Kramer - DEATH IS A CHALLENGE

He thought he had died and gone to heaven.

Slowly and painfully he opened his eyes and all went from black to pink and from pink to white. The white was from the immaculate sterility of his surroundings: a clinic of some sort.

He doubted the heaven part. Sure, the white made sense, but his eyes and face were burning like hell. He could sense the attempt at soothing with ointment and the protective coverage of bandages, but neither prevented the devil from inflicting a perplexing and perpetual lashing of fire across his skin. Christ it hurt!

Good morning, Mr Sayers! a chirpy voice sounded at the entrance to the room. Did you manage to sleep okay? It was a rhetorical question as they both knew hed been drugged up to his eye-balls. She pulled back the window curtains to reveal an iron sky being wrung of rain drops. He wished he could stick his head outside and seek cooling solace from his misery.

He turned his attention to her as she moved to the side of the bed to take his temperature and blood pressure. Through the gaps between the buttons of her white uniform, he could see the bulge of her breast wrapped tight in a black tank-top. It reminded him of the frightful reason he was there in the first place.

What day is it? Sayers asked, zooming out to look at her smiling, youthful face framed by brown hair tied back in a pony-tail.

Tuesday. Im Cindy, by the way. Ill be working the morning shift for the next five days, so youll see plenty of me.

Looking forward to it, he said with a mixture of enthusiasm and sarcasm. She was a lovely woman but he didnt want to be there.

A thermometer was thrust under his tongue as if to shut him up and then Cindy wrapped an inflatable cuff around his limp arm. She used a hand pump to apply pressure, but he didnt feel a thing. Reading the gage of the blood pressure device, she said, 160 over 100, a little high.

The nurse briefly disappeared out of the room and reappeared carrying a little plastic thimble of pills. She extracted the thermometer from his mouth and said, 103. Temperatures normal.

It doesnt feel that way.

She popped the pills into his open mouth and then held a beaker of water with a straw so that he could swallow them.

There is a policeman waiting in the hall, the nurse said as if this was the most normal thing in the world. Hed like to ask you a few questions.

Probably about yesterday, Sayers thought. He sighed. Impossible to forget...

Are you okay? she asked with genuine concern. Do you need anything more for the pain?

Ill be fine, he said, and winced as he felt his lips crack. He smiled at her with as much irony as he could muster. Its a good thing I can only feel my face

Remembering his predicament the nurse said, Here, let me rub some ointment on your lips. She picked up an aluminium tube, took the cap off and squeezed until white oily cream whirled onto her outstretched fingers.

Suddenly grasping the notion of pleasure, Sayers closed his eyes in eager anticipation. The cool of the cream was refreshing but also exciting. Her fine fingers caressed his lips in such a way that any remaining pheromones he had in his useless body were released. He moaned his pleasure and gasped with arousal.

Sayers opened his eyes and saw the nurse stare at him with a mixture of sympathy and disgust. He didnt know which was worse.

Ill go and get him... she offered, as if playing her get-out-of-jail-for-free card.

Al Sayers was 38 years of age and paralysed from the neck down.

He had limited motion in his hands, but at least he could operate the joystick of his wheelchair, spoon food into his mouth and type on a keyboard, albeit very slowly.

Five years earlier, following a tropical storm, he had fallen from a ladder while clearing leaves and twigs from the gutter of his house. Though he had landed in the relative softness of bushes, this hadnt been enough to prevent vertebrae cervical two and three from becoming dislocated and severing the spinal cord. Sayers spent six months in rehabilitation, but any hope of walking, or ever massaging his own cock again, disappeared after just two months.

His wife was initially very supportive, such was her love for him, but neither could come to terms with this new life. Their sex withered, their humour became wry, their conversations turned dark and their relationship froze over. Sayers blamed himself for the broken marriage as it was he who had pushed her away. But it was a conscious process; feeling utterly useless and undeserving he didnt want to become an anchor in her life.

Both she and he were locals and had been neighbours growing up. He didnt really notice her until he started coming home from University of South Florida every weekend. The sweet, young girl that had skipped rope and played with dolls next door had become a stunning, shapely teen. Much later she had told him how she would sit out on the porch hoping to catch just a glimpse of him. She also revealed how she would pile on make-up, wear short skirts and stuff her bra just to make herself look older. Once she had her driving licence, shed demonstrate her maturity by driving her fathers car and running errands. But Sayers had to admit that her ploys worked. Their smiles became waves, and their waves became increasingly engaging conversations over the hedge.

Their relationship really kicked off after she expressed her indecision about what to do after high school. He invited her out to the University of South Florida in Tampa and took her on a tour of the campus. When he showed her his room, she didnt leave until the next morning. Having got what she wanted, she remained determined not to allow their six-year age gap to come between them and so she joined USF as well. Within two years they started living together and the loving couple tied the knot after he graduated. Soon thereafter she dropped out of college to tend to their unplanned daughter and support him in his job in Naples.

Their life was fantastic until that baneful fall destroyed everything as they knew it. His wife left their home within a year, taking Kayleigh and half their savings with her. Sayers remained in their wooden bungalow and had it adapted to his needs. It was a clean deal, much for the best.

Kayleigh, who was named after a song by the neo-progressive rock-band Marillion, visited him every second weekend. Friday night was always burger night. Saturday was mall-time. And on Sunday they stayed in bed until mid-day watching a movie. He loved being with Kayleigh. He had to admit that his daughter had a darn good mother.

Sayers remained employed at the same company where he had worked prior to his accident, but in a different capacity and part-time. Going out in the field as a project manager was no longer practical and so Sayers moved to the service desk, applying his voice as his primary tool of the trade. He only worked in the mornings, so in the afternoons he could apply his proud engineering heritage to helping other people with disabilities.