married a construction worker.

“Yes,” he said. “But Atlanta in the World Series?”

It gets stranger, she said.

“I want to know,” he said.

She seemed reluctant. Said perhaps he wasn’t strong enough for the rest. Said first she might need to give him something for his nerves. This was no time for him to be receiving shock after shock. He was not a well man. Her white dress rustled as she fluffed up his pillow. She suggested he eat something first.

“No, I want to know,” he said.

Kindness did not become her. He knew that much. She was dying to tell him more. She was spooky, sinister. She was the nurse from hell. She had things to say to him, things that would scare him, spine-tingling things. He felt the bed rise, saw her depressing the lever. Stiffly, straight-backed, she sat on the edge near his side.

“The Chicago Bulls won the NBA,” she said.

He screamed.

It was bloodcurdling and heard down the hall. Other nurses came running. She halted them with an open palm, sent them back to their stations. With a sponge, she mopped the top of his head, watched the rivulets of sweat that had formed there cascade down his cheek. The woman must be mad, he thought. Either deranged or deceiving him.

“Impossible,” he said.

Her jagged smile grew wider.

“The Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup,” she said.

Terrifying screams from him now. He bolted upright, but she shoved him back down, forcefully, and fastened a strap across his chest with her free hand to keep him in harness. He struggled but could not get free. She was strong. Why was she doing this?

“Georgia Tech and Colorado shared the college football championship,” she said. He screamed. “And Buffalo was in the Super Bowl.” He screamed again. “And Atlanta got the Olympics.” He screamed once more.

The world truly had gone mad. He trembled in his bed and pulled up the covers, afraid of what might come next, very afraid.